A career on Main Street

The last five years have become an incredible icing on the cake of a 40-year career of working hand-in-hand with some of the most ambitious and forward-thinking business owners and managers in the country.

I would have never guessed that I would have the amazing opportunity to spend 40 years learning about retail trade and business promotion and finally being offered the chance to represent the Job Service and the BEAR program and actually give something back to help grow and maintain the business community.

BEAR is the Business Expansion and Recruitment program, and I’ve certainly learned a lot about that in my long career in Kalispell.

There was no formal “leadership” program when I arrived here in 1973, but there was no shortage of mentors who helped write the book on leadership and passion for the community they served.

I still vividly remember my first day of work with Gamer’s Shoes. The first “customer” in the door was a local insurance man, Les Tinseth, who had already given a lifetime of coaching and mentoring to any youngster with a glove and a desire to play the game of baseball.

Somehow he knew that I had played ball. Perhaps he knew that I had a couple of pitching duels with Danny Johns in my high school past. Les recruited me to help coach his Babe Ruth All-Stars for at least a couple of years and I would go on to coach the same All-Stars as they moved into the Lakers Legion program with my old Great Falls classmate, Rick Smith, who was teaching at Flathead High School and coaching the Lakers for 10 years or more.

Before noon that first day, I was also approached by Paul Wachholz from the Conrad Bank. Paul invited me to lunch and took me to the bank to introduce me around the bank and we sat down and he asked if I needed anything. I mentioned that I was looking at a house but needed $1,500 to get into it. I left the bank with that $1,500, not knowing how unusual this transaction may have been.

Obviously, I had no idea he was introducing me to my eventual next employer and what he had just taught me about customer service and bank marketing — and what Paul would mean to me as a friend and a mentor for the rest of my life.

Over the next five years I received an education in business that cannot be purchased nor learned from a “how to” book or college class. In some ways this seems like ancient history and is a shame that many of these Main Street “pioneers” have already been forgotten. Most of us attended the morning “business meeting” at Tut’s coffee shop. I owe everything that I have become to the ladies and gentlemen who took me into their unnamed downtown group. My personal thank you and Hall of Fame nomination go out to Dale Haarr, Gordon Pirrie, Fred and John Zauner, and Tony Pepe. Their story should be required reading to graduate in business management and marketing.

I had moved to Kalispell with Gamer’s with the intent of moving the downtown store to the proposed Gateway West Mall. In the meantime K-Mart had just announced its grand opening. The downtown retailers, not willing to sit back, formed their own alliance to fight back and promote one-stop shopping on Main Street, organizing the Kalispell Central Business Association.

Dale Haarr served as the first chairman and I was selected to chair the group in the second year. We held meetings in the basement of Herb and Mitzi Ogle’s House of Hobbies and rolled up our sleeves.

This amazing downtown core got together a couple times a year and with the help of the Fire Department and Chief Jack Peters, washed the entire Main Street and sidewalks. They hung all of the street Christmas decorations and when they had a sidewalk sale, there was merchandise from the Conrad Bank all the way to Montgomery Ward on Fourth Street.

They understood the value of the Canadian business and refused to sit and wait for these tourists to stumble upon Kalispell. Every year they organized a Canadian invasion, taking several carloads and spreading out and stopping at every border town like Fernie, Coleman, Sparwood, Lethbridge, and all the way to Calgary. They literally went into stores, bars, and malls with wooden nickels and brochures promoting Canadian Days. They held interviews with the newspapers, radio and TV with special invitations to come and experience the Flathead.

When the Canadians got here on Friday night, we welcomed them with a completely hosted bar at the Kalispell Eagles. And, before they left on Monday, we hosted a pancake breakfast with dozens of prize drawings in Depot Park, to say, “Thank you, Canada — we appreciate your business.”

Crossing the border was not as convenient in the 1970s as it is today. The Roosville border crossing closed at 8 p.m. and did not reopen until the next morning. The Kalispell Central Business Association went into action, and I clearly recall Gordon and Dale, the Zauners, and myself meeting with Jerry from Jerry’s Saloon in Fortine to lobby the Border Patrol and legislators, finally prevailing and getting Roosville open 24 hours a day from that time forward.

In 1978, I was offered a job with the Conrad Bank, and in 1981 we were all shocked by the retirement of Paul Wachholz to open his own real estate office. I was promoted to replace Paul as the marketing director, most likely thanks to the marketing education I received from my great friends and mentors on Main Street.

I wanted to continue my work in marketing and business development and joined the next “most amazing” people I have encountered, the major “properties” of the Flathead, which means the hotels, event centers, recreation, Glacier, and wonderful draws to the Flathead like Flathead Lake Lodge. You talk about movers and shakers.

