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BANKING
• People’s Intermountain Bank, American Fork, has promoted David G. Anderson to executive vice president. He will continue in his role as chief credit officer. Anderson has been with the bank since 1973 and has over 43 years of banking experience, primarily in commercial and residential real estate, construction and consumer lending. He has served as the bank’s senior vice president/chief credit officer since 2013. He also was senior vice president of loan administration, and he has been on the Bank of American Fork and People’s Utah Bancorp board of directors since 1988. His education includes a bachelor of science degree in business management from Brigham Young University.
CONTESTS
• Twenty teams have advanced to the final stage of the 2018 High School Utah Entrepreneur Challenge, hosted by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, a division of the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. The competition is open to all high school students across Utah ages 14-18. They are competing for $20,000 in cash and prizes. Each high school team faced the challenge of identifying a problem and proposing a creative solution. The final judging event and awards ceremony are April 7. The public is encouraged to vote online (http://lassonde.utah.edu/hsuec/hsuec-best-idea-voting-2018/) for the best idea through March 30. The finalists are AskManny App, Herriman High School; Castable Premium Podcast Experience, Skyridge; CCD: Campfire Charging Device, West; ClearWater Revival, Skyline; Discount Driver, West; GeoFocus; Green Republic, Highland; mySTYLIST, Park City; Recovery Wear, Park City; Retractable Road Reflector, American Fork; roadRewards, Skyridge; Seymour, Copper Hills; SubzeO, West; The Clean, Green, Flying Machine, Park City; The Orca, West Jordan Middle School; The Wolf’em Stick Pro, Bingham High School; Tile Support Pedestal, Wasatch High School; UV Sensor Wearable Technology, Park City; Water Widget, Academy of Math Engineering Science; and WeldSmart, Westlake High School.
INVESTMENT
• Degreed, with a main office in Salt Lake City, has announced a $42 million Series C financing co-led by Owl Ventures and Jump Capital. Founders Circle Capital, along with existing investors GSV Acceleration Fund and Signal Peak Ventures, also participated. The company so far has raised $75 million. David Blake, Degreed’s co-founder, has taken on a new role as executive chairman. Blake and the Degreed board named Chris McCarthy, formerly chief operating officer, as the company’s new chief executive officer.
• Fortem Technologies Inc., Salt Lake City, has closed a $15 million Series A funding round led by DCVC (Data Collective), with participation from Boeing and Mubadala Investment Co., as well as Manifest Growth, New Ground Ventures and founding investor Signia Venture Partners. Privately held Fortem produces radar systems for detecting airborne objects.
• The Cynosure Group, a Salt Lake City-based company offering long-term equity investments in private companies, has hired David Hunter as managing director and head of investor relations. Hunter previously spent 11 years with Partners Group in the New York, San Francisco and Denver offices as a member of the Investment Solutions team, most recently as a senior vice president; served as a consultant with Evaluation Associates; and served as an investment advisor at Bear Stearns. He received his MBA from Brigham Young University’s Marriot School of Management and his bachelor’s in finance from BYU.
MANUFACTURING
• Purple Innovation Inc., an Alpine-based designer and manufacturer of comfort products, has announced that Sam Bernards has stepped down as chief executive officer in order to pursue other opportunities. Terry Pearce, co-founder and chairman of the board of directors, will serve as interim CEO until a permanent replacement is found by the board with the assistance of an executive search firm.
MEDIA/MARKETING
• Graphic designer Sarah Blakely has launched an independent graphic design agency, Sarah Blakely Design, in Ogden Valley. It is a full-service firm offering graphic design and branding services to businesses throughout Utah. It will focus primarily on branding and business identity design as well as book design. Blakely is a graphic design graduate of Brigham Young University—Idaho and worked as a graphic designer with Deseret Book.
NONPROFITS
• The board of directors of Best Friends Animal Society, Kanab, has appointed Julie Castle as chief executive officer. The organization is an animal welfare organization committed to ending the killing of animals in America’s shelters by the year 2025. Castle joined the organization in 1994 and rose through the ranks, including serving as executive director of No More Homeless Pets in Utah, a Best Friends led statewide coalition of 166 shelters, animal rescue organizations and veterinarians, from 2000-2006; director of community programs and services, 2007-2011; director of marketing and communications, 2011-2014; and most recently as chief development, marketing and communications officer. Co-founder and current CEO Gregory Castle will transition to other responsibilities and will remain a member of board of directors He has served as CEO of the organization since 2009.
OUTDOOR PRODUCTS/RECREATION/SPORTS
• The U.S. Department of the Interior has announced more than $1.1 billion in annual national funding for state wildlife agencies from revenues generated by the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration (PRDJ) acts. Funding for Utah totals $21 million. That includes $6 million in Sport Fish Restoration funds and $14.6 million in Wildlife Restoration funds. The funds, which are distributed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, support state conservation and outdoor recreation projects. They are derived from excise taxes paid by the hunting, shooting, boating and angling industries on firearms, bows and ammunition and sport fishing tackle, some boat engines, and small-engine fuel.
