Last summer, a team of graduate students from Harvard University rolled into White Sulphur Springs to lend a hand to one of the central Montana town’s best known businesses, Red Ants Pants.
Mike Baker, Casey Gerald, Amaris Singer and Hiham Alaoui were the founding members of MBAs Across America. The organization was formed as an opportunity for second-year MBA students to obtain real-world experience working with business owners. Instead of putting in long hours in a corporate cubicle, a typical assignment for many summer interns, these students launched a mission to assist small-business owners while also experiencing a slice of Main Street America.
Red Ants Pants, a manufacturer of rugged, American-made work pants designed specifically for women, is a made-in-Montana success story whose products have achieved a cult following.
Sarah Calhoun, the founder of Red Ants Pants, says the company was spawned from necessity. While doing trail work and other kinds of physical labor, Calhoun could never find work pants that fit the female figure, so she developed her own rugged pants geared toward working women.
Proceeds from the annual Red Ants Pants Music Festival provide grants for women’s leadership projects, working family farms and ranches and rural communities. Calhoun formed the Red Ants Pants Foundation in 2011.