Whoever said that high tech businesses can’t be rural hasn’t been to Dillon, Montana in the last six months. Lead by Dillon-native Travis Cottom, Helix Business Solutions is quickly becoming an example of doing big business in a small town. Helix started in Memphis and provides technical services to major corporations all over the world, and it is quickly becoming one of Dillon’s best-paying and largest employers. Plus, Oracle recently recognized them as their Cloud Partner of the Year for 2014, which should drive even more business their way.
Cottom, a fifth-generation Dillonite, grew up in the town where his family has nearly perfected the science of potato farming in Southwest Montana. “Having the opportunity to bring Helix to Dillon is a grand-slam,” Cottom told me. “In Southwest Montana we are able to live the lifestyle we crave and have access to the hardest-working, most experienced employee base in the industry, and we’re definitely hiring them!”
The Helix-Dillon team started this spring in Cottom’s garage. Rapid growth necessitated a recent move into 9,000 square feet of the Mary Innes school building, built in the 1920’s. The Mary Innes has been the home to nearly a century’s worth of kindergarten and first grade classes since its construction. Not only did Travis go to kindergarten and first grade in this building, but his grandfather, father, sister, brother, uncles and cousins all did the same.
Now, Travis and the Helix team have about 11 Montana employees and are growing in to the third floor of the Mary Innes building. They will be renovating the space to reflect the roots of the building and Dillon’s culture. As an example, using potato panels that his great-granddad likely built decades ago, Travis devised workspace dividers using old harrow discs that he welded to pipes. A far cry from the typical cubicle! All-in-all, the Helix office in the Mary Innes building is truly a uniquely Montana setup primed to provide world-class services to their growing client base that is literally all over the world.
Travis is demonstrating what an entrepreneur with an idea and the will to succeed can do, even in a rural location. More broadly, Helix in Dillon is an example of the vast opportunity for high-paying, high-tech jobs that exists for every Montana community. Rural towns in Montana have never been more connected to the global economy than they are today. This connectivity gives Montana’s business and entrepreneurs the ability to reach world-class, global clients, and Helix is one of dozens of companies in the state paving the path to better, high paying, high-tech Montana jobs.