PHILANTHROPY
• Weber State University, Ogden City and local businesses are teaming up for the Civility Quest Challenge, aimed at engaging the community in civility-based behavior April 6-12. Participants can collect and complete Civility Quest Challenge cards from local businesses around Ogden, download them from weber.edu/ccel.els.html or follow @wsuccel on social media for daily updates. Each card will have a challenge designed to encourage the participant to get involved with the people, animals and environment around them. After completing each quest, participants hand off their cards to somebody else, literally passing on the challenge to spread civility and kindness. Some of the Civility Quest challenges include picking up litter, going 24 hours without complaining, planting flowers at home or in a community garden, visiting local businesses and nonprofits, lending a helping hand to someone in need and appreciating silence in a community area. Details are at weber.edu/ccel/civilityquest.html.
REAL ESTATE
• Restore Utah has closed on 76 units known as Pine Valley and Pine Cove in Salt Lake County. Since its inception in 2012, Restore Utah and Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group have revitalized low- and moderate-income neighborhoods by transforming vacant or neglected properties hard hit by the financial crisis into quality affordable rental homes for low-income families. Pine Valley is a 60-unit apartment community that was built in 1970. Pine Cove is an adjacent 16-unit apartment complex built in 2014. Restore Utah plans to enhance the community through complete interior renovations, heating and cooling improvements and a common area overhaul planned to include a new playground, dog park and gathering pavilion.
• Price Real Estate has named Angela Eldredge as vice president of operations. She has been with Price since its founding in 2003 and was previously the director of business development and leasing. Price owns, develops, and manages more than 3 million square feet of commercial real estate.
• Enlight Homebuyers, Farmington, has expanded its business into three states, including Utah. Enlight is a website for selling homes.
RETAIL
• Nordstrom Inc. will relocate its Rack store to a larger location within the Sugar House Shopping Center in Salt Lake City. The 36,000-square-foot store will open in the spring of 2019. The property is owned by Dees Inc. The new location is in a building next door to the current Rack, near the new Springhill Suites and Whole Foods Market. Nordstrom has been in Utah since 1981. It now has four Rack stores and two full-line locations in the state.
SERVICES
• Search Group Partners Inc., a Salt Lake City-based boutique recruiting company, has sold its Westlake Village, California, office to Partners Personnel and said it will continue to focus and execute on its strategic expansion plans for the Utah market. Financial terms were not disclosed. Search Group Partners expanded into Southern California in 2015.
SPORTS
• ArbiterSports, a Sandy-based athletic event management company, has hired Jeff Moore as chief revenue officer and John Hopkins as chief financial officer. Moore has nearly two decades of experience in the cloud-based education industry. He previously was vice president of sales for Rocky Mountain West at Renaissance Learning, was the CRO and co-founder of Inquis, and vice president of sales at School Improvement Network. Moore holds bachelor of science degrees in business management, economics and information systems from Brigham Young University—Hawaii. Hopkins has spent the last 25 years in executive positions within software and banking operations. Most recently, he was CFO of Zions Bancorporation’s Net Deposit Unit and also was an owner-operator of two successful McDonald’s restaurant franchises. Hopkins’ education includes a bachelor of science degree in finance from the University of Utah.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• The Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) Initiative has awarded eight University Technology Acceleration Grant (UTAG) awards. The UTAG program provides university researchers with funding for advanced stages of applied research and development activities to address the market gap where both federal funding and private investment are sparse. The program is specifically designed to help technologies with market potential reach a level of technical maturity to attract private investment. This competitive grant allows researchers to accelerate research and development, establish proof of concept, or perform product validation. Recipients are Matthias D. Greb, Ryan Looper, Mostafa Sahraei-Ardakani and Christian Yost, all from the University of Utah; Scott E. Budge, Silvana Martini and Yujie Sun, all from Utah State University; and Rico Del Sesto, Dixie State University.
• Adobe has broken ground on a 160,000-square-foot addition in Lehi. The company last year was approved for a $25.7 million tax credit rebate from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board tied to the company creating up to 1,260 high-paying jobs over the next 20 years.
TRAVEL & TOURISM
• Visit Salt Lake has appointed Tyson Lybbert as managing director of sales, a newly created position. He will be responsible for the execution of VSL’s meetings, convention and tradeshow sales strategy. Lybbert has nearly two decades of hotel sales experience, including the past two years as director of sales and marketing of the Hilton Salt Lake City Center, and 10 years in that capacity at the Salt Lake Marriott City Center. His career also includes sales and marketing roles for the Provo Marriott, University Park Hotel and the Residence Inn by Marriott Sandy.
• Resorts/Mountains/Cities (RMC), a Colorado-based destination management company, has announced some hirings and promotions. Among the new hires is April Pocorus, sales consultant covering Salt Lake City and Park City. She has experience in outdoors, sales and project management.Her experience includes serving as project manager for the Salt Lake City mayor’s office and sales manager at Backcountry.com. RMC promotions include Karen Crawford moving from general manager to vice president of sales and operations. She will oversee RMC’s offices in Utah; South Carolina; California; Texas; and Los Cabos, Mexico. She also will help drive RMC’s strategic plans for sales and operations. Crawford joined RMC in 2011 as a sales consultant. She has nearly a decade of experience, and most recently served as general manager of RMC’s California, South Carolina and Utah offices.