Melody Oliver AGE: 39 OCCUPATION: Taproom Manager PLACE OF WORK: Big Sky Brewing SALARY: Undisclosed, except for the free beer part It’s no surprise that some connection to Missoula’s bustling craft brew industry would blip on the Indy’s radar for one of Missoula’s coolest jobs. But after talking with Melody Oliver, the taproom manager at Big Sky Brewing, it’s clear why her position in the craft beer world deserves the nod on this list. Oliver, 39, has been working at Montana’s largest brewery for nearly 12 years, and while she says, dryly, that she just “pours beers and folds T-shirts” in Big Sky’s taproom, that modest job description belies the satisfaction she gets from her work. Oliver spends most of her time with customers, explaining the beers and selling the myriad logo’d merchandise displayed near the bar. During the summer, she says, the taproom stays busy with vacationers. But even during the off-season, Oliver says the local faithful keep her pouring. “I’ve met so many interesting people while working here. Not only my coworkers, but the customers,” she says. “From local regulars, to the tourists we see year after year. It’s awesome.” She adds that she makes a point to remember all of her customers’ names, whether they come every day or once a year on vacation. “I literally can set my clock to when people come in,” Oliver says. “Mike will be here right when we open at 11.” Like all people who work and thrive in the service industry, Oliver enjoys treating people well and providing them with products that make them happy, which is easy at Big Sky. “It’s alcohol,” she says coyly. But what may set her job apart from some other drink pourers in Missoula is the taproom’s advantageous hours—open at 11 a.m., with last call never past 6:30 p.m.—and the way her employer treats its employees. Oliver says her bosses take seriously the fact that she hunts, among other outdoor activities, and that sometimes the season might call her away from work. She says flexibility of schedule and a mutual understanding about the mental health benefits of getting into the woods means that she and her colleagues are allowed “to live and to work.” On the day Oliver talked to the Indy, she’d just returned from a turkey hunting trip in the Selway.
Anna Bengston AGE: 34 OCCUPATION: Wilderness Ranger PLACE OF WORK: Nez Perce National Forest SALARY: $28,800 To get to her day job, Anna Bengston hikes 25 miles up a thin dirt trail that hugs a wild river in the backcountry of northeast Idaho. Instead of traffic jams and road rage, she meets fallen logs, icy creeks and the occasional rattlesnake as she goes deeper and deeper into the woods. Talk about a commute. After the hike that begins her field season, Bengston settles in at Moose Creek Ranger Station, a compound of log cabins, two primitive backcountry airstrips and a handful of public campsites that serve as the Forest Service’s principal outpost in the 1.3-million-acre Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness on the IdahoMontana border. Bengston, a 34-year-old wilderness ranger, is charged with protecting that massive hunk of land for eight months of the year. It sounds like a pretty sweet gig, but certainly for the right type of person. “It’s a lot of solitude,” Bengston says. “I’ve gotten to be pretty comfortable working and spending a lot of time alone in the woods, but it took me a while to get there.” The job also demands a solid knowledge of primitive skills. Bengston needs to know how to pull a saw, swing an axe, ride a horse and read a map, among other things. “Learning how to be proficient with horses and mules, to be able to pack them, I think that has been really neat,” she says. “There is always something more to learn.” A wilderness ranger is a jack-of-all-trades, and Bengston puts her skills to work in many ways. She surveys and maintains trails, monitors
photo by Cathrine L. Walters
“We’re trying to promote a Montana lifestyle…, “ she says. “Everyone here loves to do outdoor things, it’s a priority.” And if her flexible schedule isn’t enough, there’s this: A door in the back of the taproom opens to Big Sky’s brewing and bottling operation. The area looks like what could be a hangar at Boeing if not for the stacks of Moose Drool and the dudes in Carhartts packing bottles into cardboard boxes. At the far end of the space is an enormous walk-in cooler, at the threshold of which a whiteboard provides a friendly reminder for employees: “If you need a case(s) of beer, be it
for yourself or the taproom, please check the pallet(s) below before you grab off of other pallets…” The satisfaction of making people happy, like-minded coworkers, a boss who understands the salmon fly hatch is unpredictable and good for the soul, and, of course, free beer—two cases every month. Oliver knows she has it good. “I love what I have,” she says. She looks at the sign outside the walkin cooler and smiles. “I already got mine for this month.” Jamie Rogers
when she responded to a fatal plane crash on the Moose Creek airstrip. A bad gust of wind brought down a departing plane, which burst into flames and left the pilot dead and his passenger bleeding and traumatized. Bengston, with the help of a volunteer trail crew stationed at Moose Creek, tended to the survivor. “The plane crash was a stark reminder that accidents and emergencies can happen at any time, and there is a big difference when you’re 25 miles into the backcountry,” she says. “Outside the wilderness it’s not unlikely to have highly-trained first responders and ambulances on scene within minutes. For us, it was myself and a Montana Conservation Corps trail crew and some members of the public who were first on scene ...” Bengston called in an emergency helicopter and helped the survivor recuperate in the ranger station until he could be flown out. Bengston says it took her some time to come to terms with the tragedy. All in all, however, the wilderness lifestyle involves benefits that can’t be quantified. In addition to the sunrises and sunsets, the beautiful views, the clean water, the good work and the adventure, Bengston gets nearly four months off each winter to rest, reconnect with her family and travel. She spends a good deal of time in Missoula, which is one of her main stopovers between field seasons. When spring rolls around, she heads back to the woods and carries on a proud tradition of watching over the wilderness. photo by Cathrine L. Walters “Moose Creek Ranger Station was built in 1920, campsites, advises fire crews, manages volunteer trail workers, enforces and since then there have been wilderness rangers doing similar work Forest Service regulations and keeps the ranger station ship-shape. It’s to what I am doing, helping take care of the wilderness and the station,” not all old-time adventure and backcountry bliss, however. When sta- she says. “I feel like it is an honor to be able to be in that line of wildertioned way back in the woods, things can go wrong in a big way. ness rangers. It is an honor to be part of that.” Bengston’s most fearsome experience took place in summer 2012 Jimmy Tobias
missoulanews.com • May 8–May 15, 2014 [15]