Z & R Venture, Inc. in some ways appears to be a typical real estate development business venture.  Two guys with different talents get together and begin a real estate development.  Each brings a different skill set to the table.  One is the money, the other the expertise.   Doesn’t seem all that novel.  In fact there is probably a “For Dummies” book out there to show you how to put together a real estate deal.  The difference with Z & R Ventures is what they have achieved in a relatively short time frame can’t be learned in a book.  It takes years of experience and a true sense of what can and cannot be done to achieve what Z & R duo have done.

I recall the first meeting with the Curt and Gary over a cup of coffee where they shared their passion for their project in Watford City, North Dakota.  A little south of the Bakken epicenter (Williston, North Dakota) it seemed little more than a wide spot in the road.  A couple of years ago, you would have blinked and missed it.  But, with the proliferation of oil development throughout the state, and more specifically  in McKenzie County, North Dakota, Watford City has turned into a hot bed of exploration and production, and thus commercial and residential development.

Z & R’s Dakota Landing project in the the Amber Hills is conveniently located in the heart of North Dakota’s thriving oil boom, and offers investors a variety of lucrative income opportunities ranging from land development to current tenant housing. This property is positioned less than one mile south of Watford City (the County Seat of McKenzie County) and is in the heart of the most prolific drilling county in North Dakota. There are very few pieces of prime real estate in North Dakota that offer the abundant income potential found in Amber Hill Properties sitting on an aquifer and a stones throw from the truck bypass route.

Taking 50 acres of what appeared to be junk land and having the vision and capacity to develop it makes Z & R a standout in the Bakken.  To learn more about Z & R Ventures, Inc., connect with them on their website or through their Synergy Station virtual business directory listing.

Well, just like most things in the Bakken, sometimes things aren’t logical; they happen because demand simply far exceeds supply.  Such is the case for Max Graham, one of the principals at Frontier Insurance Solutions, Inc. of Billings, MT with the company’s recent expansion (November 2011) into the Bakken.  Max and his son, Justin, were fortunate to purchase an existing insurance agency that had literally been in Williston since 1969 (The Streifel Agency).  Due to it’s longevity in the marketplace, The Streifel Agency, never had to hang out a shingle and when the Graham’s purchased the business late last fall, there was no sign to remove.  For much of it’s existence, the locals just knew where it was.

Since acquiring the business the phone has literally been ringing off the hook, walk in traffic is constant, and local financial institutions & existing customers make referrals daily, as do developers in new subdivisions.  Frontier Insurance Solutions in Williston hasn’t had time to hang out a shingle.  The only tell tale sign that the building houses an insurance agency is the “Allstate” sign which was there when the business was known as the Streifel Agency.  Max & Justin attribute the rapidly increasing customer base to the unbelieveable growth throughout the Bakken oil field, the mass influx of folks from all over the country seeking better economic times, the massive amount of independent commercial truck drivers needing coverage, and Frontier’s ability to deliver very competitive rates through their diverse line of insurance carriers.

Acquiring an existing agency was a stroke of good fortunate for Frontier Insurance Solutions.  The cost of renting or building commercially in Williston is cost prohibitive.  Importing employees and housing them continues to be challenging.  Initial employees lived in a camp trailer behind the building and showered at the health club daily until Justin was able to purchase a home.  His family remains anchored in Billings, MT until the completion of the school year this spring.  The camp trailer is no longer behind the building, but at Justin’s home and now houses a husband and wife team (insurance agents) who have braved the Bakken frontier with Justin to handle the unbelievable market demand.

It’s been said that the Bakken has unique challenges and barriers to business expansion.  Affordable workforce housing being one; the other, finding and retaining quality employees who don’t succumb to the daily allure of high wages in the oil field.  When asked, “knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently”, Max Graham responded with “not under estimating the potential business here”.  YTD sales are up 90% from the previous year.  Max & Justin opened the office with only one agent – Justin.  The office now houses three qualified agents who write life, health, auto, home, and various forms of business insurance – but they already need another agent.  Key’s to success – being fortunate enough to acquiring an existing agency & existing physical location; having the only Allstate office in the region, and a competive line up of insurance carriers.

To connect with the experienced team at Frontier Insurance Solutions  to solve your insurance needs, click to their website or their Synergy Station Directory Listing.

One in particular that stood out was General Distributing, a company that can trace it’s Montana roots back three generations in the welding supply business to 1948 in Great Falls, Montana with the Bliss family.  Overtime, General Distributing grew to five locations (Great Falls, Helena, Butte, Bozeman, and Billings) to service the state.  Growing brick and mortar is one thing.  Growing a company with multiple business units (welding & industrial, medical gases, hard goods, and beverage gases) and growing a company with a culture that embodies the very traditions and core values of grandfather Bliss takes commitment, perseverance and a resolve that your business needs to be more that just peddling a bunch of commodities.

