ST'rs in Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming

Triathlon Forum
1

…or those with experience or exposure to these states:

I am in the process of evaluating locales for an inside sales call center for my organization. This would be a satellite office and employees would not be required to travel with any frequency, or regularity.

One locale under consideration is Durango, CO. For my employees, Durango provides a very reasonable cost of living and an extremely high quality of life if you are into the whole outdoors/active lifestyle (which by selection my employees are). For my organization, Durango provides a relatively low total cost of operation.

Any recommendations relative areas in these three states?

Thanks in advance.

2

Have you looked at Missoula, MT or is that not central enough? Great outdoor sports and a University right there for local employees.

I think it is one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen.

3

Exactly the response I wanted to solicit, thank you. I will put Missoula on the list for consideration.

Central has little to do with it. Really, it’s low cost of operation|high quality of life for the team.

I’ve heard great things about Bozeman as well, but no firsthand input relative being business-friendly or not.

Again, thank you.

4

No, problem. Bozeman is less expensive than Missoula and almost as nice.

Are you looking for any IT guys or someone who is willing to learn anything and workd hard?

5

Kevins
I lived in Bozeman for 6 years. Great little town, excellent outdoor activities, and overall life style is good. Plus Montana State right there.

Another consideration where I currently live is Boise, Idaho. Great life style. Big enough to have some city but small enough to enjoy the outdoors. Boise State is right here, lots of clean industry, and a ton of call centers. The city promotes clean industry heavily.

Good luck,

6

Historically, we have taken very seasoned field sales resources out of high cost of living areas (like the Bay Area) and put them into a remote account management scenario with little travel involved. We base these resources in backcountry/outdoor hotbeds like Ouray, CO and everyone is happy.

You being an IT guy could be a good thing, as all we sell (on behalf of our customers) is enterprise software and services. We have trained technically bent folks in the past with a high level of success.

Check out our website http://www.darwinianmethod.com and see if it makes sense to you. You can shoot a resume to me directly per my profile here, or via our “Careers” page.

K

7

I can speak from experience since I was born, raised and lived in Durango for the first 23 years of my life. The prices may look reasonable but the median price of a home is now 300k, and it is a fixer upper. Also you have to go in with a good job lined up. The cost of living is high when you look at the ratio of what you are paying incomparison to what you are making, you don’t get paided that well in Durango. I have heard so many stories from people that thought it would be great to live there (and it is, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else) but a year later they aren’t making as much as they would in a similar size town and are having a tough time making ends meet. I am not saying this to keep you away these are just the facts as I have personally witnessed them. Durango is a great town and I hope to be able to move back there someday, friendly, active, outdoorsy people. If you can make it work I would definitley go for it, tourism is where all the money comes in.

I would also recommend Boulder (I know, it is a very pricey town) and Fort Collins are great cities also. I currently live in Manitou Springs (just outside of Colorado Springs) and it is nice, there is a little to much sprawl but being up in the mountains in M/S is nice.

8

Actually, I can’t believe I left Boise off the list. Great town to do business in, certainly.

Definitely a welcome curve…

9

We have dual HQs in Boulder and Fort Collins right now, actually. They are in higher-rent locations to serve very specific customer/partner-centric needs.

Your points are well taken relative Durango. I should have mentioned in the earlier post that we/my business won’t be reliant on revenue from the local economies. The companies that pay our bills are truly from around the globe, so where these functional teams sit is outside that context.

That aside, it seems that Durango is a very business-friendly town in infrastructure and attitude. I did some snooping around out there a couple of weeks ago and walked away impressed and encouraged.

Thank you for the constructive response.

K

10

My mom lives in Missoula, so I go hang out there for a couple few weeks every year. Like a lot of mountain west towns, housing costs are going thru the roof. It is a pretty funky little town. A lot of good things going on. Bad things are winter air inversions, housing costs, airport access (ok at best), property taxes are pretty high. Montana never got around to putting in a sales tax so property taxes are killer.

Bozeman is way colder than Missoula in the winter, but growing fast. I never liked Great Falls, Helena might be worth a look, Billings is more like the midwest (ND,SD,MINN). I never saw anything in Wyoming that would get me there. Jackson Hole is pretty cool but very high dollar. Casper and Laramie never did much for me.

Colorado is pricy. Durango town is huge in the endurance athletes and probably the cheapest buy in the state.I always thought Boulder was the place to be, but you better be paying the hell out of your employees to live there. Steamboat has pretty good air service for a ski town, and I always want to move there when I go skiiing there. Denver is too large for me, C Springs might be ok. I would look hard at Bend, Oregon and Salt Lake or Bosie as well. Don’t know a damn thing about Fort Collins.

11

I lived in Bozeman for years and my folks still do. Patagonia( the outdoor clothing company) used to have it’s mail order call center there years ago. I knew the owner when he was considering putting it there and one reason he put it there so he’d have an excuse to visit. (fly fishing, mt biking, climbing, skiing all within 15 miles of town) The rent and housing prices have gone up significantly in the last few years but companies still generally pay low wages compared to the cost of living because there is no shortage of people willing to do anything to live there. I have friends there with PhD’s who’s salary is in the 40’s.

