KALISPELL — Flathead Valley Community College leaders cut the ribbon Thursday night to the Wachholz Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, signaling the beginning of new opportunities in northwest Montana.
The building was funded by local businessman Paul Wachholz in 2023 after he gave $4 million to the project.
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"Paul came to us with the idea for a gift to create an entrepreneurship center," said Jane Caras, Flathead Valley Community College President. "He started his life as an entrepreneur and has been very successful, and thought it would be great for the college to be able to provide those types of opportunities and resources to other people."
The brand new center's goals are to become a hub for anyone building a business or a product, as well as solving community problems throughout the Flathead Valley.
"To provide a place for innovators to get together to continue to build on their ideas, to meet needs to solve problems, to provide that place, really, for that to happen," Caras said.
Armed with classrooms, media spaces, and modern technology, the center aims to host many events to possibly get the ball rolling on the next big idea.
"We're also going to have some workshops and then we're going to have evening events where we bring folks that have built interesting things, share their knowledge and experience and help get people access to amazing people, experts, service providers to help them succeed," Eric Harry, Wachholz Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center director.
While expectations for the center are high, the main goal is simple: bring people together.
"The bigger picture here is at the end of the day in five years, can we have in this room, someone building a food truck, someone who's got an HVAC company, and someone that's scaling the next AI company all in a room together having coffee, sharing their expertise, their knowledge and learning from each other," Harry said.
