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BANKING
• Bank of Utah, Ogden, has named Peter Lee as mortgage loan officer for Brigham City, Tremonton and Ogden. Lee has been in the banking industry since 1994 and has helped with purchases and refinance loans for 20 years.
• D.L. Evans Bank has appointed Cindy Beecher to residential mortgage lending sales manager for the Northern Utah area. Beecher has 30 years of banking experience. She earned her business management degree while attending Salt Lake Community College and her interior design degree at Weber State University.
EDUCATION/TRAINING
• Nightingale College, a Salt Lake City-based institution focused on distance and blended-learning programs for nursing education, will host an accreditation visit by the National League for Nursing Commission for Nursing Education Accreditation (NLN CNEA) on March 14-16. CNEA will be conducting a virtual site visit of the Practical Nursing Diploma Program. The program is pursuing accreditation from the NLN CNEA.
INVESTMENTS
• Allset, Lehi, has raised $3 million in funding to grow its service that helps service professionals automate and increase tips through a personalized mobile messaging platform. The company was established in 2020.
MANUFACTURING
• Clarus Corp., a Salt Lake City-based designer, developer, manufacturer and distributor of outdoor equipment and lifestyle products, has promoted Aaron J. Kuehne to executive vice president and chief operating officer and named Michael J. Yates as chief financial officer. As COO, Kuehne will have responsibility for Clarus’ operating model, business integration and optimization as well as the company’s operational support functions. He joined Clarus in 2010 and has served as chief financial officer, secretary and treasurer since 2013 and as executive vice president since March 2021. Yates has nearly 35 years of financial management, executive leadership, accounting and M&A experience. He most recently worked at IDEX Corp., where he held multiple accounting and financial executive leadership positions, including most recently serving as chief accounting officer, a role which he held since 2010. Other positions at IDEX included interim CFO and corporate controller. Prior to IDEX, Yates worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG.
MILESTONES
• EAssist Dental Solutions, a Salt Lake City-based company offering remote dental billing and patient billing services for dental offices, has announced it exceeded $1 billion in insurance collections for dental practices nationwide in 2021. Its client base includes more than 2,000 general and specialty dental practices, as well as dental service organizations.
PARTNERSHIPS
• Banner Ventures, a Lehi-based private equity and venture capital firm, has announced a partnership with Premier Plastics LLC, based Salt Lake City, and founder Jim Holbrook. Premier Plastics started in 1989 and provides specialty plastic packaging in the Intermountain West, with a particular focus in the medical device and consumer packaging sectors. Holbrook retains a meaningful ownership stake in Premier and will continue to serve as CEO during this next phase of expansion. In addition to Banner Ventures, healthcare and manufacturing industry veterans Ron Labrum and Tony Orsini co-invested via Seventeen Capital LLC with the goal of driving additional growth in the medical device and supply categories. Orsini will join the Premier Plastics board of directors. Financing for the transaction was provided by Key Bank, and McGuire Woods advised Banner Ventures on the deal. Premier Plastics and Holbrook were advised by Forbes M+A and VLP Law Group.
PHILANTHROPY
• Employees of Extra Space Storage, based in Salt Lake City, from across the U.S. participated in a virtual food drive that raised over $50,000 in two weeks, with the company matching employee donations. The donation will help provide at least 500,000 meals. The food drive was in partnership with Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs. Feeding America has a food bank in almost every market there is an Extra Space Storage, including Utah Food Bank in Salt Lake City. In past years, the Extra Space team working in the corporate office in Salt Lake City partnered with the Utah Food Bank to hold a traditional food drive. In 2020, due to COVID changes, the headquarters team hosted their first virtual food drive and raised over $22,000 for the Utah Food Bank. The drive was expanded to nationwide this year. Extra Space Storage is a real estate investment trust that owns and/or operates 2,054 self-storage properties.
REAL ESTATE
• Utah Community Credit Union (UCCU) has sold the UCCU Financial Center at 333 N. Digital Drive, Lehi, to Yama Points LLC. Financial terms were not disclosed. The Class A, seven-story office building totals 74,257 square feet. It will be rebranded as Drive Tower. Lehi-based Drive Wealth Advisers, which provides custom financial planning for founders, executives and high-net-worth families, will occupy the entire top floor of the building, or 10,755 square feet. In addition to Drive Wealth Advisors, Drive Tower is fully leased to multiple credit tenants in the real estate, solar and medical industries. In addition to the rebranding, the building’s new ownership is planning ongoing upgrades such as interior design improvements and facility improvements that include upgraded parking and electric vehicle amenities. The transaction announcement was made by JLL’s Utah office. JLL Executive Vice President David Nixon represented Yama Point in the acquisition. Josh Martin of Colliers International represented UCCU.
RECOGNITIONS
• USANA Canada’s general manager, Tracie Graham, was recently presented with the Ivan P. Phelan Award from the Canadian Direct Selling Association. The award is DSA’s highest recognition and honors people who have made a significant contribution to the direct selling industry in Canada. Two USANA associates, Seta Der Artinian and Hubert Krause, also earned the DSA “Mark of Distinction,” which recognizes independent salespeople or teams who uphold the values of trust and integrity vital to the direct selling industry. Der Artinian and Krause have been with USANA Health Sciences since its launch in Canada over 25 years ago. Salt Lake City-based USANA offers nutritional supplements and skincare products.
RESTAURANTS
• Mountain Mike’s Pizza, a California-based pizza chain, has opened its second Orem location at 41 West University Parkway, at the corner of University Parkway and Main Street. It is owned by RVTC Enterprises LLC, a local franchise group run by Utah residents and dairy farmers Robert Viveiros and Tony Cabral. The 3,400-square-foot restaurant features 11 big-screen televisions, a kids’ area with arcade games, a private party room, and a seated bar counter serving a variety of beer and wine. Mountain Mike’s Pizza has more than 240 locations.
SERVICES
• Siskin Enterprises and PermaPlate, both based in Salt Lake City, have launched PermaPlate Furniture, a new division that will be providing innovative administrative and protection plan solutions for the furniture industry. PermaPlate Furniture will offer retailers sales support by offering complimentary warranty education, sales associate training, in-store and online marketing creatives, and account management support.