'Outside' names ZaneRay top 10 best place to work

An employee at The ZaneRay Group might come into work at 7 a.m. and put in a few hours before hitting Big Mountain for a mid-day run on the slopes. Or after working late into the night to finish a deadline, take off a little early the next day to ride some singletrack.

Such is life for employees at the design and marketing firm, whose client list includes the likes of Patagonia, Head and Filson.

“We work hard, but we also play hard,” said Dean Hamilton, the company’s senior software engineer. “We realize deadlines and late nights are part of our job, but we also keep the balance.”

ZaneRay’s philosophy for creating a healthy work-life balance caught the attention of “Outside” magazine. The company was named No. 10 on the magazine’s fifth annual “Best Places to Work” list.

“What I think is great about the award is that from day one this has been a great place to work,” said Reed Gregerson, president of ZaneRay. “We balance work with family and having a full life. It’s nice to have ‘Outside’ recognize what we’ve been doing.”

Rising from a field of 100 applicants, ZaneRay was selected as part of a yearlong selection process that included employee-satisfaction surveys and analysis of the companies’ employee benefits.

Hamilton said ZaneRay offers its employees something unique if they choose to experience it. He knows people he went to college with that are in high paying jobs, but that also deal with high stress, big city traffic and live in tiny apartments.

“Why not live in Whitefish?” he said. “They don’t have a ski run out their backdoor. That’s part of the reason we want to live here and so do our employees.”

Even the company’s office in the Railway District was chosen for a specific reason.

“There are less expensive places to be, but we pay a premium to be within walking distance of downtown,” Gregerson said. “Being in Whitefish — in the gateway to Glacier National Park and all these amenities — it pays off in the end. It creates a business where we attract good employees.”

ZaneRay’s advertisement for job openings reads almost like a vacation magazine. It asks prospective employees if they’ve thought about having a job that is challenging while living in a place where camping, fishing and skiing are 15 minutes away.

Attracting the right employees and treating them well is important, according to Gregerson, because those good employees will want to stay in an industry known for its turnover. In the longterm it benefits ZaneRay, he noted.

“Customers like that our turnover is very low. For many it’s a big reason they choose us,” Gregerson said. “When they call wanting changes they don’t want to have to talk to a new person every other month. They want the person that understands their business. We’re providing continuity.”

Thomas Sebby has worked at ZaneRay for six months and already he sees what ZaneRay has to offer.

“A lot of it’s the people,” he said. “At other places there’s no social interactions. Here we’re in the same office and in a really friendly environment.”

At other companies, an employee might be seen as no different than a desk or a chair, he said, to be used and tossed away. However, at ZaneRay employees are encouraged to grow and learn.

“What they do is make the job easier to do,” he said. “All the perks add up to the company making sure you’re happy, which in turn makes the company very happy [when you work well.]”

Pete Thomas, design director, has been with ZaneRay six years.

“Working out of Whitefish in a fairly small mountain community, it’s easy to enjoy everything it has to offer,” Thomas said. “You can go out for a bike ride or swim or ski. At ZaneRay I enjoy the challenges and problem-solving while working hard with very interesting people.”

ZaneRay hosted a customer appreciation ski day this past winter. The company rented Turner Mountain outside Libby and clients and employees met for work, but also for fun.

“We’re considered a destination vendor,” Thomas said. “Typically our clients are coming from metropolitan areas and it’s refreshing for them to get out in our environment.”

q For the third year in a row River Design Group in Whitefish made the list. This year at No. 16. Other Montana companies on the list are Seeley Lake Elementary, MercuryCSC in Bozeman and Ecology Project in Missoula.