Raised in Missoula by entrepreneurial parents, Reghan Brandt was exposed to the business world from a young age. She attended St. Joes and Loyola High School before going on to graduate from Gonzaga University in Spokane.

“My parents instilled in me and my three sisters a can-do attitude, and that risk was to be calculated but not feared,” said Brandt. “I was taught that being humble, hungry, educated, and honest were the big four in life, and these attributes would guarantee success and happiness in life. I watched my parents build multiple successful businesses and raise four independent women.”

After graduation, Brandt started her life in the corporate world at Wells Fargo Financial. By 2008 however, Brandt was itching to start her entrepreneurial journey and founded Columbia Pacific Finance, an insurance premium finance company, with a group of private investors based in Seattle.

Since its founding, Columbia Pacific has expanded nationally and has worked with over 10,000 brokers across the country.

As a woman, Brandt faced a unique set of challenges in the insurance industry, but her passion and experience navigating the corporate world helped guide her through these obstacles.

“Being a young woman starting out in the insurance industry I had to be better, work harder, utilize technology more efficiently, and understand the insurance industry better than my competitors,” she said.

In 2015, Brandt made her way back to Missoula when she was approached by her investor group with a plan to set up an office in the area. Missoula is a hotspot within the tech industry of Montana, with multiple experts such as Submittable, LMG Security, and Blackstone LaunchPad headquarters based in Missoula.

“Missoula has allowed myself and my team to have a great work-life balance where we can be passionate about growing a business and making sure we are home to have dinner and take our kids fishing, bike riding, hiking, skiing,” she said. “My team is now my closest friends and family and I feel grateful each day that my commute is a walk across the Higgins bridge and my lunch breaks are a walk along the Clark Fork River.”

In December 2019, a couple of months before the pandemic hit, Brandt got an entrepreneurial itch to start another business.

“Because of my experience and network, I founded LRP, the Loss Runs Pros, a subscription software solution to help insurance agents solve a very large pain point in the insurance renewal and new business process,” she said. “I launched the initial prototype in December 2019 and gained some early success by being selected to the 1st Brokertech Ventures Accelerator, a VC firm composed of thirteen of the top 100 insurance agencies.”

The Loss Run Pro software went live at the beginning of 2021 after almost a year of perfecting the technology. Brandt predicts that it will become the industry standard for messaging and receiving loss runs. In April, the K2 Insurance Co., a major insurance player, invested a large amount of funding into Loss Run Pro.

Brandt is hopeful about the continued growth of her businesses and her future in Missoula.

“We have had an overwhelming response from the broker community and are adding multiple new users daily. We're hoping to onboard over 2,500 users by the end of 2021,” she said. “I'm looking forward to being able to provide quality jobs and create another team that gets to call Missoula home, all while feeling passionate about their work.”

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