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DIRECT SALES
• USANA Health Sciences Inc., Salt Lake City, has appointed Timothy Wood to its board of directors and promoted Walter Noot to chief operating officer. Wood joins the board as an independent director. He has more than 30 years of experience in scientific research and development. Prior to his retirement in 2001, Wood was executive vice president of research and development for USANA for 15 years. He joined the company in 1996 as director of research and development, was appointed as the company’s vice president of R&D in 2999 and appointed executive vice president of R&D in 2006. Before joining USANA, Wood was vice president of R&D for AgriDyne Technologies Inc., and research manager and senior scientist for AgriDyne. His education includes an MBA from Westminster College. Noot joined USANA in 2016 as chief information officer. As COO, he will continue to oversee USANA’s information technology function, with the added responsibility of global operations. He has more than two decades of executive leadership experience with numerous companies in and out of the direct selling industry.
DIVIDENDS
• The board of directors of Zions Bancorporation NA, Salt Lake City, has declared a regular quarterly dividend of 34 cents per common share. The dividend is payable Nov. 21 to shareholders of record Nov. 14. The board also declared regular quarterly cash dividends on the company’s various perpetual preferred shares. The cash dividend on the series A, G, H, and I shares are payable Dec. 16 to shareholders of record Dec. 1, while the cash dividend on the Series J shares is payable March 16 to shareholders of record March 1. The board also announced it has approved a plan to purchase up to $275 million of common shares during the fourth quarter of 2019.
• The board of directors of People’s Utah Bancorp., American Fork, has declared a quarterly dividend payment of 13 cents per common share. The dividend will be payable Nov. 12 to shareholders of record Nov. 4. The dividend payout ratio for earnings for the third quarter of 2019 was 22 percent. It continues the over-50-year trend of paying dividends by the company.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• Utah is No. 5 among states with the highest level of recent mortgage refinancing, according to a study by Refi Guide. The study uses date from Freddie Mac from 1990-2019. Utah ranks No. 5, with 1.2 percent of all refinances in the U.S. since 2009 taking place in the state. The highest level of recent refinances is in Alaska, at 3.7 percent. The lowest level is in Wisconsin, at 0.4 percent.
• A ZIP code area in Monument Valley is the “Most Affordable Place to Live in Utah,” according to rankings by UnitedStatesZipCodes.org, using data from the Census Bureau. The study compares local home prices with local incomes to determine housing affordability. The 84536 code is most-affordable in Utah, followed by Tridell (94076), Hinckley (84635), East Carbon (84520) and Delta (84624). The least-affordable places to live in Utah are Springdale (84767), Rockville (84763), Kanarraville (94742), Park City (84060) and Dammeron Valley (84783).
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
• The Economic Development Corporation of Utah (EDCUtah) has hired Vlada Yaremenko as a business development analyst. She will take on a portfolio of business expansion projects in a cross-set of industries and will support Global Strategy & Outreach (GS&O) efforts. Her experience includes working with impoverished communities in India; with the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy organization in Washington, D.C.; and with the United Nations as a youth sub-committee co-chair for the 68th United Nations Civil Society Conference. She recently graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in international studies.
FINANCE
• KeyBank Community Development Lending and Investment (CDLI) has secured $23.5 million of construction and permanent financing for the Wasatch Residential Group (WRG), a real estate development, construction, finance and asset management company based in Salt Lake City, to construct Arcadia Apartments II in Sandy. The 177-unit affordable family housing apartment development will consist of 52 one-bedroom, 82 two-bedroom and 43 three-bedroom units. The project is adjacent to Arcadia Apartments I, previously developed by WRG, and will share access to amenities. The project was awarded a 4 percent low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC), and Enterprise Community Partners, the equity investor, is providing $15.6 million in LIHTC equity. The project also was awarded private activity bonds, which were purchased by KeyBank as a private placement.
GOVERNMENT
• The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) has disbursed $71.7 million in fiscal year 2019 energy revenues to Utah. The funds are derived from energy produced on federal and American Indian lands, as well as U.S. offshore areas. The ONRR disbursed a total $11.69 billion in fiscal 2019 from energy production on federal and American Indian-owned lands and offshore areas. That is up $2.76 billion from the prior fiscal year. Thirty-five states received $2.44 billion in disbursements, and more than $1 billion was disbursed to American Indian tribes and individual Indian mineral owners.
HOSPITALITY/FOOD SERVICE
• Deer Valley Resort has hired Brian VandenBroek as director of finance. A member of Alterra’s acquisition team throughout the purchase of the resort, VandenBroek’s experience with Deer Valley’s parent company and ongoing interactions with Deer Valley staff will allow for a seamless transition, the company said. VandenBroek has more than 20 years of experience in business development and finance role, most recently serving as vice president of financial planning and analysis with Alterra Mountain Co. He previously was vice president of revenue management and business development at Intrawest, before it was acquired by Alterra. On the resort side, he spent over 11 years at Winter Park Resort in a variety of roles, ending as vice president of finance and business development before he moved to Intrawest, then the parent company of Winter Park. VandenBroek succeeds Jim Madsen, who recently retired after 29 years. Madsen, Deer Valley’s former director of finance and IT, held the position for the duration of his time at the resort, first as director of finance before acquiring IT responsibilities as it was developed.
