Industry Briefs are provided as a free service to our readers. Company news information may be sent to brice@slenterprise.com. The submission deadline is one week before publication.
BANKING
• Bank of Utah, Ogden, has hired Michael Asay as senior vice president and commercial lender and Matt Quinney as branch manager of its Sandy location, and named Alyssa Cales as branch manager of its Brigham City office. Asay has 34 years of experience working for regional, national and international banks. His background includes commercial and industrial lending to businesses, as well as commercial real estate lending to developers and investors. Asay graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in finance and also is a United States Air Force Reserves veteran. In the military, he served as an egress technician, maintaining and servicing the seat and canopy ejection system of fighter aircraft. Quinney has 18 years of experience in banking. He started as a teller with Zions Bank in 2000, worked his way through the ranks and was promoted to branch manager within a few years. He also served as a branch manager for Utah First Credit Union. In addition, he has experience working for a title company and helping small businesses thrive through a company called Podium. Quinney has two undergraduate degrees, one in speech communication from the University of Utah and one in business management from Western Governors University. For three years, Cales served as an account manager at Bank of Utah’s Ogden corporate location and also worked for a while in another industry. Cales replaces Greg Carter, who has taken another role in Bank of Utah’s commercial lending department.
• Chartway Credit Union, based in Virginia, has promoted John Sapp to senior vice president of data and business analytics. Five years ago, Sapp joined Chartway as vice president of business and risk analytics. Prior to joining Chartway, Sapp was at Capital One, where he led business analytics for the retail bank and small-business teams. Sapp’s education includes a bachelor of science degree in environmental engineering from Utah State University.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• Holladay is ranked No. 67, Park City is No. 113 and Snyderville is No. 114 on a list of “least desirable places to live in America on a $100,000 salary,” compiled by coupon and deals website CouponBirds. The No. 1 city is Palm Beach, Florida. The No. 150 city is Weldon Spring, Missouri. Details are at https://www.couponbirds.com/research-center/data/the-least-desirable-cities-to-live-in.
• Red Butte Gardens, Salt Lake City, is ranked No. 140, Red Hills Desert Garden, St. George, is No. 154 and Conservation Garden Park, West Jordan, is No. 171 on a list of “must-see public gardens,” compiled by Good Plant Care. Its list is of the top 200 public gardens people want to visit this year. The top three are in Hawaii, led by Koko Crater Botanical Garden. Details are at https://goodplantcare.com/best-public-gardens-in-america/.
• Salt Lake City is ranked No. 18 and West Valley City is ranked last, No. 200, on a list of “best cities for outdoor weddings,” compiled by Lawn Love. It compared the 200 biggest U.S. cities on eight categories, including the quality of outdoor wedding venues, access to wedding planners, and sunshine. The top-ranked city is Charleston, South Carolina. Details are at https://lawnlove.com/blog/best-cities-outdoor-weddings/#rankings.
• Utah students are ranked next-to-last among the “biggest drinkers over spring break,” a list compiled by PRPioneer.com. Surveyed Utahns said they consumed an average of five drinks per day. The biggest spring break drinkers are in West Virginia, who, on average, drink 16 standard drinks per day. The least-drinking students are in New Hampshire, with an average of five drinks per day. Details are at https://prpioneer.com/spring-break-drinking.
EVENTS
• The organizing committee of Autumn Aloft, a hot air balloon festival in Park City, has announced the end of the annual event. The event was revived in 2014. The longtime event organizer stepped down from the role of event manager after the 2022 event. After that, the Historic Park City Alliance and the committee chair explored several options to replace the event manager or find a new organization to host the event. The searches for a new event manager and organizational hosts were both unsuccessful, the committee said.
GOVERNMENT
• After five months of study, the Central Wasatch Commission has released the draft Big Cottonwood Canyon Mobility Action Plan for public review and comment. The plan builds upon previous studies to prioritize near- and long-term solutions that will improve mobility in Big Cottonwood Canyon throughout the year. It will lay out an implementation plan for various options, including funding, timeline and environmental next steps. The plan is available at the commission website, cwc.utah.gov. The comment period is open through April 17.
HEALTHCARE
• CancerVAX, a Lehi-based developer of a cancer vaccine, has hired Byron Elton as chief marketing officer. His duties will include the direct supervision of AGM Agency, a social media marketing agency. Elton, who also serves on the Company’s board of directors, is a media and marketing executive. Since June 2018, he has been president of Elton Enterprises Inc., involved in the wellness, fitness and health sector. Elton also is the owner of certain StretchLab franchises. He is a co-founder since June 2017 of Pardue Associates. He also has been a partner of Clear Search; served as president and CEO of Carbon Sciences Inc.; served as senior vice president of sales for Univision Online; served as an executive at AOL Media Networks; led ABC and CBS affiliates in California; and served as president of the Alaskan Television Network. Elton studied advertising and marketing communications at Brigham Young University.
