Engellant takes over as Evergreen Chamber president
Daren Engellant, former member of the University of Montana basketball team, poses in his office at Glacier Insurance.
If you listen to Daren Engellant talk for long enough, you notice that there are certain words he favors more than others: Synergy. Engagement. Teamwork. Leadership.
They are the kinds of words that are naturally incorporated into your speech when you’ve spent most of your life in sports. They’re also the major factors that make up what Engellant believes are his core values when it comes to doing good business. It’s these core values that led him to join the Evergreen Chamber of Commerce, and what provided him with the fuel he needed to become its next sitting president.
“The first part of creating synergy in a business is recognizing what your talents are and what your weaknesses are and then engaging people who compensate for your weaknesses and utilizing their talents,” Engellant said. “whether that be in business or basketball.”
Engellant may know a thing or two about both. As a former high school basketball coach and current business owner, Engellant has developed a unique understanding of teamwork and leadership that few possess.
After retiring from a successful career playing professional basketball in Europe, Engellent moved to the Flathead Valley with his wife in 2003 before receiving an offer from an old friend to purchase his insurance company,
“I knew nothing about insurance at the time,” Engellant says with a laugh. “I don’t even think I knew what a deductible was.”
Despite this lack of formal knowledge about the insurance industry, Engellant took to the business quickly and started making connections with other businesses throughout the Flathead. Eventually, Engellant was given the opportunity to purchase office space next to the insurance agency and has since turned it into a carwash.
Engellant joined the Evergreen Chamber of Commerce in 2017 after one of its first leaders, Ken Kalvig, invited him to join the organization.
“I had a lot of responsibilities at the time and was wearing a lot of hats, so to speak…I’m wearing even more of them now,” Engellant said. “And he basically asked me if I wanted to throw one of them in their ring and be a part of the chamber and I agreed to sit in on a meeting and eventually to be on their board of directors and I haven’t regretted the decision since.”
After seeing tremendous growth in population throughout the 2000s, Engellant says the committee was initially formed as a means to “fill the void” of a central government in Evergreen and to get citizens involved in the community.
Now, he says, the chamber acts as the voice of business owners throughout Evergreen and has even been taking on big name projects. One of these projects is the Safe Route to School program, an initiative he and the chamber started in 2020 that provides the students of Helena Flats and East Evergreen schools with sidewalks in otherwise dangerous parts of their road to school.
Engellant credits his fellow board members as “teammates,” whose synergy and cooperation have inspired him to continue to lead the way on matters that are important to the Flathead.
One of those teammates is Gary Mahugh, fire chief for the Creston Fire District and owner of Mahugh Fire and Safety.
“Daren and I have this thing that we say to each other all the time and it’s ‘We are where we come from,’” Mahugh said “His background as a coach and as a ballplayer has provided him and all of us with this unique team dynamic that’s really seen us through some difficult times. He understands the necessity of leadership but everything he does requires a team effort.”
Unlike Engellant, Mahugh was on the ground floor of the Evergreen Chamber of Commerce during its inception and was its acting president until Daren was elected. Although his term officially ended June 30, Mahugh says he has no qualms with handing over the reins.
“A lot of my term was spent during the COVID months,” Mahugh said. “Those were difficult times, so as you can imagine, I feel pretty OK stepping out of that role of leadership for a while.”
When asked about how he hopes to lead the committee in the coming months, Engellant gives an answer typical to that of a coach: with synergy.
“There are so many things that sports teaches you better than anything else,” Engellant said. “To have personal accountability, how to interact and engage with opponents and other teammates, how to keep each other accountable. Those are the things that everyone needs to know in order to be successful.”