Gianforte pitches Montana to out-of-state companies after Janicki expansion choice

A Washington manufacturer’s choice to put its next $800 million campus in Great Falls became Gov. Greg Gianforte’s latest sales pitch to out-of-state employers, with Helena and Lewis and Clark County watching to see whether the promise turns into payrolls, tax revenue and a deeper local supply chain.

Janicki Industries, a privately owned engineering and manufacturing firm based in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, announced June 2 that Great Falls will be the site of its next manufacturing campus. The company said the project will add 2 million square feet of production space over the next decade, create 1,000 jobs within five years and grow to more than 2,000 jobs once construction is finished.

The decision followed months of weighing options. In April, Janicki said it was evaluating expansion sites in Great Falls or south-central Idaho before making its final selection. Company leadership has framed the move as a search for a government that understands business, and said Washington’s business climate was not the right fit for the expansion.

Gianforte used the announcement in Helena to argue that Montana should keep chasing similar deals. He has repeatedly cast the state as business-friendly and said his office has set records in job and business creation under his leadership. In recent remarks, he said he wants more firms to follow Janicki’s lead, adding, “We want entrepreneurs, they’re like golden geese.”

For Lewis and Clark County, the bigger question is not whether Great Falls benefits from Janicki’s campus, but whether Gianforte’s recruitment push produces measurable gains across the state economy. That means looking past ribbon-cutting language and asking which companies are being courted, what incentives they receive and whether the jobs are the kind that can sustain families, support local contractors and expand the tax base.

It also raises a practical question for Helena: if Montana can land a 2,000-job manufacturing project in Great Falls, can the same pitch attract employers that would place workers, suppliers or satellite operations closer to the state capital? Gianforte has made tax cuts and keeping Montana attractive to employers central to his message, but the payoff will be judged by actual hiring, wages and whether the growth fits the infrastructure that communities already have to support it.

Janicki’s choice gives Gianforte a concrete example to sell. The harder test is whether that example becomes a repeatable pipeline of investment, or just one large win far from Helena.