Bitterroot Chamber honors Julie Foster with the Economic Development Award

People will sometimes ask if Julie Foster, Executive Director of the Ravalli County Economic Development Authority, tries to recruit large companies to set up shop in the Bitterroot. The answer is no.

Foster told the Ravalli Republic it would take a budget she doesn’t have, but also would go against the rural way of growing from within.

“We work with a lot of companies who I’ve had a 20-year relationship with,” she said. “Some of those companies started with one or two people as a family operation, and now they have 20 or 40 employees.”

The Bitterroot Chamber of Commerce is now honoring Foster with the Economic Development Award and she will be celebrated among other category winners at the organization’s annual banquet. Foster said she was “incredibly grateful” for the honor.

Foster started her business journey with her own Internet business in 1995, Bitterroot Internet, and went on to serve on the original board of the Economic Development Authority which formed in 1997.

As Executive Director of a three-person organization Foster says she has a hand in everything from writing infrastructure grants, helping manage their $4 million loan program or run their facility leased to 23 businesses.

These companies range in size — from pharmaceutical manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline to one-person operations — but many of them started in homes in the community and expanded into this space, Foster said.

It’s a misconception GlaxoSmithKline was asked to come to the Bitterroot, Foster said.

“The truth is, they grew from here,” she said.

Business advice from her team is available to them for free.

“I think we’re really good at just meeting them where they are with what they need,” she said. “Maybe that’s help with business planning or doing financial projections, or maybe it’s just brainstorming about what’s going right and challenges.”

She works to connect these businesses to the community in the Bitterroot, and said seeing businesses grow is “incredibly rewarding.”

The Bitterroot is the “best place to be,” she said, because of how the community works together and she knows she can call the county or the board of the authority to help solve a crisis.

“You can be heard and and you can understand that people care, and you’re not just like flung to the wind,” she said.

Foster said she wants to retire in the next four years, but is excited about some upcoming projects still to come like the Bitterroot Food Innovation Center micro-food processing center.

But Foster just wants to leave the organization in a good place, but she understands growth takes time.

She said she’s happy her board is able to see the authority get recognized by the chamber.

“All the time that they spend is seen and recognized,” she said. “Even though you feel like you’re just zooming down the path every day doing so much you forgot what you did 15 minutes ago — that people see you.”

The Bitterroot Chamber will honor all of the 2025 award winners at their annual banquet, “Uncorked, A Toast to Local Success,” from 6-9 p.m. on Saturday, May 10 at Bitterroot River Inn, Hamilton.