A former 25-year employee at the Frenchtown mill, Dauenhauer was the principal local real estate agent working on the sale of the old paper plant since it closed in January 2010.

Like many, he was dismayed with MLR Investment's plan to scrap the mill.

"I've been real close to this for the last 15 months, and I met with Ralston numerous times. I knew exactly what he was going to do," Dauenhauer said. "He wanted to chop it up into 160s and sell it off. He was going to sell anything he could make a buck on - the water rights, the Title V (clean air) permits - anything.

"If Ralston would have gotten his hands on it, it would have altered Missoula Valley's future for any kind of industry."

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Contrast that to the two-man Green Investments Group. Stillwell is a lawyer who got into the business of acquiring and redeveloping abandoned mills in his hometown of Alton, Ill., 10 years ago. Spizzo is a longtime economic development director in Illinois.

"Mark and Ray are just good folks," Dauenhauer said. "They own six (former Smurfit) sites and they've got their heads around this community on a state and local level. There are no surprises with them."