From May 21, 2026 Event – Bozeman, MT
Discover the breakthroughs, insights, and lasting changes attendees experienced, and why they believe every business owner should attend.
October 9, 2026
8:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Riverside Country Club
2500 Springhill Rd
Bozeman, MT 59718
Clarity. Control. Breakthroughs. One Day to Reset Your Company’s Trajectory.
Transform your business from working harder to growing smarter. Discover proven strategies, practical tools, and real-world insights to overcome obstacles, accelerate growth, and prepare your business for sustainable scale and future exit opportunities.
With over 35 years of leadership experience spanning finance, operations, and entrepreneurship, Jeff specializes in bringing clarity and structure to financial decision-making. His work focuses on improving cash flow, increasing business value, and preparing for successful exits. Leveraging a unique engineering-based approach, Jeff helps owners align business strategy with personal goals, ensuring their companies are built to last and ready for transition—whenever the time is right.
Steve Bendzak has spent 31 years turning founders into leaders and companies into assets built to last. As founder of Equity Catapult, he builds the brands, teams, and operating discipline that convert ambition into shareholder value — across both private and public sectors. As a System & Soul Coach, he pairs that operating discipline with a deeper focus on purpose and character, helping leaders build businesses that reflect who they actually are, not just what they can produce. Known as much for his integrity as his results, Steve doesn’t just hit ROI targets; he builds the kind of equity that outlasts the deal.
Cody Rose is the Founder and CEO of AIFluency.ai, The AI Fluency Company. A fifth-generation Montanan based in Billings, he helps organizations of any size figure out where they stand with AI and build real skill from there. It starts with a free rubric, moves into a full assessment and hands-on bootcamps, and upskills the gaps through a vetted Coaching Hub of AI experts, with quarterly assessments to keep teams sharp. The company also offers AI audits and custom implementations. The approach is human-first, and the work reaches organizations across Montana and beyond.
Bret Pacheco is the founder of Bret Pacheco CPA and a CPA with over 20 years of experience serving small business owners. Originally from Belgrade and a graduate of Auburn University at Montgomery, Bret began his journey on a baseball scholarship before discovering his passion for helping entrepreneurs make sense of their finances. Today, he blends deep technical expertise with a coach’s mindset, guiding business owners to build profitable companies that support the life they truly want.
Join a room full of ambitious business owners and leaders who are serious about growth, connection, and taking their companies to the next level.
This isn’t another event filled with theory and fluff. It’s a high-energy, interactive experience where you'll connect with like-minded leaders, share real-world challenges, and gain practical insights you can put to work immediately.
Learn from experienced business experts in the room who will share proven strategies, growth frameworks, and insider tools to help you increase profitability, build stronger teams, create more freedom, and accelerate your company's growth.
Leave with fresh ideas, valuable relationships, and an action plan to help you lead with greater confidence and achieve bigger results in your business.
Connect. Learn. Grow. Walk away with strategies.
Savoring Coffee. Share the Agenda for the day. Steve: Story of Name.
What to expect of the day and each other. Enable presence and participation by making clear what is expected from participants during the day. Propose some group agreements and invite the group to add anything else needed to create an excellent learning environment. Logistics and Bio Time.
A meaningful opportunity to gain insight from the room.
Three Moments That Change the Financial Future of a Business In business, the biggest financial decisions rarely come with much warning. In this fast-paced session, Jeff Streeter shares three real-world moments where strategic financial leadership made the difference between disruption and opportunity. When a key accounting leader suddenly resigned and financial operations were at risk When a contractor lost bonding capacity just weeks before bidding a $2M project When business owners received unexpected acquisition offers and had to determine whether to engage—or walk away Through these brief case examples, Jeff will show how the right financial leadership at the right moment can stabilize operations, restore credibility, and help owners make confident decisions when the stakes are high.
A meaningful opportunity to gain insight from the room.
