Mick Ruis: the blue-collar philanthropist

The Cedar Creek Lodge in central Columbia Falls is taking shape on land that once held a ramshackle collection of mobile homes.

About 30 people are hustling around the construction site.

Those working for Ruis Construction, a new firm founded to get the $6.5 million Cedar Creek Lodge and other Columbia Falls projects off the ground, are working for a living but there’s also a sense of loyalty to owner Mick Ruis, the man who has returned home after leaving long ago.

“He loves to help people and see people succeed,” said Levi Diehl, project manager for Ruis Construction and Ruis’ representative. “He loves seeing their lives change for the better and he really sees that in Columbia Falls.”

Last summer Ruis submitted plans for a three-story, 64-room hotel, stunning a town that has seen relatively little outside investment. People literally cheered when the City Council approved the plans in October.

Ruis grew up in Columbia Falls, working in property management for a time after he graduated from high school. When he headed to San Diego in the late 1990s, he always planned to return. He joined American Scaffolding when it was in its infancy as a company. As a business developer for that company, Ruis helped increase the work force to 200 employees across the United States and American Scaffolding became a primary contractor for the U.S. Navy.

He recently decided the time was right to come home.

Cedar Creek Lodge will be one of his centerpiece projects. It is financially backed by Freedom Bank, which provided the momentum for an eight-month completion schedule and a crew willing to work through the winter. The lodge is expected to open in mid-June, just in time for the onset of Glacier National Park’s visitor season.

This project, Ruis said, is his gift back to the community that shaped his work ethic and sense of community.

“We’ve always been the hard-working, blue-collar town,” Ruis said. “I started with nothing, blue collar just like every resident here. I was fortunate enough to have this money to give it to them.”

While he’s heavily invested in Columbia Falls, he doesn’t get to spend much time there. According to his hospitality consultant, Joan Kirk, Ruis travels about 300 days a year to stay on top of American Scaffolding business.

After he purchased several commercial properties within Columbia Falls and various business plans were announced, the community rallied around him.

Ruis said he expects to spend more time in Columbia Falls in the next few years.

“Hopefully, I’ll be spending 80 percent of my time at home,” Ruis said.

Ruis is using his expertise to fill a gap he’s identified in Columbia Falls. His hometown may be the “Gateway to Glacier National Park,” but doesn’t have a place for tourists to stay. Instead of building a hotel chain in his hometown, he wanted to create a visual extension of Glacier Park itself.

“We’re not just trying to build a Super 8 or a Motel 6,” he said. “We want something that when they go there, they really remember it.”

In addition to park visitors, Ruis said he hopes high school sports teams and wedding parties can stay at the lodge when traveling to Columbia Falls, rather then staying in other towns around the valley.

Jackola Architects and Engineers designed the lodge, but right before the project got off the ground Ruis decided he wanted to expand its functionality. He added more than $1 million worth of changes to the project, including a patio for live music and wedding receptions, while planning more amenities for the 3,000-square-foot conference center.

The hotel exterior will feature horizontal wood paneling and wood shake siding. The lodge will include the 200-person conference center, a 16-by-32-foot pool and rooms ranging from 369 to 456 square feet.

Cedar Creek Lodge won’t even be Ruis’ lone project in Columbia Falls. By June 1 he hopes to open a new candy store and pie shop, which he named early in the process as the Columbia Falls Pie Factory. Both will be located on Nucleus Avenue, the town’s main street. Ruis said both business plans are drawn up and ready for the city’s permitting process.

Aside from the sweets, Ruis is also boosting the business and residential markets in Columbia Falls. He plans to remodel the former Davall Building into a multibusiness space, with tenants paying about $300 a month. He also wants to remodel another downtown building into an 18-unit apartment complex.

That’s a lot of proverbial pie he’s putting on the table, inviting others to join him in revitalizing the town.

“Before, they were afraid to invest in our town,” Ruis said. “But now, they’re seeing things coming in, people are saying things are going to happen.”

And he’s right. Since the Cedar Creek Lodge started going vertical, local baseball fields have received state infrastructure funding, a new pizzeria has opened and a brewery opened last week. These developments might not be directly related to the lodge construction, but having a hotel in town certainly creates economic spin-off.

“Everyone knows it’s going to be a big benefit to the city,” said Don Bennett, president of Freedom Bank. “It’s something we’ve wanted for so long.”

Bennett sees the lodge as a spark in cultivating a reactionary response from other business startups. He said the city of Columbia Falls and the Chamber of Commerce have been preparing to attract development within city limits for years.

“Columbia Falls is getting lucky,” Bennett said. “I define luck as where preparation meets opportunity. Here’s an opportunity and we’re ready for it.”

Each day, Diehl, project manager at the lodge, sends Ruis daily update videos taken via a drone. Deihl said a handful of American Scaffolding employees chipped in to buy the drone for Ruis, who deemed Deihl the master pilot.

“It’s kind of like my personal project baby that I’m doing, so it’s a really cool way to see what’s going on every day,” Ruis said. “All we needed was a spark. If it was the hotel, that’s great, but there’s so much interest going on now,” he said.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.