I received my advanced degree in business by meeting and watching the best of the best in the hospitality business. The Flathead Convention and Visitors Association was just forming and they invited me to join. Michael Collins, Big Mountain’s GM, was the first chairman and created perhaps the first and only true valleywide effort to put the Flathead Valley on the map as a real “destination” for travelers and tourists.

I had the great pleasure of working hand in hand with Mike, Larry McRae of the Outlaw Inn, Tim Graatan of Grouse Mountain, Doug and Maureen Averill of Flathead Lake Lodge, Gib Bissell of Aero lnn, Sally Thompson of Glacier Raft, and Glacier Park Superintendent Gil Lusk. The “paid” executive director was Bill Martin, who generally did not receive his check. As far as I know, I was the second chairman of the Flathead Convention and Visitors Association .

Like the Main Street bunch, the FCVA was not waiting to be discovered. Most of the “properties” wrote a $10,000 check for seed money and whenever they ran short they found more in the budget to make it happen. They hired a marketing consultant to specifically get Flathead stories into major magazines and articles. They landed the National Travel Writers annual convention and there was no doubt that everyone was looking out for opportunities to create economic development from end to end of the Flathead and Glacier Park.

Finally, my greatest education and personal satisfaction was the opportunity to work with Special Olympics. I served in the Air National Guard with the first ever director of Montana Special Olympics, Don Byers, who got me interested in the organization in the late 1960s. We didn’t have any $10,000 check writers and made a dollar stretch a very long ways.

 had the great pleasure of serving on the state Special Olympics board for Don, and eventually I had an opportunity to start my own golf tournament with the blessing of Harry Lattin, president of First Interstate Bank. That tournament ran for 20 years until I left the bank, and with the help of 256 of my fantastic friends and supporters and 65 local businesses, we raised over $100,000 for the Flathead Special Olympics athletes to attend the Summer Games each year.

Jan Stenerud, former classmate of mine at Montana State and an NFL Hall of Fame kicker, attended the golf tournament regularly and had a habit of winning a celebrity golf tournament and receiving a check for $10,000, which he always would sign and turn over to Montana Special Olympics.

In addition to Jan, I always invited the sitting governor of Montana to play on our team. Govs. Ted Schwinden and Stan Stephens graciously accepted and made the event more than “special.” In 1989 I received a call from Gov. Stephens, asking about helping him and Govs. Schwinden, Judge, and Babcock in starting a golf tournament emulating the Special Olympics tournament which they would call the Governors Cup. Gordon Pirrie was also asked to be the taskmaster and armed with my tournament expertise, Gordon’s tenaciousness, and the horsepower of the last four Montana governors we organized the first ever Governors Cup — naturally for the benefit of economic development of Montana with the proceeds going to the Montana Ambassadors.

The event continues to bring CEOs of major companies to the Flathead every year for a glimpse of Montana hospitality and introduction to the business ways of our local entrepreneurs.

Because of my involvement with the state Special Olympics, I was offered an opportunity to travel to South Bend, Indiana, and work directly with Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver, to organize the 1987 Special Olympics. Eunice Shriver, of course, started Special Olympics in the 1960s when many, including medical professionals, did not believe that she could make a difference.

We worked for a year in preparation, and when the Summer World Games went off at Notre Dame in the summer of 1987, 4,700 athletes descended on South Bend from 70 countries for the country’s largest ever amateur athletic event. Every U.S. athlete was delivered personally, one at a time, to South Bend by an owner of a Cessna aircraft, dropping one athlete into South Bend every few minutes for most of the day!

Two years later I was invited by the Shrivers to work with the advance planning group to organize the 1989 Special Olympics Winter Games at Lake Tahoe.

As a conclusion and to wrap several years of involvement with the great business leaders and marketers of the Flathead, I served on a Downtown Architectural Review Committee with Paul Wachholz, Carol Nelson, and other committed community leaders. We received, and immediately approved a request to renovate a downtown building which would house several of the workers from Flathead Industries, some whom were also Special Olympic athletes. This home was going to allow these employees to move away from their parents and begin a life of their own. I wasn’t able to look around the table, but I am positive there was not a dry eye in the room.

For Bill Nelson, manager of Flathead Job Service to acknowledge my years of experience and allow me to go out into the Flathead business community and share what I have learned from the true “leadership” instructors that have committed their lives to make the Flathead a better place, is such a perfect exclamation point of my working career. I can hardly find a word of thanks for the great memories and life skills.

Michael Jackson is a longtime resident of Kalispell who recently retired from the Flathead Job Service. As part of the Business Expansion and Retention program, he has personally visited 475 local businesses.