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BANKING
- Granite Credit Union has opened two new branches. One is inside the Latino Mall at 2470 S. Redwood Road, West Valley City. The branch manager is Kim Reyes. The other location is at 9383 S. 700 E., Sandy. The branch manager there is Charlotte Toone. Founded in 1935, Granite Credit Union serves over 35,000 members and has just over $800 million in assets.
CONTESTS
- Applications are being accepted until Jan. 31 by BioUtah for a “Shark Tank” type pitch competition at the 2025 Wilson Sonsini Entrepreneur & Investor Life Sciences Summit, set for March 13. Life sciences companies will present their innovations to a panel of experts and investors during the event. The main focus will be on companies currently seeking funding or planning to seek funding in the next 24 months. Presentations will be categorized into three groups: Medical Devices/Diagnostics, Pharmaceuticals/Therapeutics and Biotechnology/Digital Health. The winner of each competition will receive a $5,000 cash prize, along with additional awards and recognition. The application form is available at https://bioutah.typeform.com/to/KxKQJSku.
- Applications are being accepted for the Healthy Worksite Awards Program, organized by the Utah Worksite Wellness Council. The program recognizes Utah employers for their exemplary work in worksite wellness and those committed to improving employee health and well-being. It showcases employers of all sizes for their worksite health promotion and wellness programs. Organizations are able to apply for two separate awards through this single application. The Healthy Worksite Award focuses on health and well-being initiatives that organizations have implemented in the previous calendar year. Companies may qualify for bronze, silver, gold, or platinum level recognition based on the scores they receive. The Innovation Award focuses on well-being for work that was completed in the previous calendar year (organizational, physical emotional, community, social and financial). Awardees will be recognized at the UWWC Conference Awards luncheon, set for April 29, noon-1:30 p.m., at the Zions Bank Technology Center in Midvale. The application fee is $25. Innovation Award applications are manually reviewed, and winners are determined by a panel of Utah Worksite Wellness Council well-being experts. Applications may be made at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2025uwwcawards.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
- The Utah Jazz are worth $3.67 billion, up 13 percent from a year earlier, according to a study by Sportico. That puts the team at No. 22 among NBA teams. Sportico said the numbers relate to the sum of the market value of an NBA franchise combined with the value of team-related businesses and real estate holdings. The 30 franchises in the NBA are worth a total of $138 billion, or an average of $4.6 billion. The Golden State Warriors are No. 1, at $9.14 billion. The Memphis Grizzlies are last, at $3.06 billion. The year-over-year growth rate ranged from 8 percent for the No. 13 overall Phoenix Suns to 43 percent for the No. 4 Brooklyn Nets. Details are at https://www.sportico.com/feature/nba-team-values-ranking-list-1234697991/.
- An estimated 430,483 Utah residents were found to live in food-insecure households between 2021 and 2023, according to USDA food insecurity data. That represents 12.8 percent of households and includes 16.7 percent of children in the state (157,555), 10.2 percent of employed adults (177,639), and 6.4 percent of older Utah residents (37,064). Other data indicates that more than 240,000 Utah residents did not have enough to eat over two one-week periods in August and September of 2024, according to an annual Hunger Atlas Report by the nonprofit group Hunger Free America, based on an analysis of federal data. That is 141 percent more than in August and September of 2021. Hunger Free America attributes the surge in hunger to the expiration of several federal programs, including the expanded Child Tax Credit, increased SNAP (formerly called food stamps) allotments, and universal school meals, coupled with the impact of inflation. Other findings from the Hunger Atlas study shows 16.8 percent of children in the U.S. lived in food insecure households in the 2021-2023 time period, with the highest rate being 23.8 percent in Texas. Nationally, 10.2 percent of employed adults in the U.S. lived in food insecure households during the three-year time period. Arkansas had the highest level, at 15.3 percent. Details are available at https://www.hungerfreeamerica.org/en-us/research/hunger-report-ny-2024.
HEALTH CARE
- Halia Therapeutics, a Lehi-based biopharmaceutical company developing treatments for chronic inflammation and related disorders, has announced some leadership additions and promotions. Gary Sabin has joined the company’s board of directors. He has extensive experience in strategic growth and corporate governance, including expertise from his business development and organizational leadership career. Dr. Margit Janat-Amsbury has been promoted to chief scientific officer. She will lead Halia’s scientific vision, guiding the discovery and development of innovative therapies that align with the company’s mission to improve patient outcomes. Halia has added Tracey Claytonas vice president of program management and clinical operations and Stephen Anthony as senior vice president of clinical development. Both have decades of expertise in clinical trial execution and operational excellence. Clayton previously was an executive director and head of program management oncology at Sumitomo Pharma America Inc. Anthony previously served as chief medical officer at Newave Pharmaceutical Inc. and specializes in regulatory compliance and operational strategy.