INSURANCE
• The Buckner Co., a Salt Lake City-based regional insurance brokerage, has appointed Agnesa Bakhshyan as chief growth officer and Lianna Kinard as chief marketing officer. Bakhshyan has over 25 years of experience in insurance. Her primary responsibilities will be to build, lead and motivate property and casualty client advisors in Utah and lead their efforts in production and increased market share. She earned a B.A. in business administration from Westminster College. Kinard has over a decade of strategic and creative marketing experience within the insurance industry. She will continue to serve as an executive leadership team member, overseeing brand strategy and execution of all firm communications. Her education includes a B.A. in marketing from the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah.
INVESTMENTS
• Quandra, a Logan-based software startup, has completed a seed-round funding of over $1 million, led by investment firm Fortify Capital Partners, with participation by several other strategic syndicate investors. Fortify is a Logan -based angel syndicate led by entrepreneurs and venture capital professionals. Prior to this investment, the Quadra founders had fully bootstrapped the company, leading to a launch of the first version of its software that added hundreds of e-commerce sellers to their growing customer base. Quandra’s Logan office has 12 employees. Quandra said the investment will be used to develop a more robust platform, grow the Quadra team, create customer service processes and increase marketing efforts.
• Pelion Venture Partners, Salt Lake City, has announced that Roy Banks has joined the venture capital firm as a venture partner. Banks has over 30 years of experience in technology, including serving as CEO and/or president five times. Most recently, Banks was CEO of Weave. Prior to that, he held top executive positions for Authorize.Net, Accelerated Payment Technologies, Network Merchants Inc., Truckstop.com and Complete Merchant Services. Earlier in his career, Banks worked for WordPerfect, Novell and PowerQuest and spent five years in the U.S. Navy. His education includes a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Utah Valley University.
• Banner, a Lehi-based private equity firm focused on partnering with founder-led and family-owned businesses, has hired Josh Cowdin as chief financial officer and managing director or investor relations. Cowdin most recently provided fund administration services to leading private equity firms as a managing director with Alter Domus and Strata Fund Solutions. Earlier in his career, he worked as an auditor with KPMG, focused on auditing hedge funds and other large asset managers. Cowdin earned a Masters of Accountancy from the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University.
MORTGAGES
• CBC Mortgage Agency, a Cedar City-based housing finance agency and source of down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, has hired Mark Leslie as director of capital markets. Leslie has more than two decades of experience as a mortgage trader, including senior trading positions at Stearns Lending, Guaranteed Rate and Caliber Home Loans. He began his career as a junior mortgage trader in 2001. He served as trading vice president at several prominent mortgage banking firms, including Stearns Lending, where he helped the company transfer trading operations from California to Texas, and Caliber Home Loans, where he was the main architect of the company’s rate sheet pricing models.
OUTDOOR RECREATION
• Solitude Mountain Resort has announced four major capital improvements that will begin this summer. They include an Eagle Express six-person chairlift upgrade, snowmaking improvements, three Wyssen towers to be installed in Honeycomb Canyon to help with avalanche control efforts on Fantasy Ridge, and Gravity Logic downhill mountain bike trails accessed from Moonbeam Express. The changes are expected to cost over $16 million. Construction on the Eagle Express Doppelmayr lift will begin this spring, and the lift is expected to be operational by mid-December. The new Gravity Logic bike trails are expected to open mid-summer. Additional off-season improvements include modest renovations to The Inn at Solitude and signature restaurants Honeycomb Grill and St. Bernard’s; improved road access to Roundhouse, Solitude’s on-mountain wedding venue; and installation of music and PA systems at Solitude’s three main lodges. Possible changes to Solitude’s paid parking policy, including a reservation system, are being considered.
PARTNERSHIPS
• U.S. Ski & Snowboard, based in Park City, has announced an expansion of its partnership with Stifel Financial Corp. to become the official team naming partner of all of the ski teams under the U.S. Ski & Snowboard brand. The global wealth management and investment banking firm also be the title sponsor of the Stifel U.S. Cross Country Ski Team, Stifel U.S. Freestyle Ski Team and Stifel U.S. Freeski Team. The naming rights of the Stifel U.S. Ski Team are effective immediately until April 2026. Stifel will also become an associate sponsor of the freeski and snowboard Toyota U.S. Grand Prix at Mammoth and Copper, the cross country Loppet Cup in Minneapolis, the Intermountain Freestyle International at Deer Valley, and an additional moguls FIS Freestyle World Cup. Each of these events will fall under the banner of the “Stifel U.S. Ski Series.”
