Montana School Boards Association

Visit their website at www.mtsba.org

Lance Voegele
President

Lance Voegele has been a trustee of the Belgrade School District since 2003 and currently serves as president of the Montana School Boards Association. He grew up in eastern Montana on the family farm until relocating to the Gallatin Valley in 1990. Lance has been in the Belgrade Booster Club since 1995 and has served two terms as the President. He is a member of the Belgrade Church of Christ.

Lance owns Rocky Mountain Remodelers, Inc., a general contracting company in Belgrade. His wife, Lynesse is a secretary at the Belgrade High School, and a professional seamstress in her spare time.

They have three children, Ariell, Chelsey, and Chance, who all graduated from Belgrade High School.  Ariell and Chelsey  have graduated from University of Montana. Lance also wonderful grandson and MTSBA future board member, Elliot Hay.   

Lance Melton
Executive Director

Lance Melton has worked for the Montana School Boards Association (MTSBA) since 1996, serving as the Association’s executive director since March 2000.  Melton is responsible for administration and coordination of all the Association's leadership activities, including supervision of a talented staff.

Melton was first hired as a staff attorney, and has served in the past as MTSBA’s Director of Governmental Relations and as its General Counsel.  As Executive Director, Melton has led substantial growth in Association services. Programs initiated and/or enhanced under Melton’s leadership include the MTSBA Workers’ Compensation Risk Retention Program and Montana Schools Unemployment Insurance Program, MTSBA’s Big Sky Investment Program, the MTSBA electric and natural gas purchasing program, the MTSBA Management Reference Center and the Montana Schools E-Learning Consortium. 

Melton has also helped the MTSBA Board of Directors in revising and improving its governance, including the implementation of knowledge-based decision making processes and a more focused way of ensuring Director oversight of all phases of the Association’s activities. As part of this process, MTSBA has engaged in a strategic planning and thinking process that will help it in focusing its resources in a manner that will best benefit its members and their constituents.

In addition to his responsibilities in Montana, Melton maintains an active role in issues of national concern, serving as a member of advisory board for the National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) Center for Public Education, past chair of the NSBA Online Learning Center Board, past member of the NSBA Liaison Committee, and member of the Board of Directors of the School Leaders Risk Management Association (SLRMA).

Melton graduated with a bachelor's degree in Political Science, with high honors from the University of Montana and later received his J.D. from the University of Montana School of Law where he wrote for the Public Land Law Review. Before joining MTSBA, Melton served as an attorney and lobbyist for the Montana Department of Commerce.