Think Differently. Structure Intentionally. Bret Pacheco will challenge you to look at your business through a different lens: PURPOSE. From that foundation, he'll show how tax strategy, legal structure, and operational decisions flow when your business model reflects your "why". You will wish this strategic session on Taxes would have been deployed earlier, yet now is the time to gain methods from the "numbers ninja" to get more if what you've earned.
A meaningful opportunity to gain insight from the room.
Leveraging AI to Work Smarter and Lead Better
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the way businesses operate. In this session, you’ll learn how to use AI as a practical tool to increase productivity, streamline everyday tasks, and make more informed decisions—without needing a technical background.
What you’ll learn:
Whether you’re just getting started with AI or looking to expand how you use it in your business, this session will equip you with actionable strategies to help you work smarter, innovate faster, and stay ahead in an evolving business landscape.
Take a well-deserved break, enjoy a delicious lunch, and continue the conversations sparked throughout The Owner’s Edge.
This is more than just a meal—it’s an opportunity to connect with fellow business owners, share experiences, exchange ideas, and build relationships with people who understand the journey of leading and growing a business.
Enjoy great food, meaningful conversations, and a chance to recharge before diving back into the afternoon session.
Everyone studies what exceptional leaders do — vision, strategy, execution. Almost nobody studies what makes those actions actually land. Drawing on a 45-year leadership study that tested ten core attributes against real-world effectiveness, Steve Bendzak unpacks a striking finding: just two of those ten — account for more than 77% of a leader's effectiveness. In this session, you'll learn what those two attributes look like in practice, why the other eight matter less than most leadership training assumes, and how to build leadership from the inside out instead of chasing tactics that don't move the needle. You'll leave with a research-backed lens for evaluating your own leadership, and a free tool to start measuring it.
Take-Aways from the day.
Your feedback matters. This session is designed to gather valuable insights from attendees, helping us better understand your experiences, challenges, and priorities as business leaders. What you'll participate in: Share your perspectives on key business and leadership topics. Provide feedback on the event experience and sessions. Identify areas where you need additional support, resources, or opportunities. Contribute insights that help shape future programs and events. Your input will help create more valuable experiences and ensure we continue delivering content that addresses the real needs of business owners, leaders, and entrepreneurs.
Bring the day to a meaningful close as we reflect on the insights, conversations, and connections from The Owner’s Edge. Take a moment to identify the ideas that challenged you, the lessons you want to carry forward, and the actions you’re ready to take in your business. We’ll wrap up the experience with final reflections, key takeaways, and a reminder that the real value of today begins when you put what you’ve learned into action. Leave inspired, focused, and ready to lead your business with greater clarity, intention, and confidence.
The Owner’s Edge isn’t just another conference—it’s a working session built to drive real breakthroughs in how you lead and run your business.
In just one day, you and your team will gain the clarity, tools, and strategies to remove growth bottlenecks, align your people, and position the business for scale .
Bring your entire executive team so you can apply these insights together immediately. If you can’t attend personally, send a key leader in your place—the ROI is simply too high to miss.
Seats are limited. Registration is just $249 per person. Secure your spot today and give your business the clarity, control, and breakthroughs it deserves.
Most business owners didn't start their company to spend their days putting out fires, managing people problems, and wondering why growth feels harder than it should.
Yet that's where many leaders find themselves.
Owner's Edge Montana was created to help business owners, founders, and executives step away from the day-to-day and gain access to the tools, strategies, and resources that stronger companies use to grow, increase profitability, and build long-term value.
Presented by Equity Catapult, this one-day summit brings together Montana business leaders who are committed to improving their companies—not just maintaining them..
You'll learn practical frameworks for leadership, team alignment, profitability, tax strategy, and business growth from experts who have helped companies overcome obstacles and achieve meaningful results.
You'll leave with:
• Tools you can implement immediately
• Fresh solutions to persistent challenges
• Valuable connections with fellow business leaders
• Resources that can save years of trial and error
The companies that thrive aren't always the ones that work harder—they're the ones that learn faster and execute better.
Seats are limited. Don't give your competitors the advantage.
Join Montana's business leaders and gain the edge your company deserves.
Ben Axtel