• Bayesia, based in France, and Causality Link, a Sandy-based financial information technology provider and also involved in extracting causal links from text, have entered into a strategic partnership agreement aimed at bringing together their respective expertise and providing a new level of insight for financial decision-makers. The collaboration has resulted in an automated path to derive executable Bayesian Network Simulations from financial news. The platform simplifies the process by which investors and researchers can leverage the power of artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning and Bayesian networks. Potential applications for the technology include investment management, risk assessment and financial modeling.
PHILANTHROPY
• Utah residents this year donated about 98,000 pounds of food in the annual “Scouting for Food” Drive. Drop-off sites were in Bank of Utah branches, Arctic Circle locations, Smith’s, Red Hanger Cleaners and Young Automotive and Powersports locations. Feb. 11-March 13. Utah Boy Scouts helped collect the food and deliver it to over 20 food banks across the state.
REAL ESTATE
• KBS, an owner and operator of commercial real estate buildings, has signed 24,280 square feet in new leases and lease renewals with five national and local tenants at Millrock Park, a four-building, 494,289-square-foot Class A office park at 6550 S. Millrock Drive, Holladay. It was built in 2005 on a 22-acre campus. Companies that have recently signed new leases with KBS at Millrock Park include Phalynx Ventura (7,147 square feet), Mountain View Mortgage (5,851 square feet), and Stratus Real Estate Solutions (3,900 square feet). Tenants that have signed lease renewals are Truist Financial Corp. (3,706 square feet) and Square Inc. (3,676 square feet). Brandon Fugal, Josh Smith and Angela Kroneberger of Colliers International represented KBS in the lease transactions.
RECOGNITIONS
• The Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity has announced the award recipients for the 2023 Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology, presented to people who have “provided significant contributions and distinguished service to Utah and beyond in the fields of K-12 education, academia/research and industry.” The industry award recipient is David J. Bearss, president, chairman and CEO at Halia Therapeutics. The award for K-12 education will be presented to Lora Gibbons, a teacher at Mountain Heights Academy. The award for academia/research will be presented to Julie L. Valentine, associate dean for undergraduate studies and research at the Brigham Young University College of Nursing. Bearss’ entrepreneurial track record of drug development spans the last 25 years, including the discovery of 16 compounds that moved to clinical development. Among the companies he started are Tolero Pharmaceuticals in Lehi. He helped establish the research arm of Huntsman Cancer Institute and the U2TAH Therapeutics Accelerator at the University of Utah, which guides investigators and researchers in moving their programs toward clinical studies and licensing. Bearss serves on the board of Halia Therapeutics, Biolexis Therapeutics, Canary Speech, Xenthera, and Galvan Health. He was one of the science experts that Gov. Spencer Cox consulted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gibbons has supported STEM education in Utah with involvement in state and national STEM competitions. She serves on the Utah Science Teachers Association board, works on various Utah State Board of Education projects and cohorts, and works with the STEM Action Center as a chief science officer. Valentine has conducted groundbreaking research on sexual assault that has driven Utah’s improvements in addressing sexual violence. That research has resulted in multidisciplinary reforms in education, practice, and policy in Utah and the United States. Cox will present the awards May 2 at the One Utah Summit at the Davis Conference Center in Layton.
• Katie Martin, lead sustainability and ESG (environmental, social and governance) principal at Orem-based Avetta, and Coby Nilsson, CEO and co-founder of Provo-based Enveyo, have been named “2023 Pros to Know” Award recipients by Supply & Demand Chain Executive, a publication covering the global supply chain. The annual awards recognize outstanding executives whose accomplishments offer a roadmap for other leaders looking to leverage the supply chain for competitive advantage. Avetta provides contractor prequalification software. Enveyo provides logistics data management, visibility and shipping optimization software.
RETAIL
• EoS Fitness has opened a nearly 50,000-square-foot gym at 10365 S. 1300 E., Sandy. It offers cardio equipment, strength training machines and recovery options, as well as a variety of group fitness classes, Olympic lifting platforms and turf training areas. It also offers a workout area in a movie theater setting, a Kids’ Club, an indoor lap pool and personal trainers. It is the company’s 11th Utah location. EoS has more than 100 locations open or on the way in six states.
TECHNOLOGY
• RootRez, a Salt Lake City-based business-to-business travel technology company, has rebranded as Ripe. Since the company’s founding in 2015, it has grown to service over 50 destinations across North America and has acquired $1.8 million in seed funding to expand its product and service offerings. The rebrand includes the new name, logo, website and messaging.