A nascent drive-thru coffee stand earned the Building A Business Award from Montana Business Assistance Connection at the local economic development authority's annual meeting Wednesday.

The award marks another milestone in a remarkable story for the City Brew Coffee owners, Naydia and Carson Coate of Helena. Four years ago, Naydia spent several weeks in a coma after a freak head injury caused by a rogue trampoline on a windy summer afternoon in the Helena Valley.

Naydia Coate, now 33, and Carson, 38, had plans at the time for a coffee business in Tulsa, Okla., but those plans were shelved while Naydia recovered. The stay-at-home mom had three children then, and the couple has since added a fourth. Carson is an environmental engineer with the Department of Environmental Quality.

Finally this year the couple was ready to proceed with their coffee business plan, only in Helena instead of Tulsa. They took their plans to MBAC and secured funding for their first location, in the parking lot of the old Circus Twin theater on North Montana.

"We did a lot of research, looked at a lot of traffic counts," Carson Coate said. "That, and the fact that there wasn't a lot of coffee on the north side of town."

They have a license to use the name of Billings-based City Brew Coffee, but they're sole owners (not franchisees) of the local business.

The agreement with City Brew Coffee gives the Coates rights to the Helena area. The couple's aggressive business plan calls for additional locations, and Carson Coate said they're close to an announcement of a second kiosk in the city. He's unsure how many CBC's Helena can support.

"We don't want to jump the gun, but we don't want to miss the target," Naydia Coate said.

MBAC honored several other award winners Wednesday, including:

- Summit Aeronautics, which earned the Business Growth Award for the seemingly nonstop expansion of its aerospace manufacturing facility at the Helena Regional Airport.

- Shodair Children's Hospital, which received MBAC's Certificate of Achievement for more than a century of evolving to meet the needs of Montana's children. Shodair treats children suffering from illness, diseases and other physical, mental and emotional conditions.

- Ron Mercer, manager of the Helena Regional Airport, received the Economic Impact Award for his economic development efforts on airport property, which inlcude leasing space to a number of public and private tennants and several expansion projects related to the airport runways, terminal and related facilities.

Reporter John Harrington: 447-4080 or john.harrington@ helenair.com.