Jim Drummond, president and CEO of Bozeman's First Security Bank,
and Barbara Heck, local philanthropist and partner in Security
Title Co. of Bozeman, were named as recipients of the Bozeman
Area Chamber of Commerce-Montana State University 2001 Community
Excellence Award at ceremonies Tuesday night.
The awards were presented by Jaynee Drange Groseth, director of
the MSU Alumni Association, during the 19th annual Chamber-MSU
Awards for Excellence banquet. More than 350 business and campus
leaders attended the ceremonies held in the Strand Union on the
MSU campus.
The community service awards, presented by the MSU Alumni
Association, are awarded annually to a local man and woman in
recognition of outstanding support of the Bozeman and Montana
State University communities. Criteria for the award includes
giving time and resources, beyond business or professional
obligations, to both the community and MSU-Bozeman.
Two MSU students who have been committed volunteers while in
school also received the Torlief Aasheim Community Involvement
Award. Ruth Kajdan, an exercise and physiology major from Palmer,
Alaska, and Quentin Vaira, a mechanical engineering student from
Lambert, Mont., received the Aasheim student involvement award
from the MSU Office for Community Involvement.
The excellence banquet is co-sponsored by the MSU Alumni Assoc.
and the Bozeman Area Chamber of Commerce's MSU-Chamber Relations
Committee. It is a night that fetes the achievements of 40 of
MSU's top students as well as the students' faculty mentors.
A native of Bozeman, Drummond graduated from Montana State
University with a degree in Ag Business in 1976. He also earned a
Master's of Public Administration degree from MSU in 1983. He
began with First Security Bank in 1980 with a job as an
agriculture loan officer and has ascended that bank's corporate
ladder. He was named president and CEO in 1990.
Drummond has been active in the Bozeman Chamber of Commerce,
serving as past board member and is currently incoming president
of the Chamber's Green Coat Committee. He is the chairman of the
Bozeman Police Commission, the State Banking Board and is
treasurer of the Gallatin Valley Beef Producers. He is a past
director of the Ag Lenders' Range School and the Bozeman Jaycees.
He is an active musician, playing with the Bozeman City Municipal
Band. He is an adviser to MSU's chapter of Sigma Nu Fraternity,
has been a friend and frequent teacher at MSU's Taekwondo Club
for 25 years and this year helped revamp MSU's Steer-a-Year
scholarship program.
Heck graduated from Montana State University in 1986 with a
degree in business. She is the president of the Bozeman Library
Foundation Board, is a member of the Museum of the Rockies Board
of Trustees and is also a member of the Bozeman Police Commission
as well as the committee for the Bozeman Area Chamber of Commerce
2001 Airshow. She is the past president of the Bozeman Business
and Professional Women and was a past state director of BPW.
Heck and her husband, Scott, co-owners of Security Title in
Bozeman, are affiliated with and active in many local
organizations including the Bozeman Chamber of Commerce and as
well as state and national land title organizations. They also
are generous and frequent financial supporters of dozens of
organizations and causes in the community. Among those causes are
the Deaconess Hospital endowment for cancer, the MSU College of
Business where they have endowed scholarships, and they are
endowed founders of the Bobcat Athletic Foundation.
Ruth Kajdan has a perfect 4.0 grade point average while
performing a stellar amount of volunteer work. Kajdan is a CAP
mentor and a weekly volunteer to the Irving Elementary School
Boy's and Girl's Club Smart Moves program. She was a volunteer
teacher of English in China last summer, and was a U.S. Forest
Service trail crew volunteer in the Gila Forest during a MSU
Breaks Away program last spring. She volunteers as an athletic
event official in her hometown of Palmer, Alaska as well as a
volunteer at an assisted living facility there. A member of the
MSU Honors Program, Kajdan is active in a wide-range of campus
organizations including Phi Kappa Phi, the ASMSU Wellness
Coalition and University Christian Fellowship. Kajdan's goal is
to establish a wilderness adventure camp for teenaged youth from
difficult family backgrounds, particularly those with eating
disorders so they can heal emotionally, physically and
spiritually.
Quentin Vaira has a 3.85 grade point average in mechanical
engineering. He is active in Big Brothers Big Sisters, is
involved in Tau Beta Phi's paper recycling community service
program. He is quite active in Collegiate Kiwanis, serving as
president and active volunteer. He has chaperoned middle school
fun night dances as well as volunteered at Gallatin Valley Rest
Home and painted the Manhattan Fire Hall as a volunteer for
Circle K.
