Jack Schunke: Five Decades at Morrison-Maierle

The Legacy Series highlights long-term employee-owners who have dedicated a significant portion of their careers to Morrison-Maierle. These veterans have a wealth of stories, experiences, and wisdom and have helped shape Morrison-Maierle into the company it is today.

Jack’s Early Days

Jack Schunke grew up in Bozeman in the 1950s and 60s. He describes Bozeman as a pretty little town at the time, and he loved working with his brothers in his family’s shop, rebuilding engines from a young age.

By age 12, Jack had his first car. Although his dad was strict, he allowed Jack and his brothers “a bit of freedom in our little town.” After driving around town for a couple of years, his dad finally mentioned that he should probably get a driver’s license.

As he prepared to graduate from Bozeman High School, Jack considered his options for the future. He knew he loved building and getting his hands dirty, so he contemplated skipping college altogether and getting a job with a construction crew. But his brother, who was studying engineering at Montana State University, encouraged him to rethink that plan.

As a result, Jack entered MSU’s mechanical engineering program in 1969. After a year of college, he still wasn’t satisfied. At that point, he decided to join the National Guard, which exposed him to the military atmosphere, many new and interesting people, and the opportunity to travel across the country. His time in the National Guard gave him a glimpse of what life was like outside of his hometown.

Jack’s experiences in the National Guard motivated him to continue his education at MSU. During his summers off, he worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a firefighter and surveyor. His survey experience included staking miles of slope and cross sections for logging roads in the backcountry. He learned a lot and had no shortage of exercise, which eventually led him to construction engineering. Six years after his initial start, Jack graduated from MSU in 1975.

Finding Morrison-Maierle

Jack met Dave Orbe while working in communications for the National Guard. They became good friends and kept in touch after their service ended. As Jack was finishing school, Dave was managing the Bozeman Morrison-Maierle office.

Jack recalls trying to get Dave to hire him during his last few years of school. “I kept hounding him saying, ‘Hey, I want to work for Morrison-Maierle,’ and I really started to twist his arm during my senior year… It probably helped that I had introduced him to his wife!”

Dave delivered on the IOU by hiring Jack to work for Morrison-Maierle fresh out of school in 1975.

Thinking back to his time as a new grad, Jack is grateful for the opportunity to join Morrison-Maierle. He said, “Bozeman was not a growing town, and neither was Montana. There were maybe 20 civil engineers out there working in Bozeman, including our competitors, and I felt lucky to have a job.”

Early Career

When Jack first started working as an airport engineer in 1975, Gallatin Field was just a runway with very limited taxiways. Over the next ten years, he watched the airport grow from a bare runway to a fully functioning airport with a new terminal, apron, and parallel taxiway.

Looking back on his early career, Jack recalls the mentorship he received from John Morrison, Jr., Dave Carlson, and many others who guided him through all aspects of airport design and construction.

Hard Times and Big Accomplishments

Times at Morrison-Maierle were not always fruitful. Jack recalls the early 1980s as some of the hardest times for Montana and the country. By 1985, the Bozeman office had downsized from 25 to 4 employees. After 10 years of work at the Bozeman airport, funding was cut. Morrison-Maierle sold nearly all the company vehicles, and half of the staff transitioned to part-time work.

Jack remembers the turning point: Corporate suggested closing the Bozeman office. His competitive nature kicked in. He saw a challenge, held up his hand, and convinced corporate to give him a chance to regrow the office and get them back in business. He was given one year to turn things around. If he was unsuccessful, he would have to relocate to Helena, and the Bozeman office would be shut down.

He knew they had to diversify from the airport work that had kept them so busy in the past, and Jack committed to networking and business development. He could see that his “little hometown” was getting noticed and saw potential in urban development.

Jack set out to build relationships wherever he could. He attended county commissioners’ meetings and introduced himself to attorneys, realtors, and other community movers and shakers. His hard work and energy paid off when an attorney reeled him into a big development proposal that eventually became Spanish Peaks and the Yellowstone Club. These projects and many others brought the Bozeman office back into growth mode. In fact, these projects still keep numerous employee-owners busy full-time nearly 30 years later.

To meet the needs of its new development clients, the office had to hire sub-consultants for environmental work, well drilling, planning, surveying, and testing. Jack realized this created an opportunity for Morrison-Maierle to grow even more.

The Bozeman office hired environmental specialists, planners, and surveyors and started an in-house material testing lab to perform gravel testing, nuclear density testing, asphalt mix design, and other services. This allowed Morrison-Maierle to have more control over the schedule and quality of their projects.

The office and its services grew rapidly through the 1990s to the point that the Bozeman staff was spread throughout four different buildings. In 2007, Morrison-Maierle built a new office building to house everyone under the same roof.

“When I think back, and even when I walk through the halls of any Morrison-Maierle office, the most rewarding thing was being a part of that growth, but I certainly didn’t do it alone.”