Nancy serves as secretary of the Skyliners 4-Wheel Drive Club, and Mike organizes group rides into the mountains, the favorite being in five-foot deep snow, testing each driver’s off-road skills, often requiring the clever use of a winch.
An innovator of electronic control devices, Mike has had success building and selling his products through his website, Hellroaring Technologies, Inc. Some of Mike’s designs are 20 years old, but are still in demand. The year they sold 30,000 units to a military contractor seemed like a good time to celebrate. “As we were sitting in our hot tub, I said to Nancy, I’ve always wanted an airplane,” and in 2009 he found the ideal low-time 2004 Cessna 182 in North Carolina and had it ferried to Montana, and bought a hangar for it at the Polson Airport.
Mike earned his instrument rating, and stays current, logging the required approaches before they expire. Although he chooses to avoid IMC, he sometimes needs the skills to fly in summer’s smoky conditions in the West.
The RAF appreciates Mike and Nancy and all they do for the organization, in addition to their busy lives growing their business, maintaining their acreage, tending laying hens, and efforts to keep the bears from ruining all their many fruit trees. “We have some sacrificial trees that we let the bears have, but the rest is fenced now — the pruned cherry, apple, peach, plum, and pear trees,” Mike adds.
Submitted on August 14, 2025
