• Template is possible for other businesses.

The cost of housing and real estate in the area has exploded to the point where residents are trying to find a solution and those wishing to move into the area are turning to other locations. At least in one case, Teton Truss and the Bank of Star Valley have worked to together to make things work.

Don Staley, Alpine Branch Manager for BOSV and Bill Need, President of Teton Truss, spoke with SVI during the Weekday Wake-up radio program about the solution.

“One of our long-term goals is to put our people and products that we build into the area,” Need said. The answer is small affordable houses. It’s two-bedroom unit. It’s practically new; about three years old. It’s a new unit and for $1800 bucks he’s a home owner. We were able to do that with the collaboration of the BOSV; The power of local banking.”

The employee of Teton Truss is one of many that the company wanted to keep. So in order to do that, they got creative.

“It’s a little subdivision that we’ve been working on in Etna for about ten years,” Need continued. “ [It’s] called the Etna Shire. Two-bedroom units, 800 to 1000 square feet, two bedrooms, two lofts. We wanted to keep it simple and not go 3,000 square feet and price us out of the market. It’s a small miracle [to get this done] in this market.”

Staley credited Need with the concept and how it might work.

“It goes back to Bill who approached us,” Staley said. “He’s an innovative person and had some ideas and solutions. We were able to provide the financing with Bill taking on some of the risk on the back end. It works because of the uniqueness of the properties and the employers wanted to keep those people incentivize them. It was easy for the BOSV to make that happen.”

Staley believes it could act as a template for other businesses and employers in the area.

“For sure, if other employers have need for employees it’s great template to use and Incentive employees to stick around for a long time.”

“It’s great, It’s a win for everyone,” Need added. “It’s not something we knew we could pull off a couple years ago. It took a community bank like the Bank of Star Valley to make it happen. A national chain wouldn’t look at this. It took a local bank.”

Need also chimed in that the template can work for others.

“It is certainly part of our employee maturity model,” he said. You can own the product that you build. It just took some creativity. Other businesses can certainly do that but you have to believe in your people and in doing that they believe in you and in doing that you have a model that can work for the rest of the team.”

Staley said to start the ball rolling is simple.

“Just a standard application process, but if the employer is taking on some of the risk, come talk to us. We have it figured out. When local bank gets behind a local business we can make things happen.”