D.A. Davidson Is at Home on the Range in Great Falls, MT

Courtesy of D.A. Davidson Companies

When Larry Martinez first went to Montana, he was just passing through. When he returned five years later, he stayed.

With bona fides worthy of Wall Street, Martinez chose to relocate to Great Falls in 1995. He decided to stay when he joined D.A. Davidson seven years later. Originally that firm’s general counsel, he was named president in 2016 and is currently chairman and CEO.

“I believed Great Falls would be a terrific place to find the appropriate work-life balance,” he says.

Fresh from earning a law degree at Stanford University, Martinez started his career in nearby San Francisco in 1987. When he accepted a job in Minneapolis in 1990, the trip east took him and his wife through Montana.

“We fantasized how great it would be to find a way to live and work there,” Martinez says.

Wall Street Meets the Rockies

As it happened, his new firm had an office in Great Falls. He split time between there and Minneapolis for three years, before moving to Great Falls.

“We had two little boys,” he says. “I thought the ease of living in Great Falls would better enable me to be involved in their school and other activities, while doing the same type of sophisticated work I’d been doing.”

Matt Ehnes

Launched in 1935, D.A. Davidson is employee-owned and privately held, with more than 1,600 employees in 30 states and Canada. But Great Falls remains the firm’s largest single office, Martinez says, and technology gives staff there all the reach they need to serve individual, institutional and municipal clients worldwide.

Martinez says serving clients beyond Montana’s borders is precisely what Chairman Emeritus Ian Davidson, son of the firm’s founder and a former CEO, had in mind when he joined the firm in 1958.

“He liked the tagline ‘Where Wall Street meets the Rockies,’” Martinez says. “The notion being that we can bring the expertise Wall Street offers and deliver it beyond Wall Street with high levels of personal service and engagement.”

Great Falls is an ideal place to conduct business, he says, crediting its standout workforce.

“It’s easier to get to know employees in a town like Great Falls, where you bump into people outside of work – that’s one of the things I love about living here,” he says.

Community Involvement

Martinez acknowledges that recruiting to Great Falls can be challenging, but says the city is an “easy place to work” and an “appealing, practical home for our firm” with multiple strengths. “The cost of living is affordable compared with national averages,” he says. “Great Falls is also central to Montana’s outdoor recreation offerings, which help deliver a lifestyle that larger areas cannot match. There are good schools, a solid health care system and a culture defined by hard-working, community-minded people.”

Courtesy of D.A. Davidson Companies

Martinez says being in Great Falls affords D.A. Davidson employees opportunities for community involvement that might not be available in larger cities. Among the ways in which the firm pitches in is through support for the United Way of Cascade County, where D.A. Davidson is a founding member and for several years has been the nonprofit’s largest single donor.

“We plan a month of employee activities to raise money in addition to employee pledges,” he says. “The firm matches all the money raised through those activities and pledges.”

And he says that, in recognition of the firm’s 90th anniversary in 2025, D.A. Davidson organized 90 Days of Giving. Volunteers put together meal kits for the Great Falls Community Food Bank, helped ‘Stuff the Bus’ for the Backpacks4Kids program, and provided cleanup at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, among other activities.

Local Charm

For all the reasons that Great Falls works so well for D.A. Davidson, Martinez chose it for what he felt it offered in terms of his family’s quality of life.

“The trail systems in and around Great Falls are a constant source of joy,” he says. “There’s beautiful, peaceful walks along the Missouri River, and backpacking in nearby Glacier National Park.”

Proximity to the outdoors, restaurants, shops, the museum celebrating the art of Charles Russell and Great Falls Voyagers pro baseball games – all combine to validate his love of the region.

“Watching the community evolve while still holding onto small-town charm,” he says, “has been one of the most rewarding parts of calling Great Falls home.”