A New Angle

This week’s guest is Lesli Allison, founding member and executive director of Western Landowners Alliance. WLA seeks to advance policies and practices that sustain working lands in the West. Many of the most contentious and consequential issues here in Montana are right in the wheelhouse of this important organization. In this conversation Lesli says that if farms and ranches go out of business, w...

It's the most wonderful time of year here in Montana. And to chat all about it, Justin is joined by Michael Legg, executive director of the Montana Repertory Theater, and Stephanie Nolan from Missoula's Poverello Center. These two great organizations have partnered in the production of Hearth: A Yuletide Tale, a story about homelessness and community. In this episode, Stephanie gives a run down of...

This week’s episode is the November edition of Incentives & Instincts, a recurring series in which I speak with economist and friend, Bryce Ward, about some of the broader issues facing our society. This episode is about the youth sports industrial complex and joining Justin and Bryce is University of Montana head men’s basketball coach, Travis DeCuire. Justin starts the episode asking Travis and...

This week is part two of Justin’s conversation with Jeff Shapiro, a professional adventure athlete whose many pursuits include climbing, hang gliding, paragliding, and wingsuit base jumping. Justin and Jeff discuss risk, uncertainty, the seasons of life and many other matters of consequence. In this episode, Justin and Jeff go deep. Jeff talks about how what he’s learned from flying translates to...

This week’s guest is Jeff Shapiro, professional adventure athlete whose many pursuits include climbing, hang gliding, paragliding, and wingsuit base jumping. Jeff and his family lived in Montana for many years and recently relocated to the Oregon coast. In this episode, Jeff talks about the difference between passion and obsession and gives listeners a run down on the various ways he flies. Justin...

This week’s episode is the October edition of Incentives & Instincts, a recurring series in which Justin speaks with economist and friend, Bryce Ward, about some of the broader problems facing our society. It is election season here in Montana and across the country. To navigate some big questions, Justin asks Bryce and guest Rob Saldin, University of Montana political science professor, if our de...

This week’s guest is Ami Vitale, an award-winning National Geographic Photographer and Nikon Ambassador. Ami has visited over 100 countries, documenting the horrors of war and the good work being done to protect endangered species. In this conversation, Ami attributes her curiosity as a child to getting her out in the world as a photographer. She tells Justin about her early experience in journali...

Justin and Montana Public Radio's Lauren Korn from The Write Question talk about MTPR’s pledge week and the importance of public radio. Donate to MTPR during Pledge Week here: https://www.mtpr.org/tags/pledge-week Transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y9bg4FIfh1uv1rNISKO9prVGlovW5001oD8DKw682kw/edit This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or ge...

This week’s guest is Nick Mott. Nick is an award winning journalist and podcast producer based in Livingston, and the editor of this podcast. Over the last several months he’s published a series of articles with High Country News documenting the catastrophic Yellowstone floods that occurred in June 2022. In this episode Justin and Nick talk about the varying devastation of the floods, the politics...

This week is the September edition of Incentives & Instincts, a recurring series in which Justin speaks with economist and friend, Bryce Ward, about some of the broader challenges facing our society. In this episode, Justin and Bryce focus on our public school system. Bryce opens the conversation looking at the big picture and explains that public school is in a pretty good place. Justin and Bryce...

This week’s guest is Jeff Immelt, former CEO of General Electric and current venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. Jeff will be speaking at the University of Montana on September 27th as part of the Baucus Center’s Stockman Bank Speaker Series. He was kind enough to join Justin for a conversation in advance of his visit. Justin and Jeff speak about shocks and crises and a course at Stanfor...

This week is part two of Justin’s conversation with acclaimed journalist and writer Hal Herring. Hal is a contributing editor at Field & Stream where he writes the Conservation blog. He’s interested in complex topics central to life in the American West, and is currently working on a deep exploration of public lands. In part two of this conversation, Justin and Hal talk about the conflicts that st...

