Possible gubernatorial candidate visits Libby
Greg Gianforte, a Bozeman entrepreneur and speculative 2016 gubernatorial candidate, made a quick stop in Libby Tuesday afternoon as part of his Bring Our Families Back tour of Montana.
Gianforte and his wife, Susan, are making 30 stops in cities around the state during a two-week span to increase public awareness and drum up support for his campaign to bring high-wage jobs to Montana.
“Montana has been ranked 49 in wages since 1991,” Gianforte said. “My goal is to get us out of 49th place.”
The Bring Our Families Back campaign is a cooperative effort between Gianforte and the Montana Chamber of Commerce. The plan is simple: bring Montana natives back home, and bring their jobs with them.
“We’ve been exporting our kids for too long,” he said. “The issue is always that there’s no jobs.”
His answer is for people to bring their jobs with them by encouraging their employers to participate in telecommuting programs. The Internet, he said, makes it possible for people to work from anywhere. With that idea in mind, the group sent 15,000 mailers to Montana State University graduates who no longer live in Montana, encouraging them to explore remote working options with their employers.
Gianforte said even a small number of telecommuters could dramatically impact Montana’s economy, and even more in smaller areas like Libby.
“Imagine if even a dozen people came to Libby with $100,000 a year jobs,” he said. “Imagine what that would do to the local economy.”
While traveling through Libby, Gianforte stopped to have coffee and chat with Reps. Mike Cuffe and Jerry Bennett.
“I’m very impressed with what he’s doing,” Cuffe said. “He’s trying to bring jobs back to Montana. This is an interesting thing happening where a number of guys who have achieved success, like Gianforte, are spending a lot of time trying to help others at the grass-roots level.”
Gianforte said he and his wife started their business from an extra bedroom in their home in Bozeman. From there it grew to employ more than a thousand people before he sold it to Oracle. This campaign, he said, is a logical next step for him.
“I like big, hairy problems,” he said. “Montana’s wage issue is a big, hairy problem we can solve.”
As to the question of his 2016 candidacy, Gianforte was less certain.
“It would be a big decision for me,” he said. “I haven’t made that decision yet, but I am considering it.