Dean Knutson is an asset to the community
Last week's open house at Country Foods brought to mind a number of stories we've written over the year about Country Foods' founder Dean Knutson. What a remarkable number of contributions he's made to the community since arriving here in the '70s to go to work at Rolfson's Building Supply and Contracting.
He went into business for himself when he started Polson Paint and Glass and in 1975 started the Polson Stove Shop in the same building, manufacturing the Earth Stove.
After he sold the paint and glass business to Bruce Campbell, Dean moved the stove manufacturing plant to the industrial park north of the bridge in 1979 and it became known as Big Sky Fabricating. He continued making Earth Stoves until selling that part of the operation to Todd Henderson in 1982.
Next venture was to get some defense contracts for Big Sky Fabricating. Tooling up with heavy duty equipment, he was successful in getting contracts from the Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island, Ill.
That was successful until 1989 when the Defense Dept. pulled in its economic belt and defense contracts dwindled to the point that there was no profit in bidding for them.
Over the past 15 years the company has certainly seen some production changes. Country Pasta now makes its original egg pasta and a wide egg noodle. The original recipe was tested by making noodles on a home pasta making machine. The first commercial machine Country Pasta purchased from Italy had the capacity to produce 240 pounds of pasta per day.
With that single, small machine, the firm turned out pasta that would be marketed on a limited basis to local delis, restaurants and grocery stores.
The tasty product caught on and expansion began.
The firm upgraded to a machine that produced 6,000 pounds per day and now Country Pasta has the capacity to make 48,000 pounds of pasta per day.
Seventeen people are employed. Several of them commented last week that the Knutsons are a pleasure to work for, that "they treat us like family."
Speaking of family, five Knutsons are involved in the operation. Dean, his wife Linda, daughter Heather, Cory, who works in the warehouse, and Dean's brother, Scott, in maintenance management.
It hasn't been an easy road for Dean since May 2004 when he was diagnosed with cancer. Since then he's been waging a painful battle against cancer with treatments of chemo therapy, radiation, and medications.
The future of the firm appears solid has the Knutsons have a top flight management team including their daughter Heather and Dan Johnson in marketing, Gary Ivory as production manager and Jim Hinshaw as assistant production manager. Linda is vice president of the Country Foods and manages the financial aspects of the operation.
A number of years ago Dean was named Montana's Small Businessman of the Year. I don't know if that award can be given twice to the same person, but I'd sure nominate him. He's given so much of himself, his expertise, creative ability and foresight to the community.