32
Years in Bozeman
$450M
Assets under management
9
People
"We left a regional brokerage because we felt like we were selling products instead of advising people."
Wade Hollis, Founder
We call this the Main Street Method, after the office where it started in 1994. It has stayed the same shape ever since.
You tell us what is happening, whether that is a land sale, a business offer, or a plan taking shape.
We walk through twelve questions we ask every family across the table, covering land, taxes, mineral rights, and succession.
Ellen works with your attorney and accountant so a sale gets structured before it is signed, not after.
We put the plan in plain language and walk through it with you until every part makes sense.
We review the plan with you once or twice a year and call when something in your life or the markets changes.
Ready to hear the twelve questions for yourself?
See how a first meeting works ›10 questions · 3 minutes
This quiz is educational and not personalized advice.
Your result
The land is not yet set up to pass cleanly, and the part that usually causes trouble is not the paperwork but the conversation. Both are workable, and starting early is what keeps the choice yours.
The intent is clear and the structure is partly there. What is normally missing at this stage is liquidity: the cash that stops a tax bill from forcing a sale.
The structure, the documents and the family conversation are aligned. From here it is a matter of keeping them aligned as the family and the tax rules change.
Picking stocks means guessing which company does better than the next. Your firm builds portfolios instead, spread across many holdings so no single company can sink a family's plan. For clients whose wealth already sits concentrated in one ranch or one business, adding more concentration through stock picking works against the goal of steadiness.
Going deep means each advisor carries fewer relationships, so there is time to know your land, your business, and your family's history. That attention has a cost, and Great Buffalo Private Wealth is not priced to be the cheapest option in Bozeman. In exchange, you get direct access to the people doing the work, not a call center.
No, and the firm does not try to be. Cutting fees to the bottom usually means cutting attention too. Great Buffalo Private Wealth would rather charge a fair price and give a smaller number of families real time from Wade, Cole, Ellen, and Nora than spread thin across many accounts.
Someone who wants to trade actively, chase whatever is hot, or follow the market day to day will be frustrated here. Great Buffalo Private Wealth is built for families and business owners working through a major transition, like a ranch sale or a business exit, who want a steady plan rather than constant activity.
Risk looks different right after a sale. You have gone from illiquid land or a company to cash and questions all at once. The firm's approach starts with slowing down, understanding taxes and timing, and building a plan before assets get invested anywhere, rather than rushing into the market on day one.
A conservation easement, mineral rights, or a ranch sale changes a family's financial picture in ways a generic model does not capture. Thirty-two years in Bozeman means the firm has seen these situations repeat across families, and the investment approach is built around that pattern rather than a one-size plan built somewhere else.
If this sounds like how you would want to be treated, Schedule a Conversation and you will hear from one of us within one business day.
A ranch sale
Land, mineral rights, and what an easement changes.
A business exit
Selling a company you spent thirty years building.
Succession
Keeping a section in the family without forcing a sale.
We work with a small number of Montana families and business owners, usually in the middle of a big change. Here are the moments that bring people to us.
A family outside Livingston sells to a conservation buyer, and suddenly there's more money and more tax questions than they've ever faced.
A Bozeman contractor spent thirty years building something real and now needs to turn it into a retirement, not just a payout.
Mineral rights, a section split between siblings, an easement that changes the whole picture. We've sat with families through all of it.
