Gretchen (Carnahan) Boardman

Who:

Gretchen (Carnahan) Boardman

What: Mining Engineer/ Cost Engineer

Where: Stillwater Mining Company in Nye, MT

1. Favorite Candy: Snickers

2. Favorite Scent: Rain

3. Favorite Cookie: My Grandma Marjean’s sugar cookies

4. Favorite Ice Cream Flavor/Rendition: Moose tracks in a cup.

5. Favorite Drink: Snapple Apple

6. Favorite Restaurant: The Oasis in Manhattan, MT

7. Favorite Snack: Snickers bar

8. Favorite Place to Shop: Just about anywhere!!!

9. Favorite Hobby: Scrap-booking

10. Favorite Book: The Bible

11. Favorite Quote: (I have numerous but here is one) “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” -Dr. Seuss

12. One Thing we should know about you: I have coached basketball, volleyball & track - and absolutely love coaching pole vault (something I never did as an athlete)

13. Most Influential Person: I have many people that have influenced my life and appreciate all of them. However, my parents cannot go without being recognized as God and the late Del Fried.

About Boardman : Gretchen is originally from Malta. She is the daughter of Fuzz and Sandra Carnahan.

She attended Malta public schools and was a part of Malta high’s first state champion basketball team in 1991.

“It was pretty amazing just because we were the first team to actually do it and the bond that we had as a team was pretty fabulous,” Boardman said. “It was just a great experience for the community as well as for our team.”

She is still connected to a few players from that team today and considers them her best friends.

Boardman played guard for the M-ettes for four years and started her junior and senior year. She was also involved in volleyball, track, band, pep band, swing choir and jazz band. She graduated Malta High school in 1994.

Boardman attended Montana Tech in Butte on academic scholarship, wanting to learn mining and engineering because living near Zortman, the field of mining fascinated her.

“I thought it would be nice and kind of interesting to learn more about what they did at Zortman,” she said.

Gretchen was able to start her summer job in Zortman her freshman year, then she transferred to Montana Tunnels an open pit mine, where she worked for 17 years.

She graduated from Montana Tech in 2001 with a degree in Mining Engineering. She uses the business side of her degree for her current job, which is Cost Engineer at Stillwater Mining Company in Nye, Montana.

“It’s something that’s completely different than being out in the field. I’m at a desk a lot more and I am doing all of the budgeting for operations at our mine site,” she said.

Boardman likes the challenge of learning new things every day that comes with the job. She goes underground occasionally but isn’t out nearly as much as she was with Montana Tunnels.

She lives with her husband Jason Boardman, who is a farmer and ranch in Frannie, Wyoming and step-son Cole. The couple married in Sept. 2013.

Though the couple is in their first year of marriage, they have known of each other for a long time, and they had been once attracted to one another, at Malta Elementary.

“He was my kindergarten boyfriend (he moved in second grade) and we reconnected about three years ago,” Gretchen said.

The couple reconnected after Jason’s brother brought light to Carnahan that Jason lived an hour away from Columbus where she lived.

“Jason and I got in touch and instantly got back together in 2011,” she said.