Biography

David has deep Montana roots. He is a 4th generation Montanan and spent the first 30 years of his life growing up around and working in the cherry industry that is a hallmark of the Flathead Lake area in Northwestern Montana. For a number of years he operated his own cherry orchard management company. After cherries, he pursued other work, including several years of retail management. Persistent nudging from Jack Liebschutz (co-CEO) led to his employment with Black Mountain Software back when the company was just getting started. In fact, David was the first non-owner staff member at Black Mountain! Over the course of 20 years, as Black Mountain Software has grown and changed, David has served in many capacities, including customer support, training, writing manuals, testing software, sales, marketing, internal operations, and most recently in a technical and support liaison role for our Montana County clients.

Small Town Story

David lives well outside of the Polson city limits, and claims that one of the mixed blessings of country living is the abundance of and proximity to Montana wildlife. It leads to a lot of stories. One of his favorites involves a black bear: “One evening, the neighbor’s dog chased a bear through my yard and up a tree. I grabbed my brand new VHS video camera (does that date me?) and headed out to get some great wildlife footage. By the time I got to the tree, however, the bear had come down and was heading full speed through a yard back toward the dog’s home. The dog was on the bear’s tail and I, the budding videographer, was right behind the dog. I came through the trees that bordered the yard, not far behind the bear and dog, and nearly failed to notice my neighbors, about 30 feet away, in their hot tub soaking au natural. Flustered, I stopped to apologize for the disturbance, unfortunately, with the camera innocently pointed right at them. Of course the dog and bear didn’t wait around. I guess from my neighbors perspective it was more like, “Hey! Cool! A bear!”, then “Isn’t that our dog?” and then, “@#*%! Dave, what are you doing with that video camera?” I deleted the video footage, so this story cannot be proven since neither the dog nor bear can be convinced to talk.”

Community Service

When his children were growing up, David volunteered many hours over many sport seasons.

• Polson Youth T-ball, Baseball, Softball and Soccer: Volunteer coach and/or assistant coach
• Polson High School Athletics Booster Club: Fundraising Volunteer

Education

• Several quarters of college before deciding to just work!