INVESTMENTS
• Weave, a Lehi-based, privately held customer communication company, has closed a $70 million Series D funding round led by new investor Tiger Global Management, with additional funding from current Weave investors, including Catalyst, Bessemer, Crosslink, Pelion and LeadEdge. Weave said it plans to use the funding to expand and enhance its current product offering, develop its international presence, grow its team, and continue to invest in the development of its employees. It has about 550 employees at its Utah headquarters, up from 300 at the beginning of the year.
• HireVue, a Salt Lake City-based talent assessment and video interviewing solutions company, has announced the completion of a transaction with The Carlyle Group and its majority investment in HireVue. Existing shareholders, including Granite Ventures, Sequoia and TCV, together with HireVue management, remain minority investors. The current executive team at HireVue continues to lead the company under the direction of Kevin Parker, chairman and CEO. Equity capital for the investment came from Carlyle Partners VII, an $18.5 billion fund that makes investments primarily in the U.S. in targeted industries, including in technology, media and telecommunications companies.
• Sorenson Capital, a Salt Lake City-based private equity firm, has promoted Burke Davis to principal. Davis joined the company as an associate in 2014 and was named as a vice president in 2016. He focuses on investing in high-growth software companies. Burke plays a role in several of Sorenson Capital’s investments, including Fastly, Incorta, Couchbase, Cradlepoint, Depcom and InfluxData. Prior to Sorenson Capital, Davis was a senior financial analyst at Samsung NEXT and was a financial analyst with Citigroup’s Global Technology Group.
MANUFACTURING
• Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has declared Nov. 4-8 as Utah Advanced Manufacturing Week, which will feature presentations, workshops, open houses and expos to recognize and celebrate Utah’s advanced manufacturing and materials industry. What began in the 1950s with Utah-based aerospace companies Hercules and Thiokol has expanded to more than 100 companies deploying unique skills and services to produce the specialized components of the advanced materials industry. The idea to create an official recognition week for the industry was a joint collaboration among Davis Technical College, the Utah Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Initiative (UAMMI), Composites One, local companies and the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED). Among the events are a North Utah STEM Expo and SLCC Composites Lab open house and demos on Nov. 4, a UAMMI CrossTalk dinner and keynote event Nov. 5, the Composites One “Fly Away with Composites” conference and workshops Nov. 6, and local company tours Nov. 7. Details are at www.utahadvancedmanufacturingweek.com.
REAL ESTATE
• McArthur Homes is offering single-family homes in Payson at Arrowhead Park, a new master-planned community with five home types. The community is McArthur Homes’ first to be built in southern Utah County. McArthur Homes also is offering single-family floor plans in its new community, Brundisi Village, in Herriman. It offers five home types and has 15 homesites remaining.
RECOGNITIONS
• Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski recently marked the city’s observance of National Disability Employment Awareness Month with a proclamation recognizing Smith’s Food and Drug, a division of The Kroger Co., for its commitment to hiring individuals with disabilities. Smith’s has been providing those opportunities to people with disabilities for more than 20 years and actively works with the vocational rehabilitation office of the Utah Department of Workforce Services (DWS) to recruit new staff members for its stores. DWS data from 2017 shows that roughly 151,000 persons with disabilities were in the age group of 18-64. Of those, nearly 75,000 were employed in either full or part-time jobs. About 6,800 were unemployed and looking, and another 69,500 had not entered the labor force.
• Salt Lake City recently won four awards of top 10 rankings in fDi Magazine’s “American Cities of the Future” for 2019-20. The city ranked fourth overall in the list of “Top 10 Mid-Sized American Cities of the Future” among 80 cities in the category. Salt Lake City also placed second in the category of Human Capital and Lifestyle, sixth in Connectivity, and sixth in Business Friendliness. The awards ceremony, hosted by fDi Intelligence, was held Oct. 14 in Indianapolis in conjunction with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) 2019 Annual Conference. While at the conference, Salt Lake City also won the International Economic Development Council Excellence in Economic Development Silver Award for the Living Color Utah webpage.
• Sharpr, a Salt Lake City-based searchable insight platform company, has been ranked as a “Leader” of the emerging market and competitive intelligence platforms globally, according to a Forrester New Wave report, which analyzed multiple platforms that track and disseminate market, customer and competitive intelligence insight for companies worldwide. Forrester ranked Sharpr in the top tier of 10 final companies, with high marks in Sharpr’s user experience, artificial intelligence-enabled searches, user access approaches, collaboration, product vision and product roadmap. Forrester evaluated companies against 10 criteria, designated the top-scoring firms as “Leaders,” its highest rank, followed by “Strong Performers,” “Contenders” and “Challengers.”
• SaltStack, a Lehi-based company focused on automation software for security operations teams, has announced that its SaltStack SecOps was named Vulnerability Management Solution of the Year in the 2019 CyberSecurity Breakthrough Awards. SaltStack SecOps is the first enterprise IT and security solution to deliver continuous compliance and vulnerability remediation for digital infrastructure at scale from a single orchestration and automation platform.
SERVICES
• U-Haul recently unveiled its newest retail and indoor self-storage facility, at U-Haul Moving & Storage of Hill Field, at 1200 N. Main St., Sunset. The facility has 1,364 indoor self-storage rooms in the three-story, 144,000-square-foot building. There also are 75 outdoor RV and vehicle storage spaces available for rent, and an 8,000-square-foot warehouse for U-Box portable moving and storage containers.