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CONSTRUCTION
• HNTB Corp. has hired E. Gregory Thorpe as rail and transit senior project manager and associate vice president. He is based in the firm’s Salt Lake City office and serves clients throughout the eight-state Northwest Division. Thorpe has more than four decades of experience in project management, engineering and executive leadership. Primarily, he supports HNTB transit projects in Utah, Colorado and the Puget Sound region. Thorpe brings extensive expertise in light rail and other high-profile transit projects. For the past 17 years, he worked at the Utah Transit Authority, serving as project manager for many significant projects. Thorpe earned a Bachelor of Science in civil and environmental engineering from Utah State University. At the University of Utah, he completed post-graduate studies in civil and structural engineering.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• Utah has the 21st-lowest medium income in the U.S., at $36,790, according to a study compiled by SafeHome.org using data from the U.S. Census Bureau through 2017. The study shows that since the 2008 financial crisis, Utah has seen the 17th-largest increase in median income, with 4.4 percent growth. The national median annual wage has grown by just 2 percent since 2008, from $37,896 to $38,640. The largest group of income-earners in Utah, 20.5 percent, make between $25,000 and $49,999. Those making $100,000 or more account for 12.4 percent of Utah residents.
EXPANSIONS
• DoTerra, a Pleasant Grove-based essential oils company, is expanding its global presence with a new corporate office and locally registered products in Bogotá, Colombia. The new Colombia office will support the expanding needs of the market. Oreste Moscarella, who helped the company open the Ecuador market in 2018, will serve as Colombia’s general manager.
• Brainwire Infotech Inc., a South Jordan-based digital enabler and IT consulting firm, has expanded with a new office in Dallas. Sachin Bakhai, who has more than 30 years of experience in Oracle consulting, will lead the business operations of the region.
GOVERNMENT
• The Utah State Tax Commission has named Tammy Kikuchi as its new public information officer, replacing Charlie Roberts, who retired Oct. 1. Kikuchi’s career includes serving as marketing director for Hughes General Contractors in North Salt Lake, working at KSL Radio, serving as communications director for Gov. Jon M. Huntsman, and serving as public information officer for Utah Department of Natural Resources.
HEALTHCARE
• Forum Health LLC, a Salt Lake City-based provider of personalized healthcare, has announced that Erica Lemke-Pembroke has joined the company as a life and vitality coach to help patients increase their sexual health and confidence. Her most recent book is Feel Sexy Again: The Ultimate Guide to Reclaiming Your Sexual Confidence.
INVESTMENT
• Wasatch Advisors, a Salt Lake City-based independent investment manager, has rebranded as Wasatch Global Investors to better reflect its global investment management business. There are no changes in ownership, employees, philosophy or process. Wasatch offers 16 strategies that span market caps and geographies. As of June 30, it had $18.5 billion in assets under management.
PHILANTHROPY
• Walmart associates and managers recently raised $387,000 to support Utah Food Bank. The employees also sorted food at Utah Food Bank in South Salt Lake. The event was in honor of Feeding America’s Hunger Action Month, as well as to commemorate Walmart and Sam’s Club reaching their goal of securing over 1 billion charitable meals nationwide during their “Fight Hunger, Spark Change” campaign, held in partnership with Feeding America and 18 of Walmart’s supplier partners. Since 2014, the campaign has helped secure more than 1 billion meals for Feeding America food banks nationwide. In addition to that campaign, the Walmart Foundation provides grants to local food banks and Walmart stores to donate millions of pounds of food to food banks each year. This fiscal year, Walmart, Sam’s Club and distribution center locations in Utah donated 9 million pounds of food to Feeding America food banks and affiliated pantries.
• Nav, a Salt Lake City-based financing site and app, has announced that Alex and Jennifer Morton, founders and owners of Junk Star Handcrafted Furniture in San Antonio, as the grand prize winners of the company’s $10,000 quarterly Small Business Grant. Junk Star specializes in designing and building handcrafted, custom furniture. In this round, Nav also presented $2,000 to Russo’s Ravioli in Cincinnati and $1,000 to Center Stage Clothier in Vancouver, Washington. Nav has awarded more than $60,000 to small businesses across the country since launching the grant program in 2018.
REAL ESTATE
• Century Communities Inc. has announced that Wood Hollow is open for sales. The West Valley City community features ramblers and two-story single-family homes with 10 floor plans ranging in size from 1,405 to 2,903 square feet.
RECOGNITIONS
• Finicity, a Salt Lake City-based company focused on financial tools, won the LendingTree Innovation Challenge “Best in Show” award at Source Media’s Digital Mortgage Conference 2019 for its verification of income and employment (VOIE) with TXVerify. The challenge, in Las Vegas, featured 36 live demos showcasing the mortgage industry’s most innovative digital technologies. Sharing the Best in Show award this year was CoreLogic.
RESTAURANTS
• The 17th annual Downtown Dine O’Round will take place Oct. 18-Nov. 3, allowing diners to enjoy two-item lunches or three-course dinners at special prices at select downtown Salt Lake City restaurants. Participating restaurants’ lunch specials are priced at $10, $15 or $20 and dinner specials are just $20, $30 or $40. The event is coordinated each year by the Downtown Alliance and is made possible with partnerships and sponsorships with Sysco Intermountain, Smithfield Culinary and Salt Lake Chamber. Newcomer restaurants this year include Campos Coffee, CoreLife Eatery, Ginger Street, Honest Eatery and Maize. Sample menus and participating locations can be found at www.dineoround.com.
RETAIL
• U-Haul Company of Utah Inc. has announced that Jeffrey P. Davis Automotive, 4707 S. Commerce Drive, Murray, has signed on as a U-Haul dealer. It will offer U-Haul trucks and moving supplies.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• Domo, an American Fork-based operating system company, has announced that Jeff Kearl has joined its board of directors. He will fill the seat of Nehal Raj, partner at TPG, who served on Domo’s board for more than five years. Kearl is co-founder and chairman of Stance. Kearl also served on the board of directors for SkullCandy for almost a dozen years and is an active investor, having invested in approximately 50 private companies.
• HireVue, a Salt Lake City-based talent assessment suite and video interviewing solutions company, has announced that Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic has joined its Expert Advisory Board. Chamorro-Premuzic is an authority in psychological profiling, talent management, people analytics and science-based tools that improve an organization’s ability to predict performance as well as people’s ability to understand themselves. He is currently the chief talent scientist at ManpowerGroup and co-founder of Deeper Signals and META Profiling. Chamorro-Premuzic is also a professor of business psychology at Columbia University, is the founding director of University College London’s industrial-organizational and business psychology program, and serves as the chief psychometric advisor to Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Lab. He has written 10 books and more than 150 scientific papers on the psychology of talent, leadership, innovation and AI.