News & Features

Making it in Montana

Entrepreneur found success in California with wooden lacrosse sticks but wanted to build his business here
BY MOLLY PRIDDY // AUG 1, 2019

WHITEFISH — To get to work, an entrepreneur needs to have an idea and figure out the means to make it happen. But for a growing number of Montana producers, knowing where they want to make their product is also important.

Such is the case of Joe Clough, who hails from the Bay Area of California but now works as a bartender at the Pin & Cue bowling alley here and also takes on mechanical jobs. It’s not so much that he has a passion for pouring drinks — though he enjoys it — it’s that the job gives him the means to stay in Montana to grow his business, Wood Spoon Lacrosse.

The company builds lacrosse sticks from American ash and white oak, and they come in two versions. One is solid wood, and the other is wooden with a carbon fiber core.

Clough himself used the carbon-fiber version for his whole career playing lacrosse at the University of Montana.

“There are harsher elements here than in the Bay Area,” he said. “We wanted to make something that could combat the snow and the cold.”

Clough graduated from the University of Montana two years ago, and he fell in love with the state while here. But before he got to Montana, he and his father built lacrosse sticks from wood as a project for Clough’s senior year of high school.
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For more information on Wood Spoon Lacrosse, visit www.facebook.com/pg/WoodSpoonLacrosse406.