BILLINGS – City and economic development officials, healthcare industry representatives and college administrators gathered in Billings Monday night to discuss the benefits of expanding the area’s technology sector.
Billings firm Elation Inc. and Big Sky Economic Development organized a Medical Tech Symposium at the Hilands Golf Club aimed at boosting development in the growing sector.
“Billings is already a destination center for a large region, and if we can start building this idea of technology based medical companies here as well, that’s just one more reason for physicians to want to come move to Billings. And health care professionals too,” said Chris Dimock, founder of Elation, one of Montana’s first Internet providers.
Dimock said Elation started in Billings with a $100,000 guaranteed Small Business Administration loan, which the company turned into $50 million in local economic impact over the next decade.
“That’s the kind of scale of impact you can have in the tech space and we just don’t do enough of that in Billings. If you talk about starting a tech business, you think of going to Bozeman or Missoula. We want people to start thinking of coming to Billings. So the whole medical technology space is a logical place to start,” Dimock said.
Reporting by Zoe Zandora for MTN News