While remaining true to their core customer base (smaller, mom & pop companies throughout Montana), General Distributing has grown to a company that is well position to supply and service the needs of  large corporations.  Through a competent staff of experienced, well seasoned professionals that look beyond just selling you a product, to a team standing ready to help your business discover what it takes to effectively and efficiently get the job done.  Along side the local staff is an army of manufacturer reps willing to team up to address your specific business needs.  With this expanded network of product line experts your business can readily access credible, competent advice.

It’s Karen’s passion for her process and her dedication to your group that turns them into a highly functioning, completely cohesive team; tapping into new levels of productivity. Canvas Creeks’ team building process boost morale, reduces complaining, improves communication, increase trust and helps form any group; no matter how new or how stressed, into a team that works.

One of the techniques used at Canvas Creek is called collaborative painting. While it may sound a bit phoofy; it a unique team building experience packed full of twists and turns taking the participants through a process; evolving them into a team. It’s an amazingly powerful team building concept. Teams form fast. They form with power and pride; and if you are in the room when the group evolves from individuals to a team, you will never forget the feeling…. and neither will they.

Additionally, Canvas Creek Team Building is a full service coaching company. Their goal is to fully understand your staff challenges and successes and design a team building program (20 minutes to a full day) that will drive productivity, collaboration and team cohesion. Canvas Creek uses certified coaches, guarantees their premier event and offers both on site and off site events. These facts mean you can be confident in a positive ROI when you step into the creek.

There are at least four times you should consider working with Canvas Creek Team Building:

1. When your company is changing direction, leadership, or systems. You need your team to adapt quickly, get on the same page and move to productivity quickly. In order to accomplish that, they need to be challenged and rewarded in a team building setting.

2. When you are ready for strategic direction. Canvas Creek uses a unique approach to goal setting. First they bond the team, and then they ask them what they can do- together. This approach of bottom up goal setting, and result oriented plans gets you and your company what you want – a productive effort.

3. When you have just had a big win. Celebration is an excellent time to remind the team they did it together and they can’t simply stay the course. The next challenge is waiting…and they can go after it- together.

4. When complacency is the rule of the day. In today’s business environment there is no time to waste and an effective team building event will give your team the opportunity to adjust the sails and set a new course to success.

Canvas Creek Team Building is boutique enough to listen to your needs, to engage in the process of developing your team, and your business. They are also flexible enough to offer several approaches to team building, there is no one way to build a team, so by listening to your unique situation and goals Canvas Creek will develop a program that meets your needs. If your needs include their collaborative painting experience, know that it is so effective they actually guarantee it!

To learn more about Canvas Creek Team Building visit them @ their Synergy Station Directory or the company website.

Contact Canvas Creek Team Building today & have a stronger team tomorrow!

Bakken opportunities, however, are not for the weak kneed, or faint hearted. You need to have vision, initiative, resilience, integrity, and a healthy dose of the pioneer spirit! And, that’s what Gary Zacc and Curt Richards of Z & R Ventures possess. Two guys who landed in Montana many years ago with their love of the great outdoors, passion for wide open spaces, and looking for a place where you could still realize the American dream.

It’s been said that there are @ 18,000 unfilled jobs in the oil patch due to a general lack of housing; temporary and permanent. With demand far exceeding supply, landlords and hoteliers can charge top dollar for a place to flop for the night and they do. So, when Gary and Curt discovered a spot of land in a prime location just outside Watford City, North Dakota, the first phase of their “Dakota Landing” development included housing. While the Z & R partners fully realized they could squeeze every bit of profit from the business by offering lodging to workers at inflated rates; they chose not to do so. Guided by deep Christian principles they choose to offer lodging at a reasonable rates in their 64 furnished individual rooms in McKenzie County.

Z & R’s moral compass has paid off; as the partners have been blessed with 50 prime acres located on the proposed truck bypass route only 100 feet outside the expanded city limits of Watford City.  Additional features and potential for the property includes:

• 2,000 sq. ft. maintenance/office building with 14’ x 80’ home for on site management
• Water well @ 100 gallons per minute
• Individual septic handling system and leach field.
• Underground power
• Lighted parking lot and area lighting
• Future expansion sites for 16’ x 80’ homes (4 bed, 2 bath) for smaller companies
• Future expansion sites (1 to 1.5 acres) for small commercial shops
• Future expansion site for small personal storage business
• Future expansion for water depot
• Future overnight semi truck parking
• Future public shower facility
• Future public laundry mat

Over the next year, McKenzie County is expected to see a 200% to 400% increase in oil industry activity. This translates to more pressure on the already limited supply of housing, support businesses and existing business space.

To connect with Gary & Curt at Z & R Ventures and to learn more about “Dakota Landing” and it’s potential for your business and your employees, click to their Synergy Station Directory Listing.

