On the recently vacated second floor of an office building near Interquest Parkway and Voyager Parkway, a pair of budding sports broadcast journalists once honed their craft.

Stormy Buonantony will serve as ESPN’s college football sideline reporter Saturday as Georgia Tech meets Tennessee. Last week she covered Alabama’s opener. She’s already booked for the 2027 NHL Playoffs.

Bridget Howard is in Boston this weekend as part of the Kansas City Royals broadcast team. Her various other roles include the Big Ten Network, TNT and professional women’s soccer play-by-play announcing.

For three or more years apiece, Buonantony and Howard lived and worked in Colorado Springs in a Mountain West role that will now be based in Las Vegas.

“I talk about it all the time,” Buonantony said, “how much I fully credit my experience at the Mountain West and time in Colorado Springs with being a foundation for everything that I do now.”

Among the whirlwind of changes sweeping the Mountain West in recent years was an agreement from the conference to relocate to Las Vegas after spending the entirety of its more than 25-year existence headquartered in Colorado Springs. This move impacts the conference’s roughly two dozen positions.

Most of the move will go unnoticed by casual sports fans because of the behind-the-scenes nature of a conference’s responsibilities. But not all of the roles operate with relative anonymity, with the on-air talent for the Mountain West Network being the prominent example.

It was in that role where Buonantony and Howard arrived straight out of college and eventually moved to roles that began putting their faces on television screens around the country.

Much like might be found with minor league baseball, there are I-knew-them-when opportunities presented when rising stars in a visible industry like sports broadcasting hone their craft in a community.

And much like minor league baseball in Colorado Springs, the chance to follow up close as the next Buonantony and Howard use the Mountain West as a launching pad is now gone.

“The Mountain West was a place where I grew every single day, was challenged to try new things, take on new projects, cover new sports, you name it,” Howard said. “Everything I did at the Mountain West has been invaluable to my career and gave me a confidence that I’ve carried into every opportunity I’ve had since.”

After launching the in-house digital network in late 2012 and establishing Jesse Kurtz as the executive producer and lead anchor, the enterprise added a studio host/reporter position to help cover the conference’s 17 sports.

Buonantony was the first full-time hire, coming to Colorado Springs already well-versed in the Mountain West as a Las Vegas native and San Diego State graduate.

“It felt like a match made in heaven to me,” Buonantony said. “Then it was just a matter of whether or not they were going to be willing to take a chance on somebody that was as green as I was. And I was not good.”

Not knowing exactly what she wanted out of the industry, Buonantony threw herself into the role. Taking advantage of Colorado Springs’ location, she found she could pitch stories about Air Force, Colorado State (which was among the five programs to leave the conference as of this past summer), New Mexico or Wyoming and then drive to shoot and produce them.

That is an advantage that will be lost in Las Vegas, where no programs aside from UNLV are within convenient driving distance.

Under Kurtz’s tutelage and “fun uncle energy,” as Buonantony described the vibe from the Air Force radio color analyst former KKTV sports anchor, she found her strength in versatility. Her handling of the conference’s array of sports led to television roles as varied as interviews with basketball coaching legend John Calipari and cornhole championship broadcasts. She then took a position with the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights and later joined ESPN’s team.

For Howard, as Kurtz explained, the goal upon arrival was clear.

“She came to us with a ton of fire,” said Kurtz, who noted that Howard came with more experience after serving in a sideline-reporting role at Kansas State. “With Bridget, it was ‘I want to be a major league baseball sideline reporter, college football sideline reporter and please help me get there.’”

Mission accomplished. The other boxes had already been checked, and the Kansas City native joined the Royals this past offseason.

“Colorado Springs and the Mountain West will always hold a special place in my heart,” Howard said. “I look back at my time there and really see it as a place where I grew up in this industry. I was given the chance to try so many different roles, learn from people like Jesse Kurtz, (associate commissioner of the MW Network) Brian Tripp and countless others and really figure out who I wanted to be as a broadcaster.”

Buonantony and Howard reiterated the same themes that the role and its various demands and the mentorship provided were integral to their climb in the industry. That all figures to remain true for the conference, it’s just that Colorado Springs’ role will be eliminated aside from hits from the studio built in Kurtz’s basement during the pandemic and the occasional assignment at Air Force.

And speaking of climb, Buonantony still fondly recalls hikes up the Manitou Springs Incline and remains in awe of the “80-year-olds with walking sticks” passing her as she huffed and puffed her way to the top.

“These girls came in and totally had to adjust the way they deliver content and deliver a message and the way they speak in front of a camera,” Kurtz said. “But not once did they ever think that they were too big-time. They were always willing to learn.

“I mean this honestly, I think the biggest pride I have from anything in my career is knowing that both of them came out of school, never had any TV experience and then grew to what they are now. It’s pretty awesome.”

Karlie Drew currently holds the position and has moved to Las Vegas, where the new studio remains under construction at the still-taking-shape headquarters on the south end of the city.

Several longtime conference employees will remain in Colorado Springs. When their positions are eventually vacated, they will be replaced by new hires based in Las Vegas. When that process and a chapter in the city’s sports history will fully close.