Home of: Phillip Crenshaw

When you spend 22 years in the military and have four immediate family members still actively serving, you come to appreciate home that much more. For Phillip Crenshaw, who has called Ronan home since 1993, that is certainly the case: a place you can come back to no matter where you have been before. It certainly helps when home is similar to a beautiful place you once visited during your military career.

“It reminds me of my favorite valley in Austria, the Arlberg Valley,” Crenshaw said of what makes the Mission Valley so special. “It looks almost the same: little villages dotted around, very quite, not really populated with lots of people.”

Ronan lends itself well to solitude, but certainly not at the Crenshaw household, where Phillip and his wife Charleen have raised nine children. Their brood has produced two active military members, in addition to Charleen, who is in the Army Reserve. And three of those children, and Charleen, are currently students at the University of Montana. A new crop of Crenshaws is growing up too, as Phillip and Charleen have seven grandchildren.

The busy family life hasn’t stopped Phillip from succeeding in his occupation. On Sept. 20, Phillip went to Helena to receive the Governors’ Award for Excellence in Performance, an honored bestowed on those who have made a significant impact in their field of work. Phillip was one of 75 from the state Department of Justice who were awarded for their hard work in creating a usable computer system for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“It’s pretty good, I think, to be recognized for your work,” he said. “Everyone in the group did a lot of work, drove lots of miles and worked long hours. Everybody felt pretty good about being recognized for their work.”

The award is the first for Phillip, who has an outstanding record of public service over the years. He is currently a Local Area Network Manager (LAN) for the Montana Department of Justice in their Information Technology Division in Missoula. While the position occasionally has Phillip working for the state crime lab, his award came from work completed on the Montana Enhanced Registration and Licensing Information Network (MERLIN) Project. Implemented to enhance driver services both online and onsite, Phillip said the original computer system was slow and ineffective. Thanks to the work of Phillip and his 74 colleagues, the system is up and running as imagined when originally implemented.

“The Department of Justice Information Services division provided as much support as needed to help,” he said. “Our focus was to go and make it all work and that’s what we did, but it took a great deal of work. At first it took over two minutes to print a receipt, but who wants to wait around that long for a receipt?”

Phillip’s work ethic and knowledge in IT systems is a culmination of close to 40 years in the field. He began as a computer specialist for the military intelligence field during a tour in Vietnam in 1971 before heading off to various locales in Europe to continue his work in military technology. His final work in the U.S. Army came in the early 1990s when he worked in Desert Shield/Desert Storm in the Middle East.

Phillip’s military IT background made him a valuable commodity in the ‘90s during the “Internet Revolution.” High-level positions around the country at companies like Adelphia gave Phillip even more experience before he landed in Ronan to work for the state of Montana.

“It’s been invaluable, the government basically educated me at their expense,” he said. “Without that training and experience, I wouldn’t be doing this more than likely.”

In his spare time, when there is any, Phillip enjoys primitive archery, using a long bow instead of more modern disciplines.

“It’s something I’ve done since I was a child,” he said. “It was something people were doing in my neighborhood, and you know how if one does it, everyone wants to.”

His interest in history is even vaster, as Phillip researches the Crusades and medieval history as an independent researcher. He even hopes to have an article published in a journal if they’ll accept it. And, of course, if he has time. But if his Governors’ Award is any indication, Phillip knows how to improve efficiency.