A New Angle

This week's guests are Dylan Cherrulo and Wendy Owens. Dylan is an economics student at the University of Montana and a program assistant at the Blackstone Luanchpad. Wendy is the founder and CEO of Hexas Biomass, and she's also Dylan's mom. In this episode Dylan and Wendy discuss their paths into entrepreneurship and what about this choice of career path is so appealing to them both. Justin asks...

This week's guest is Josh Olsen, co-founder and program director of the Montana Wilderness School, a Bozeman based organization that offers expeditionary wilderness courses for youth that foster personal growth and a conservation ethic. In this episode Justin asks Josh about his motivation for starting MWS and why the school focuses specifically on Montana kids. Josh talks about the power of kids...

This week 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 challenges facing our society. This week, Justin and Bryce continue discussing A.I. and creativity with Justin's colleague at the College of Business, Professor Erik Guzik. Erik is an expert on creativity and entrepreneurship and recen...

This week's guest is Ken Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. He's also an award winning author, scholar and attorney. Ken has argued before the Supreme Court and testified in front of Congress. Ken will be visiting the University of Montana community on November 6th as part of the President's lecture series. This conversation was recorded prior to the recent eruption and viol...

This week's guest is Shaun Radley, purveyor of all things at MTCX and master of bike race organizing in western Montana. There is something special happening right now with the sport of cycling in Montana, and Shaun is a big reason why. In this episode Justin and Shaun talk about the upcoming 2023 and 2024 Pan American Cyclocross Championships, which Missoula has been selected to host in large par...

After some thoughtful listener questions, Justin reached back out to Nic de Castro, founder of LandTrust — a new venture seeking to connect landowners and recreationalists — to ask a few more questions, particularly about how LandTrust works with the state’s block management program. Transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11FLTb07QVU7hAkqH5DCKlTdSKhGEFAbFkuZTXp8RfZg/edit Check out par...

This week's guest is Molly Kruckenberg, director of the Montana Historical Society, an organization charged with protecting and sharing Montana's past. The Historical Society is in the midst of building the Montana Heritage Center and Molly and Justin discuss the project in this episode. Molly describes the role the Historical Society plays in the state of Montana, how exhibit space in the new Her...

This week's guests are Latisha Buck Elk Thunder and Dacia Red Thunder Griego, founders of Indigenous Made Missoula, a platform created to empower and propel Indigenous artists. In this episode, Justin asks about the inspiration behind Indigenous Made Missoula, the importance of representation and Indigenous spaces, as well as how non-Indigenous consumers can be more thoughtful and intentional in t...

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. This week Justin and Bryce are joined by Justin's colleague at the College of Business, Professor Erik Guzik. Erik is an expert on creativity and entrepreneurship and recently published a study finding...

This week's guest is Peter Stark, bestselling author of Astoria, Young Washington, and now the newly released Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison's Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation. Peter's new book explores a critical period of early U.S. history overlooked and not well understood. In this episode Justin asks Peter about his career transition from adventure journalism t...

This week's guest is Nic de Castro, founder of LandTrust, a new venture seeking to connect landowners and recreationalists. LandTrust creates new revenue streams for landowners and enables access to lands previously difficult or impossible for the public to access. In this episode, Justin and Nic discuss the pressure on private lands, particularly working lands in the American West, how LandTrust...

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. This week, Bryce takes on the role of host to talk with Justin and Nick Mott about their brand new book, This is Wildfire: How to Protect Yourself, Your Home, and Your Community in the Age of Heat. Justin...

This week's guest is Colin Hickey, senior vice-president of operations at VidCon - a conference that brings together up to 75,000 online creators each year. Colin is a Montana entrepreneur and community leader and has grown the VidCon program across the globe. In this episode, Colin tells the story of how he got involved with VidCon and its rapid growth over the course of a few short years. Justin...

This week's guest is Jeff Batton, a principal at HomeStake, a fund that pursues a variety of business models, all designed around connecting more local investors with more local companies. In this episode, Justin and Jeff talk about the trend towards consolidation in business and some solutions HomeStake is pursuing to avoid the problems created by continuous consolidation, how investors can rethi...

This week's guest is Dr. Pardis Mahdavi, an Iranian-American professor, administrator, outgoing provost at the University of Montana, and the newly named president of the University of La Verne. Pardis is the author of multiple books and served in leadership roles in several prominent universities. In this episode Justin asks Pardis about her path into academia, what changes to the University of M...

This week's guest is Dr. Jay Erickson, a family medicine doctor in the Flathead Valley and assistant clinical dean of the University of Washington's WWAMI Program, a residency track for doctors to practice in Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. In this episode Justin and Dr. Erickson discuss the challenges and opportunities in rural health care, how the WWAMI program provides access to...

This week's guest is journalist Sally Mauk, senior news analyst and news director emerita at Montana Public Radio. Sally has covered Montana politics and other topics for over 30 years and is the host of MTPR's Capitol Talk. In this episode Sally talks about the factors that brought her to journalism, her perspective on the 2023 Montana Legislative session and the future of political coverage in M...

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 week the two discuss some of the more encouraging signals in the economy. They cover declines in violent crime, inflation and increases in labor force participation rates over the last year or so. Justi...

This week Justin returns to his conversation with Emmy Award winning production designer and art director John Shaffner about his career designing some of the most iconic sets in television, including Friends and Two and a Half Men. In part two of this two-part episode, they discuss the transition from network television to today's streaming services, the inner-workings of license deals and why th...

This week Justin talks with Emmy Award winning production designer and art director John Shaffner about his career designing some of the most iconic sets in television, including Friends and Two and a Half Men. In part one this two-part episode, they discuss Shaffner's path into production design, how screen technology has evolved to shape the industry and most importantly, how did the cast of Fri...

This week's guests are legendary Missoula-based musicians, Jeff Ament and John Wicks, who have collaborated to form the band Deaf Charlie. Their first full length album, Catastrophic Metamorphic, recently released on June 30th. In this episode they talk with Justin about the Deaf Charlie origin story and how the two musicians have yet to play together in a studio. They cover the challenges and opp...

This week A New Angle hosts four guests doing amazing work to help us understand the role of exercise in treating cancer. These folks will headline the upcoming Exercise in Lifestyle Medicine and Oncology Care Conference at the University of Montana, July 12th and 13th. In this episode, Justin speaks with one guest who was part of the largest study of weight training in breast cancer survivors and...

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 Bryce and Justin respond to a listener inquiry about parking. As it turns out, parking policies have driven much of how American cities look and feel. In this episode they explore studies on parki...

This week’s guest is Jeffrey Funk, a blacksmith from Bigfork, Montana, who’s been crafting public sculpture and architectural metalwork for over 30 years. Jeffrey is the director of the New Agrarian School, an organization that teaches blacksmithing and other traditional rural crafts. In this episode, Jeffrey talks about how being interested in everything led to his blacksmithing career and provid...

This week’s guests are Sherry and Andy Chidwick, two recently retired schoolteachers from Stevensville, Montana who are about to launch their next chapter of life as overland adventures. The Chidwicks are in the final stages of selling all of their stuff and building out their adventure vehicle. In this episode, Andy explains that he and Sherry didn’t want to wait for the traditional American reti...