Q & A with new Montana West Economic Development president Jerry Meerkatz

Jerry Meerkatz is a local business executive with a nationwide career path that led him back to the Flathead Valley.

He remembers working at local Phillips 66 gas stations, all of which have been leveled to make parking lots, including the Valley Bank and KM Building parking lots. Now Meerkatz helps direct the ways business and growth happen in the Flathead.

Meerkatz was hired in August as chief executive officer and president of Montana West Economic Development and Flathead County Economic Development Authority, replacing Kellie Danielson, who moved out of state. He has since been directing the development groups that put on business-support programs, investigating new small business funding sources and getting to know his community through a new career objective: bolstering business in the Flathead.

I've had teams as large as 25,000 employees to small teams of two,” he said. Managing projects has been in my background since I graduated in engineering. I've always enjoyed the project aspect of taking on a problem and solving it.