By Jack Reaney SENIOR EDITOR
There’s light at the end of an eight-year tunnel for Sarah Blechta.
With roughly six months remaining in her eight years of volunteer service on the Big Sky Resort Area District board, she’s made it through her final big push with nonprofit allocations—her fourth as board chair—and has visions of spending a little less time working on one of Big Sky’s most impactful public boards, and more time being present with her family as her daughter goes through high school.
“I am feeling a little nostalgic this morning,” Blechta said on Oct. 21, quieting a crowded room with her preamble to BSRAD’s 2025 nonprofit allocations meeting. For years, these annual meetings were often contentious, a relative free-for-all with nonprofits vying for the same grant dollars. But with improved structure and planning, recent meetings are running significantly smoother.
“We’ve always known, here in Big Sky, that we are better together,” she said. “For the past seven years, I have had the great privilege of serving alongside many of you. Listening, learning and helping shape the direction of the projects that strengthen our home… It’s bittersweet for me to be nearing the end of my term. I do so with a full heart, grateful for every challenge that we’ve had together.
“Every partnership I’ve made, every hard conversation—and there were many—every win, big or small, they moved us all forward together… Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this chapter, to serve, to learn, and to witness the extraordinary power of this community.”
Fellow board member Kevin Germain, now in his third term and ninth year on the board, said Blechta will be difficult to replace. “We really live in a community that if you invest your time into it, you can see the dividends… I don’t think anybody exemplifies it more than Sarah,” Germain told EBS.
Not only does she believe in BSRAD’s motto of “better together,” Germain said, she lives it. It’s one of her favorite phrases—often spoken with a hint of irony to inject her thoughtful humor into long meetings—and Blechta said she’s “incredibly proud” to have helped improved collaboration between Big Sky organizations.
“I think she does a good job of just reminding everybody that this is serious business, but we can’t take it too seriously. We’re all trying to work together on these things,” Germain said, also commending her efficient, professional and respectful style.
Brian Hurlbut, executive director of the Arts Council of Big Sky, agrees that her humor makes meetings more enjoyable. He’s among dozens of nonprofit leaders who stand before the board every year pursuing grant funding.
He believes Blechta’s leadership has made “a tremendous impact” on Big Sky, as the community and BSRAD board navigated unprecedented growth during her tenure.
“It’s not an easy job, but Sarah’s passion about her community makes her a strong leader—tough when she needs to be, always asking the hard questions and demanding accountability,” Hurlbut stated in an email to EBS. “The Arts Council has greatly appreciated Sarah’s dedication, commitment and hard work over the past eight years.”
Mariel Butan, executive director of Morningstar Learning Center, added that Blechta would consistently ask questions in public meetings that helped a broader audience understand the challenges faced by child care providers—true this year, too.
Kristin Gardner, chief executive and science director for the Gallatin River Task Force, said the nonprofit is “deeply appreciative” of her service.
“Sarah Blechta’s leadership on the [BSRAD] board has left a meaningful and lasting mark on our community,” Gardner stated in an email. “Her thoughtful guidance and commitment to investing in projects that enhance both the health of the Gallatin River and the vitality of Big Sky have advanced a more sustainable future for all who live, work and play here.”
Speaking in an interview just four days after the 2025 allocations cycle, Blechta reflected on the long journey and mentioned her plans for the extra hours she’ll have—her full-time job continues, of course, leading Lone Mountain Land Company’s HOA management division, Lone Mountain Management, with more than three dozen HOAs.
“I think I’ll be able to kind of step back, and blend in a little bit more,” Blechta said. “I’m looking forward to that.”
Potential applicants must file for the May 2026 election between Jan. 20 and Feb. 4, and BSRAD staff asks applicants to set up an informational meeting before registering.
“You can make a huge difference, and we need more people getting involved,” Germain said.
Blechta said it’s a very rewarding role, emphasizing the joy of giving back to the community that’s given her so much, and the “great” learning experience.
“It’s something where, by no means is it easy, but it’s worth it,” she said.
From Ophir student to public servant
Blechta arrived in Big Sky as a six-year-old in 1991, and attended Ophir School from first through eighth grade, before earning a scholarship to attend a private high school in central Minnesota.
She vowed to never live in Big Sky as an adult, but softened her stance and proceeded to return and raise a family. She has viewed the community differently over phases of her life, but says it’s never been stronger than it is today.
