Collin Bangs was born and raised on a wheat and cattle farm 20 miles north of Inverness, Montana. (The classic 20 miles from nowhere.) He graduated from Minneota Grade School and Inverness High School and moved on to the University of Montana. He graduated in Marketing from the University of Montana and joined the Navy to see the world and avoid the draft.

After 4 years of flying for the Navy he had seen enough of the world, so he quit the Navy and moved back to Missoula. That was when he first became concerned about affordable housing.

He didn´t have a job, had almost no money, his wife was pregnant and he couldn´t find anything to rent. He was concerned.

Not able to find a real job he started selling real estate. 32 years later he is still doing it, and he is still concerned about affordable housing. He has served on the Missoula City Council Affordable Housing sub-committee, the Technical Review committee for the city-council growth management process and has served as a board member of the Missoula Housing Corporation.

Collin has also developed affordable housing projects both for the rental market and the home ownership market.

In 1989 he and a partner developed small projects providing entry-level housing for Missoula. In 1999 he and David Edgell of Edgell Homes became partners and created B & E Corp. B & E Corp has been active in developing affordable for rent and sale homes ever since.