The realization that strategic, long term community development needs to be a cornerstone of their planning thought process has allowed firms such as Sanderson Stewart of Billings, Montana to enter the Bakken landscaping bringing to the table what they do best, “plan and design enduring communities”.

Sanderson Stewart, a 40+ year old engineering firm evolved from a traditional civil engineering and land surveying company into the “go to” firm for land development services in the Billings, Montana marketplace.   Instrumental to this evolution was the purchase in 2002 by long time employees, Michael Sanderson, Rick Leuthold and Dennis Randall.  With a new energy and vision for the future, the firm has since expanded its geographic reach and its service offerings.  Today, Sanderson Stewart is a collaborative and multi-disciplinary community development services firm serving clients throughout the West.

What sets Sanderson Stewart apart is a few simple, but powerful ideas that shape the company and focuses their actions.  Sanderson views their core purpose and core values not as an achievable short term objective, but as their long range strategic intent; insuring that the firm never stops stimulating their need to innovate and change.  Enduring qualities:  trust, teamwork, innovation, community, and endurance places Sanderson Stewart in the perfect position to collaborate, plan, and design enduring community projects throughout the Bakken:

Harvest Hills Subdivision – Williston, North Dakota

In collaboration with Granite Peak Development

The Harvest Hills Subdivision is a 280 Acre mixed use development consisting of mostly residential single and multi-family parcels with a smaller node of commercial parcels and a school site.  Sanderson Stewart project responsibilities include master planning, annexation, zoning, design, construction administration and construction staking.  This project is on a fast track schedule to meet the large demand for housing and services needed to accommodate the Williston Basin growing oil industry.

Tofte Bean Industrial Park – Williston, North Dakota

The Tofte Bean Industrial Park consists of master planning and design of a 60 acre undeveloped area at the southeast end of Williston, North Dakota. This project will provide municipal water, sewer and road access in an industrial zoned area in this booming oil town. Challenges of this project include finding the best balance of rights-of-way that minimized impact to the existing parcels while providing appropriate access to the adjacent intersections. To accommodate the very high ground water in the area, alternative sanitary sewer options were evaluated. They included a gravity system with a lift station and a low pressure sewer system with individual grinder pumps.  Sanderson Stewart also prepared cost estimates and property assessments and facilitated the public meeting process in preparation of creating a Special Assessment District.

Water Main & Extension – Williston, North Dakota

The City of Williston water main extension and replacement project consists of extending a new water main approximately one half mile on the east side of Williston to accommodate the rapid growth they are currently experiencing. The project also includes replacing of a half mile of existing water main within an aging residential neighborhood. Several intersections throughout the City will also receive water main replacements.  Sanderson Stewart involvement in the project includes survey, design, assistance in right-of-way acquisition, construction administration and construction survey.

To learn more about Sanderson Stewart, their capabilities and their capacity visit their expanded listing in the Synergy Station Directory or their robust website which showcases the firms ability to deliver throughout the region !

When Joe Michels founded Solomon Bruce Consulting LLC (2006), an international management & engineering consulting practice which focuses on improved business operations;  his passion was to help small to medium-sized business owners optimize their organizations by providing the same level of strategic thinking and business processes that Fortune 500 firms receive.   Joe has aptly transformed his passion into reality by assembling a team of professionals that are experts in business operations, business efficiency and increasing company profitability.

The Solomon Bruce team actively works to help you, as a business owner:

• increase sales and cash flow
• improve employee retention and reduced employee turnover
• reduce waste and increase profits

What makes Solomon Bruce consultants unique - they are experienced business owners who “have been there and done that”; bringing instant credibility to your particular business situations.  By identifying key success factors and critical operational points of profitability, their team is able to show you, as the business owner or manager, the changes that you need to make in order to improve your overall business operations.

An added BONUS - Solomon Bruce Consulting ® has hands on, current experience working with businesses throughout the Bakken region of eastern Montana and western North Dakota. Their locally based consultants understand the unique marketplace challenges your business faces, as you leverage the growing Bakken economic opportunity.  They stand ready to help you grow and improve your business.

As a business owner, and as a business mentor with SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), I know that having someone look “into” your business to tell you what you are doing wrong, what you should be doing, how inefficient your systems are, and the list goes on; is more than a little intimidating.  After all – this business is your baby.  As entrepreneurs, we are sensitive and sometimes a little defensive about our baby business.  I encourage you however, to pause for a cup of coffee and a conversation with Dr. Michels and his team at Solomon Bruce – you might just be pleasantly surprised, as I was.  Be prepared to be impressed !

To learn more about Solomon Bruce Consulting LLC, visit their listing in the Synergy Station Directory or the company website.   The New Year is coming whether you are ready or not, so don’t wait to begin the process! @ Synergy Station “tomorrow is now” - the answers that you derive may be very insightful for 2012 and well into the future.