About Us
Montana Pure Protein offers pulse protein and starch ingredients used to create solutions that satisfy consumer market demands for sustainable, flexible and nutritious food products.
Christian Orms
FOUNDER & CEO
Christian founded Montana Pure Protein with his wife Cassie; family; and friends to pursue a vision in Montana. That vision is to serve the Montana community and be part of enabling them to serve the larger community with the God given endowments of our home.
At the core of our enterprise, and why we exist, is people and our desire to contribute positively to people’s aspirations by providing them access to the healthiest and highest quality of food ingredients and products.
Christian has spent the last 9 years as the CFO of GTUIT, LLC, a local Montana Oil & Gas technology company, and the last 19 years at Optima Capital Management managing financial assets for private clients and providing support on business financial transactions.
At GTUIT, the founders and Chris, the management team, grew the company from a startup to a thriving small company from 2013 to 2021 period. Also, during that time, employment went from 3 to 60 which grew the footprint of our families to approximately 180 lives while surviving two significant downturns in the Oil and Gas Production industry.
As the CFO of a startup, the job required highly collaborative relationships and contributions across all functional aspects of the business including governance, funding & treasury, planning and analysis, operations, and strategy.
Christian has worked in the community to provide support for local organizations and taken projects to work closely with youth. Some of those efforts have been Group Leader, St. Patrick’s Co-Cathedral High School Youth Group, Billings, MT (2004-2008); State Treasurer March of Dimes, Billings, MT (2003-2005); Adjunct Professor, Rocky Mountain College, Billings, MT (Various Semesters 2003-2016); and Investment Club Sponsor, Rocky Mountain College (2016-2020).
Christian holds a BS in Business Administration from Rocky Mountain College; has achieved the CFA designation from the CFA Institute; and completed Society of Professional Engineers course work for Lean Bronze Certification.
Rob Stiles
CO-FOUNDER VP SALES
Rob spent most of his life in Texas and Montana. After graduating from high school in Montana he moved to San Antonio where he worked in the hotel and restaurant industry while attending the University of Texas San Antonio. After earning a BBA in Management Science, Rob returned to Montana and began his first entrepreneurial effort with a computer sales and service company. Subsequently, he accepted the position as a territory manager for Tenneco Automotive, positioning his sales efforts into a four-state area.
Exploring new challenges and opportunities, Rob turned his attention to the medical device world. Rob accepted a position with Synthes Orthopedics as an orthopedic trauma sales consultant, where he serviced hospitals and surgery centers across Central/Eastern Montana and Northern Wyoming. Over the next 15 years, Rob enjoyed a successful career at Synthes, exceeding sales goals in 12 of those 15 years. He was recognized at national sales meetings for multiple sales achievement awards. Despite the sales achievements, the most demanding aspect of a trauma sales consultant was the 24/7/365 support schedule. In addition to selling and supporting a comprehensive orthopedic trauma portfolio, Rob arranged and managed national, regional, and statewide health care provider tradeshows and educational events.
Following his success in Montana, Rob returned to Texas to be closer to family. With his entrepreneurial spirit, Rob embraced a new challenge as a territory sales manager with Orthosensor, a medical device startup company. Rob helped develop a market for the new technology, interoperative sensors for use in Total Knee Arthroplasty. In addition to his sales and market development role at Orthosensor, Rob was selected as a Senior Clinical Research Analyst in support of the company’s newest product – OrthoLogIQ/Motion Sense (OIQ). OIQ was an innovative software and wearable platform for Remote Patient Monitoring after knee replacement surgery. Orthosensor was subsequently purchased by Stryker Orthopedics, where Rob continued working on OIQ until the commercial launch of the product.
Rob joined Montana Pure Protein in 2022. Rob and Christian have shared a friendship spanning over 40 years, and this new venture provided an opportunity to combine their strengths and build something together. Rob’s title is VP of Sales, and as with most startups, he wears many hats. Rob looks forward to serving people and to the bright future of Montana Pure Protein.
MEET OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Rick Fedorowich
Mr. Fedorowich has a deep background of working with company ownership, executives, investors and intermediaries to maximize corporate value.
Rick most enjoys working closely with inspired founders and management teams who are attempting to make a meaningful impact to their industry through their work. Sharing a common belief that innovative disruption has the potential to create lasting and material value for all participants in the company value chain, Rick most enjoys working with founders on business strategy, medium and long term growth management and business operations execution, strategic partnerships and M&A events to maximize corporate value.
John Brzezenski
Mr. Brzezenski has a broad-based background spanning operating/executive management, advisory and private equity roles, helping numerous companies develop and execute successful growth strategies. Mr. Brzezenski has developed perspective from “all sides of the table,” having been a Partner with a Strategy/Mergers and Acquisition advisory firm, senior operating executive, and member of the investment committee of a venture capital firm.
Mr. Brzezenski is currently a Partner with J. Locke & Co, a merchant banking group focused on equity investments and turnarounds of Special Situations i.e., distressed or underperforming companies. Mr. Brzezenski graduated with honors from Harvard University with an AB in Economics, and holds an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University.
Tom Gottemoller
Tom Gottemoller has over 45 years in the food industry. Tom has experience in production management in the dairy industry as well as technical service and ingredient research for dairy products from buttermilk to ice cream to yogurt. The 24 years before he retired, Tom worked at Archer Daniels Midland Company at ADM Research in the area of process development engineering. Product included soy protein isolate and concentrates, vegetable oil processing, edible bean dehydration process and extrusion.
Tom was also on the Board of Directors for POS Bioscience in Saskatoon, SK for 15 years. He finished his active career as President and CEO of POS’ specialty Short Path Distillation plant in Batavia, IL for 2 ½ years.
Kevin Dulin
Kevin is the President and CEO of Orono Investment Group (OIG) in Wayzata, Minnesota. OIG is a boutique private equity and consulting company that provides advisory services to the food, beverage and dairy industry, assists in the sale of companies and in the identification and purchase of targets for clients, provides market assessments, valuations and strategic/business plans for clients; and, participates in the acquisition if the opportunity fits with OIG’s investment criteria.
Kevin is an experienced senior level executive working with US and International private and public companies as well as private equity ownership organizational structures. Kevin has extensive experience in managing core business functions, creating a transformational vision for an organization and the ability to develop a bold and executable strategy, with the requisite competency and capability to engage, guide and manage organizations through the anxiety of change with the expected outcome of significant improvement in enterpriser value. Kevin is considered an international expert in organizational transition and change process management and has strategized and led several such transformational initiatives, both in the United States and Internationally.