She moved to the Garden City from the Bitterroot Valley about a year ago and set about absorbing various bits of useful information about the town. Now, she wants to share that information with other newcomers.
Weeda launched Professional Concierge Services less than two months ago with the aim of introducing visitors and prospective homeowners to Missoula. It's more than a sightseeing trip. She's offering to spend a day with clients uncovering the best Missoula has to offer. She will answer questions, point out hidden gems and provide helpful hints for everyday living - such as where to park on the University of Montana campus.
A standard tour starts at the University of Montana, where Weeda will point out the University's various music and art venus before dropping by the UM Bookstore. Then she drives to the public library, the downtown post office, the Missoula Art Museum, city hall headquarters and the county court house. She makes sure to swing by A Carousel for Missoula and Dragon's Hollow playground, and likes to point out where the farmers markets are held in the summertime.
Weeda also takes visitors to Greenough Park and the Rattlesnake neighborhoods, including a stop at Ten Spoons Winery. She eventually winds her way over to the South Hills neighborhoods, and ends her tour at Fort Missoula.
Along the way, she will talk about Missoula's growing population and changing demographics, recommend popular shopping spots and describe the local nightlife. When the tour is over, Weeda sends her clients home with a stack of visitors guides and tourist magazines.
“So it's quite a day,” she says. “It's a great way to get to know Missoula.”
Her schedule, she explained, is flexible. She is willing to take clients to different places depending on their interests. If someone enjoys golfing, she will gladly include stops at local golf courses. If they have young children, she will tell them about Missoula's public and private schools. If they like to fly-fish, she will show off the town's rivers.
She doesn't mind the driving. Her 2004 Subaru Outback Legacy gets a dependable 28 miles to the gallon. For groups of four or more, Weeda will rent a small van.
But she's not expecting overwhelming demand for her service. Four tours a week, she estimated, is probably the busiest she'll ever get. Though Missoula continues to draw new homeowners looking for a vacation spot or a second house, Weeda expects to get most of her referrals from local businesses using the service as a recruiting tool.
She hopes to work with the University of Montana and Missoula's two major hospitals in particular because they are large institutions that regularly recruit professional staff, she said. She is also looking to work with real estate brokers who want to strengthen their pitch to high-end clients. After all, she said, a lot of out-of-staters assume there isn't much going on in Missoula.
As a relative newcomer herself, Weeda can relate. She dove right into the local scene, but even so, it took her a while to discover some of Missoula's best features.
“I didn't even know half of what was going on in this town,” she said.
Weeda is a fourth-generation Californian, and spent a long 20 years working as a paralegal in Los Angeles.
Five years ago, she and her husband, John Weeda, moved to the Bitterroot Valley, where she began volunteering for the Hamilton-based Bitterroot Chamber of Commerce. Her husband died of a stroke in December 2003.
In June 2006, Weeda moved to Missoula and started working as a volunteer for the Missoula Convention and Visitors Bureau. She worked for Movin'in, a Missoula business that offers to welcome new residents with brochures, coupons and gifts from local businesses. She also joined the Missoula Businesswomen's Network and got to know many local business owners.
“So I learned real quick about this great city,” she said.
Her background, she explained, has given her plenty of experience with service-based businesses. After she retired as a paralegal, she started selling real estate. She has also helped manage her sister's winery, a 10,000-cases-a-year mom-and-pop operation in northern California.
Northern California can be beautiful she said, but “nothing compares to Missoula, Montana. Nothing compares to it. You can do something different here every day.”
Weeda received her business license May 25. She had a first run of business cards and information packets printed, and joined the Missoula Downtown Association. All in all, she estimates it cost her less than $400 to start the business.
So far she hasn't spent much time advertising her business, but this fall she plans to start spreading the word. Already the idea has really gotten a lot of great response, Weeda said.
The business could be a wonderful complement to the Missoula Convention and Visitors Bureau's work with short-term visitors, said MCVB executive director Barb Neilan.
People generally come to the visitors bureau looking for information about where to eat and what to do during for a day or two, she said. Weeda's target clientele is people looking to spend a lot of time in Missoula. On Monday alone, 75 people walked through the center's doors. In the last month, MCVB staff talked to visitors from England and Israel, Ireland and Canada, “and from all 50 states, of course,” Neilan said.
There are people in Missoula offering individual guided services, such as historical walking tours, but nobody she knows of has thought to provide an overview of the whole city.
“It is a new concept for Missoula and I think it's really interesting,” Neilan said. “I'm hoping that it's something that will take off for her. We'll see if Missoula's ready for it.”
Mortgage broker Jeff Hasskamp of APM First Inc. expects to recommend Weeda's service to some of his clients.
“A strong number of our clients are from out of state,” he explained. “It seems like it would be something that would be very beneficial for people moving in.”
With modern communication systems and the Internet, he said, a lot of people who live outside the state can do basic research on their own. Weeda, however, offers to show them around in person. That personal touch, Hasskamp said, is what makes the tour unique.
Not long ago, another local mortgage broker recommended Weeda's service to a couple from the eastern United States. They were thinking of relocating to Missoula, and wanted to know more about the area.
They were particularly interested in hearing about Missoula's population growth, and asked about local private schools. Weeda filled them in over the course of a six-hour tour.
“They were surprised there's so much in Missoula,” Weeda said.
The fact that western Montana is full of open, friendly people makes her job a lot easier, she added. Many people visiting from larger cities have been “pleasantly overwhelmed” by Missoula's welcoming atmosphere, she said.
Professional Concierge Services will take that attitude to the next level.
“I can be Missoula's official tour guide,” she said, laughing.
Reporter Tyler Christensen can be reached at 523-5215 or tyler.christensen@lee.net
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