Bear Paw hires new value-added ag director

Havre Daily News staff

Bear Paw Development Corp. announced it has hired Taylor Lyon of Chester to work as its Food and Agriculture director.

Lyon previously worked as the plant manager for Earl

Fisher Biofuels in Chester and is the founder of the Montana Biofuel Exchange LLC, which collects used cooking oil from restaurants and processes it into biodiesel and animal feed. 

"While new to our organization, Taylor has been involved in the area

of value-added agriculture and alternative energy for the better part of a decade," Bear Paw Executive Director Paul Tuss said in a press release. "He fundamentally understands the importance to our regional economy of adding value to our agricultural products, investing in alternative forms of energy and helping good ideas become a reality." 

The Bear Paw Food and Agriculture Development Center is part of a statewide network of centers focused on providing training, technical assistance, product development, market research and access to financing for Montana-made products and renewable energy projects. Other centers are located in Butte, Ronan and Joliet.  Bear Paw's FADC primarily covers an area of northern Montana that includes Cascade, Pondera, Teton, Glacier, Toole, Liberty, Hill, Blaine, Phillips and Chouteau counties and the Rocky Boy's, Blackfeet and Fort Belknap Indian reservations.

"I really believe that a cornerstone to the economic growth of northern Montana, and our entire state, lies in working with agricultural entrepreneurs who have a vision for something bigger and better than the status quo and who believe that our best days are still ahead of us," Lyon said in the release. "A strong and robust agricultural sector is what helped to build a good portion of our state for more than a century. I believe that trend will continue, only with a greater emphasis on doing more with our crops and other ag products to create added value for our producers and for rural Montana."

Lyon has a bachelor's degree from Carroll College in biology and a master's degree from the University of Montana in environmental studies and has also worked for the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Montana State University-Northern's Bio-Energy Center. 

To contact the Bear Paw FADC, people can call 265-9226 or e-mail Lyon at [email protected].