- Salt Lake Behavioral Health, an acute psychiatric hospital that specializes in acute mental health treatment, is opening a new service line focused on treatment for people whose mental health has deteriorated to a point where they cannot work, but who do not meet insurance criteria for inpatient hospitalization. The full-day treatment program opens Jan. 13 and addresses a need for a bridge between outpatient therapy and acute inpatient hospitalization. The day treatment is five days a week, for two to four weeks, and accepts most major insurances. Patients are hospitalized during the day, but go home to sleep. The scheduled programming includes cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive processing therapy, medication management, moral injury repair groups, yoga, dialectical behavioral therapy, and condition-specific treatment for trauma and substance abuse.
INVESTMENTS
- Sethera Therapeutics, based in Salt Lake City, has completed its first fundraising round, raising $3 million. The company is focused on revolutionizing peptide therapeutics through its enzymatic transformations.
OUTDOOR PRODUCTS
- Kent Outdoors, a Park City-based company offering personal flotation devices, wakeboards, water skis, towable tubes, snowboards and more, has appointed Nate Romney as chief financial officer. Romney is a senior executive with over 20 years of experience leading finance, accounting and operations departments, and has a history of creating high valuation and building scalable processes and corporate structure. He has experience working with capital structures that are similar to Kent Outdoors, with a focus on private equity-backed businesses in technology, e-commerce, specialty retail and consumer products. He served as a CFO at a private equity-sponsored consumer products company that was acquired under his leadership. He has also filled CFO roles at a SaaS software technology company specializing in AI communications and a specialty produce/agriculture company.
PHILANTHROPY
- Mountain America Credit Union, based in Sandy, recently provided $1,000 each to 28 local nonprofits through the Mountain America Foundation for “GivingTuesday,” a campaign established in 2012. The foundation launched this year’s initiative on Nov. 4 by inviting the community to vote for local nonprofits nominated by team members. Among the recipients are the Image Reborn Foundation, which provides no-cost renewal retreats to people diagnosed with breast cancer, nominated by Evan Gomez, a branch manager at Mountain America; and the Hope Clinic, which provides free health care to uninsured individuals and families. It is the second consecutive year that Mountain America has participated in the global initiative. In all, the credit union has donated $56,000 to organizations dedicated to community well-being.
REAL ESTATE
- ViaWest Group, an Arizona-based real estate development and investment company, has sold a freestanding 40,709-square-foot industrial warehouse at 3255 W. 500 S., Salt Lake City, to an unidentified private real estate investment firm based in St. Louis for an undisclosed amount. The single-tenant warehouse was built in 2016 and is leased to a provider and distributor of industrial and manufacturing products. ViaWest also sold an adjacent 11-acre site containing a newly built 172,847-square-foot, single-tenant industrial building the company developed in 2023 which was 100 percent leased. The transaction announcements were made by Cushman & Wakefield, who advised ViaWest on the transaction. Cushman & Wakefield’s Private Capital Group, consisting of Phil Haenel, Will Strong, Foster Bundy and Katie Repine, represented the seller. Phillip Eilers and Jon Schreck also provided market leasing advisory.
- JLL Capital Markets, a Denver-based provider of capital solutions for real estate investors and occupiers, has arranged a programmatic joint venture between Fort Street Partners and Chestnut Healthcare Real Estate, which has the ability to acquire and develop up to $150 million in assets over the next four years. The venture will focus on investments in outpatient medical and surgery center investments in Utah. It already has closed on two medical outpatient developments in Syracuse and Eagle Mountain. The JLL Capital Markets team was led by Director CJ Kodani and Managing Director Mark Root. Salt Lake City-based Fort Street Partners was founded in 2017 and owns and manages over 1 million square feet of medical office, office and retail space throughout Utah. Its portfolio includes 10 medical office building developments totaling 214,000 square feet. Chestnut Healthcare Real Estate, based in Tennessee, manages real estate funds that invest in health care real estate and Chestnut invests in the acquisition and development middle-market properties with partners.
TECHNOLOGY
- Zartico, a Salt Lake City-based marketing technology company, has announced it has moved beyond data aggregation to applying its data science technology to deliver innovative marketing performance solutions for destinations and place-based businesses and their agencies. As part of the move, it has promoted Nicole Brownell as chief operating officer and hired Regine Lawton as chief technology officer. Brownell has two decades of organizational growth and advanced behavioral marketing experience. Lawton has over three decades of experience leading digital transformations and driving innovation, including at Modern Technologies Consulting, AeroVironment, Technicolor and Apple Inc. Zartico also has hired Josh Derouin as senior vice president of partnerships. He has years of agency experience in innovative media analytics and insights. Staci Mellman, who was most recently chief marketing officer for Brand USA, will serve Zartico as executive advisor of growth and strategy. Her marketing experience includes nearly 12 years as chief marketing officer at Visit Florida. Zartico also has welcomed a new technology board member, Julian Castelli, with experience as a board director and operating partner for growth-stage technology companies.