There are some surrounding towns in the gallatin valley and the paradise valley that aren’t quite as pricey to live in.

12

I spent about 18 months looking in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho for a place to live. Cost of living and quality of life were the two biggest factors. I ended up choosing Lander, Wyoming and have never regretted it. Cost of living is very good. Lifestyle is amazing. The only reason that this place isn’t 30,000+ is that getting a job here can be difficult. Lots of retired people and young (20’s) people. We’re the world headquarters for the National Outdoor Leadership School. Talk about ourdoorsy people looking for a place that focuses on lifestyle…

We’re not as big as Bozeman, Boise, etc… No colleges, though that will be changing in 2007 with the second 4-year college in Wyoming starting just outside of town. But our cost of living is much lower than those places. Here’s a big plus for business owners… NO STATE INCOME TAX. Very business friendly, you might say… Also, low sales tax, and property taxes aren’t bad. Thanks to the mineral/oil industry, we don’t pay much in taxes around here…

As an example of the outdoor lifestyle, here are my choices for recreation this weekend within 200 miles of my home:

Fish the Miracle Mile (legendary trout stream) Also many other smaller streams that hold lots of fish but noone talks about…:slight_smile:

Climb/Ski in the Tetons

Climb/Skin in the Wind Rivers

Sport climbing Sinks Canyon, Wild Iris

Trad climbing Sinks Canyon, Split rock, Fremont Canyon (Devils tower is 4.5 hours away)

Golf 6+ courses

Road bike open roads, little and surprisingly polite traffic. Weekly group rides.

Mountain bike lots and lots of trails. From desert to badlands to alpine riding, even slickrock. Weekly group ride draws 20-30.

Trail run, hike till the cows come home… more public land here than you’d believe.

Boat/water ski/windsurf.

Kayak or whitewater raft

Caving

ATV, Motorcycles, etc… (I’m a bit clueless here)

Lots of hunting in various seasons (clueless again…)

Very down to earth people.

It’s easy to get a pretty nice home here for under 150k. Hence lots of people retiring here. Anyway, it is a smaller town, 35,000 in the county… so shopping isn’t real strong. But there’s lots to do, and it’s pretty easy to be able to afford to do it. I love it here. Good luck with your decision.

Lehmkuhler

13

Great falls, MT is is an interesting town but not as progressive as bozeman or missoula. therefore the housing is much cheaper. Helena is a rapidly growing town that is also the state capital. Depending how small of a town you are interested in there are many including lewistown and many others. Billings is the states largest city with a pop. of about 90,000. Its located in the eastern part of the state. It would be hard to chose one but consider that montana has a personnal income tax that is high…and high property taxa to boot. It is a great place to live thought for outdoor sports and the hunting and fishing…good luck

14

I am from Missoula and though I haven’t lived there in years - my family does and I visit frequently. Like G-Man said, housing costs to rent or buy are skyrocketing and generally wages are pretty low. But it is a great town and growing.

15

Airport access is one area that might be a weakness of Lander. Then again, I have a lot of things to do here so I don’t see a lot of need to try to leave. SLC is about 4 hours, Denver a little more than 5.

Lehmkuhler

16

Bend is a consideration for another Western hub for us, but that is down the road a bit.

Missoula is on the list now and Bozeman still a consideration. We are already “paying the hell” out of our employees in Boulder and Fort Collins.

Thanks for the reply.

K

17

Thanks. My interest is the same as the Patagonia head’s. I will be bringing my own employee’s in for the most part and our wages are somewhat insulated from local considerations.

Good stuff.

K

18

Long as we are talking Montana, I will put in a plug for the Flathead Valley (Kalispell-Whitefish-Columbia Falls-Bigfork): It’s the No. 3 population center in Montana behind Billings and Missoula.

It’s still cheaper than Durango, Bozeman or Missoula (Whitefish excepted) but poised to catch up.
More than 80,000 people live in the vicinity
Has everything, outdoors-wise: skiing, kayaking, mountain biking, hiking, hunting
Very close to Canada (1 hour) and Glacier Park
Weather sucks compared to Durango

Great Falls would be dirt cheap BTW, I’m talking Dakota/Nebraska cheap: But if the air force base closes, that city will die. Bozeman is the priciest and trendiest place in MT, followed by Missoula, then the Flathead (not counting little expensive places like Big Sky and Whitefish). -TB

19

I think Lander is very cool, but you hit the non-starter for us: the shopping. We need to have some semblance of “cool” infrastructure around downtown for (don’t flame me for this) the wives and signifcant others.

The other towns we are considering have done some nice work to create dining/entertainment, however limited, that allows us to pull our ees out of bigger areas and simplify to some degree, without going totally off the grid. Some folks that work for us would consider Lander off the grid.

That stated: I dig Lander.

20

I live in Boulder, but I have a good friend in Durango. He and his wife just bought their first “home” and it was not cheap. Their new townhome is only slightly larger than my existing townhome, but very comparable. The price was nearly the same. I live a little outside of Boulder proper (Gunbarrel), and his new place is about 3-4 miles from downtown and the college. To me that says Durango ain’t cheap. I’m not at all arguing with the quality of life question though. If I could find a stable high-paying job, I’d love to move to Durango or another mountain town.