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U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg was in Butte on Thursday, touring and learning about a business that brings millions of dollars to the community.

Rehberg met with Rod Alne, the owner of Peak Inc., a company that trains people how to move and survive in wilderness environments. They train many people in the military as well as some commercial businesses.

Alne says they have brought about $3.5 million into Butte since they started the company in 2005. This is from people taking the courses coming into the community and staying in local hotels, eating in local restaurants, and shopping locally.

Rehberg says Butte is a great location for this kind of niche business, noting, "One of those communities that doesn't die, always on the cutting edge of something and can offer things no one else can, this is one of them."

Alne agrees their southwest Montana location is the perfect place to train people for what they may run into in Afghanistan or other rough environments.

"That environment sometimes is just as much of a threat as the bad guys and being able to deal with that environment is just going to help you succeed," Alne said.

Alne says they have training courses about once a month.

You can learn more about Peak at its website, including this partial overview of classes:

• Avalanche Awareness
• Cold Weather and High Altitude Medicine
• Cold Weather Operations
• Confined Space & Collapsed Structure Training
• High / Low Angle Rescue Operations
• High Altitude Diving and Diving Medicine
• High Altitude Parachuting (Drop Zones up to 10,000 ft)
• High Altitude Travel Techniques
• Pack Animal Operations
• Swift Water Rescue
• Wilderness Medicine / Wilderness Advanced First Aid