This week’s guest is acclaimed journalist and writer Hal Herring. Hal is a contributing editor at Field & Stream where he writes the Conservationist blog. He’s interested in complex topics central to life in the American West, and is currently working on a deep exploration of public lands. Since this topic is so big, we’re bringing you this conversation in two parts. In part one, we hear about Hal...

This week Justin is joined by DeAnna Bublitz, founder of DEER Camp. DEER Camp is trying to build a more diverse community of hunters by attracting underrepresented groups to the activity. DeAnna grew up in Minnesota and studied infectious diseases, a path that ultimately led her to labs with professors at the University of Montana. In this episode, we learn about DeAnna’s journey to hunting and th...

This week is the August edition of Incentives & Instincts, a recurring series in which Justin speaks with economist and friend, Bryce Ward, about some of the broader challenges facing our society. In this episode, Justin and Bryce are joined by Bryce’s wife, Maggie, who works in conflict resolution. The trio talk about how much less time people are spending with their friends and the atrophy of ou...

This week’s guest is Craig Cowie, Professor at the University of Montana’s Blewitt School of Law. Craig helps guide us through three of the most significant decisions in this recently concluded term of the US Supreme Court. The first case is Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v Wade in June. Craig explains the five possible ways this could change abortion access in Mon...

This week’s guest is Heather McDowell, Vice President for Legal, Environmental and Government Affairs for the US region at Sibanye-Stillwater, the owner and operator of the Stillwater and East Boulder Mines. Heather works at the intersection of many issues critical to Montana’s future - environmental regulation and sustainability, workers’ rights, diversity, equity and inclusion and many others. A...

This week’s guest is Tim Gordon, master appraiser of art and antiques. Tim has been a leading authority in the appraisal business for over 25 years, working on projects like Princess Diana’s gown collection, the Jim Morrison estate, the Al Capone Family collection, and the collections of Yellowstone National Park. Tim tells us how his beginnings in the appraisal industry stemmed from his mother’s...

This week’s guest is Shannon Hughes, strategic communications manager at RMI, an international organization working to transform global energy production with market-based solutions. Shannon’s purview is supply chain, a significant source of carbon emissions. As a communications expert she is focused on making this complex topic more digestible to a broader audience. Given the pandemic-induced sal...

This week is the July edition of Incentives & Instincts, a recurring series in which Justin speaks with economist and friend, Bryce Ward, about some of the broader challenges facing our society. This month is the last in a three-part mini-series on social media, with a focus on solutions. In this conversation Justin and Bryce consider the three R’s of transforming the social media landscape, Bryce...

This week’s guest is Tyler Hamilton. For many years, Tyler raced at the very highest level of professional cycling and was a key figure in the Lance Armstrong doping saga. His story is well documented, told best in Tyler’s powerful book, The Secret Race. Tyler now lives in Missoula, runs a coaching business, works for Black Swift Investment advisors and is a new father. Today we talk about how he...

This week’s guest is Sarah Aswell. Sarah is a writer of many stripes and a stand up comedian. She is a Senior Editor at Scary Mommy and has published her writing in prominent outlets like The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Forbes, MAD Magazine and many others. She lives in Missoula and performs around the country. In this conversation we learn about Sarah’s journey from biology to comedy, the open mic n...

This week’s guest is John Twiggs, host of the award winning Montana PBS program Backroads of Montana. This is John’s 35th year in television journalism and he’s been with Montana PBS for over 25 years. Last year, John was inducted into the Silver Circle of the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In this conversation we learn about John’s journey to visual sto...

This week is the June edition of Incentives & Instincts, a recurring series in which Justin speaks with economist and friend, Bryce Ward, about some of the broader challenges facing our society. This month we continue our social media discussion, with a focus on what social media is doing to our democracy. In this conversation we talk about some of the benefits of social media in politics, the tra...

This week’s guests are panelists from The Faces of Trade panel discussion held at the Montana World Trade Center’s Investment Day Conference. The panel included Heather McDowell, VP of Legal, Environmental and Government Affairs for Sibayne-Stillwater, the South-African owned operator of the Stillwater and East Boulder Mines; Patrick Flanagan, Chief Commercial Officer at Administrate, a software f...