It took Food Guy Greg Patent a long time to warm up to winter squash, but now he's such a squash-champion, he incorporated it into a salad recipe. Winter squashes are excellent roasted. Their natural sugars caramelize in a hot oven to lend a terrific umami oomph to not only the squash but to the beets and potatoes that join them in this recipe. Greg writes:

Governor Steve Bullock has appointed a former liaison in the Obama White House to a state cabinet position leading the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. 

Both the Montana Governor’s Office and a group of independent legislative researchers have come up with estimates of how much money will be available for state budgeting over the next two years.

The different projections for how much lawmakers can assume the state will earn from taxes and other revenues is separated by about two tenths of a percent. That amounts to about $10 million. That’s a relatively small amount in the context of the more than $5 billion in revenues that both estimates say the state will bring in in the next two years.

A male grizzly bear cub was killed by a train near Columbia Falls last week, adding to the abnormally high number of bear mortalities in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem this year.

In the last month two adult female grizzlies were also found dead, due to natural causes, near Hungry Horse. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks reports 48 bear mortalities this year.

FWP labels any bear removed from an ecosystem as a mortality, so not all have died. Some are moved to another region or accredited zoo.

State and Federal wildlife officials are investigating this week’s slaughter of dozens of snow geese about two miles southeast of Augusta in western Montana.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden Brady Murphy says this is a particularly heinous poaching case.

When Zoot Enterprises hired Eric Hathaway three years ago, it didn’t realize that in order to grow, the financial services technology provider would need to refresh its entire brand. But Hathaway thrives on change. “I love to help businesses move to the next level – it drives me,” says Hathaway, Zoot’s vice president of marketing.

Hathaway, who has a global business leadership resume including Credit Suisse, Standard & Poor's, Microsoft and T-Mobile, helped Zoot reposition itself in the “fintech” – financial technology – market and change the way it sold itself, communicated and found new clients.

Today on “Can Do: Lessons From Savvy Montana Entrepreneurs,” host Arnie Sherman and Hathaway discuss what it takes to rebrand a 25-year-old organization and turn it into the leader in its industry.

The fires raging in California, and one continuing to smolder in Glacier National Park, have managers in Whitefish thinking about how people in town can prepare for the worst.

More than 70 people came to the Wildfire In The City forum, hosted by Climate Smart Glacier Country on Wednesday. Speakers showed old images and newspaper clippings detailing the area’s historic burns and city staff talked about the challenges Whitefish faces.