She formerly served on the Morningstar Learning Center board and experienced the perspective of applicants seeking Resort Tax grants for tuition assistance and other nonprofit needs. She recalls one “particularly brutal” allocations meeting in which nonprofits felt pitted against each other.
“I didn’t love that,” she told EBS. “And I don’t think that was always their intent, but it’s kind of what started to happen at some of those Resort Tax meetings.”
In 2018, when she learned that both women on the board—Heather Budd and Ginna Hermann—would be leaving at the end of their terms, she felt a responsibility to support board diversity, both age and gender.
“It was [going to be] a bunch of older men… and I felt it was important to have a young, working mom who—I grew up here, so it felt like time to give back.”
Blechta brought a different perspective at an important time—BSRAD was collecting more resort tax revenue than ever, and with greater power, greater responsibility weighed on a board of unpaid volunteers. Blechta and fellow electee Steve Johnson prioritized the growth of BSRAD staff, to ensure the board would not become a gig that only retirees had time for.
“This is still a really big job. It’s a really big, unpaid volunteer job. But then, it was more,” Blechta recalled. “We didn’t have Danny [Bierschwale] who could help lead the charge. We didn’t have Jackie [Haines] and Jenny [Christensen]… It was getting hard and intense.”
Over her professional career spanning the Yellowstone Club, Big Sky Resort and Lone Mountain Land Company, Blechta has always been passionate about leading structured growth. She pushed for Resort Tax to invest in its team—more staff means more bandwidth to handle leg work—and said hiring Danny Bierschwale in 2019 was “critically important,” calling BSRAD’s executive director a “visionary leader.”
New staff focused on enforcement and compliance—ensuring all businesses remit the required 3% tax on luxury goods and services—and cracked down on collections from short-term rentals. Staff helped create the additional “1% for Infrastructure” tax, ratified in 2020, and this year, pushed to ensure those 1% collections could fund housing. Staff have guided initiatives such as the Big Sky Wellness District and Senate Bill 260. And while Blechta once saw the board’s responsibility almost entirely in the scope of annual allocations, the BSRAD staff has improved that process, as well.
Applications are now scored out of 100, weighing factors such as matching funds and long-term planning. Furthermore, the board now sends written questions to applicants weeks before the allocations meeting. Questions were previously asked live, putting nonprofit leaders on the spot, “and it felt like an interrogation,” Blechta recalled. “… It didn’t always feel that productive.”
New procedures help put applicants on a level playing field to help inform the board and simplify the once-daunting process.
Total 3% collections have grown from $6.68 million when Blechta joined the board in 2018, to more than $17.1 million in fiscal year 2025—plus another $6.12 million in 1% collections in FY 2025 alone. Big Sky’s population and tourism growth have enabled the massive rise in revenue, underscoring the importance of “critical” organizational improvements, Blechta said.
The most recent change happened this year, when BSRAD moved its annual allocations meeting from its traditional June date, to October, to allow the board to know exactly how many dollars would be available. Applicants now have clearer expectations.
The biggest challenge for Blechta was small-town politics, as some community members share critical opinions with board members during their day jobs or family lives. She hopes residents understand the board’s intention is for all nonprofits to succeed and contribute, and that board members are human, facing tough decisions and constrained by a finite budget.
“I don’t want anybody to think that I’m not supporting one of these nonprofits because I’m asking hard questions,” she said. And she’s confident that Big Sky can do hard things, finding creative ways to fund important projects when Resort Tax dollars are stretched thin. “We are a special place, and we are not replicated anywhere… Doesn’t matter how, we’ll figure it out.”
Blechta knows various players in the community haven’t always been able to link arms and work together in the way she believes they do now, and she believes the Coordinating Council of Big Sky has helped change the narrative from competition to collaboration.
CCBS unifies nonprofit leaders and community foundations, urging groups to set aside individual needs and find opportunities to collaborate on similar projects. As a result, both applicants and BSRAD have gained leverage in their pursuits of county, state and federal dollars.
“That group really should be proud of themselves,” she said.
Efficiency and collaboration will be Blechta’s two-term legacy, and buy-in from community partners including CCBS has been essential to her vision of “better together.”
“When we show up as a group, it’s remarkable the things we’ve been able to do,” Blechta said. “… And it is something that I will be incredibly proud to be a part of.”
