Tudor Montague’s small business journey is a social impact success story.
Montague had been working for tribes in the environmental field, and while it was a rewarding career, he had always dreamed of starting his own business. In 2015, after a lot of studying, experimenting, planning, and dreaming of running his own coffee roasting business, he did just that and Spirit Mountain Roasting Co. was born. Vicki met Tudor in 2018, serving as his mentor during the New Mexico Community Capital’s Native Entrepreneur in Residence (NEIR) program. She helped him strategize and plan, as well as make connections in the roasting industry.
A member of the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe, Tudor brings his community-centered, Indigenous perspective to everything he does, including his business. When he opened Spirit Mountain, he did so on his reservation to bring jobs and other opportunities to his people. He makes purchasing decisions that both minimize the business’s impact on the environment and are in line with ethical practices throughout the supply chain. His path shows that using systems change to create better ways of being in the world isn’t something that only nonprofit or charitable organizations can do. Small business owners can lean into work and a community that they love and then build new systems and ways of doing things around them.
We invited Tudor to share more about his journey on Impact Out Loud. Listen in to our two-part interview with him to learn more about how he’s opened a roasting company (and just recently a brick and mortar coffee shop!) on the Quechan reservation while keeping Indigenous values and his community at the forefront.
Powered by RedCircle
Powered by RedCircle
