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ASSOCIATIONS
• Sunny Sanyal, CEO and president of Salt Lake City-based Varex Imaging Corp., has been appointed to the U.S.-India CEO Forum. Established in 2005, the forum provides an opportunity for discussions between the two governments to strengthen the U.S.-India economic and commercial relationship. The U.S. CEOs serve two-year terms and are selected from respondents to a Federal Register Notice calling for CEO-level applicants to the U.S. section of the forum. Varex designs and manufactures X-ray imaging components.
DIRECT SALES
• Young Living Essential Oils, Lehi, has promoted Sarah Bjorgaard to general manager over the U.S. market and Irvin Bishop Jr. to executive vice president of digital and strategic planning. Bjorgaard has more than 26 years of experience in the direct sales industry. She joined the company in 2018 as vice president of beauty essentials. Before joining Young Living, Sarah was vice president of global sales for a multinational corporation. In his new role, Bishop will lead Young Living’s efforts to update its global digital footprint and facilitate management and strategic alignment companywide. Bishop joined the company in 2018 as senior vice president of digital strategy. He has more than 20 years of expertise in digital marketing, consumer insights and technology. Prior to Young Living, he was head of digital marketing IT for Coca-Cola.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• St. George is second-ranked and three other Utah cities are in the top 20 on a list of “2019’s Best Small Cities to Start a Business,” compiled by personal finance website WalletHub. It compared more than 1,200 cities with fewer than 100,000 residents across 18 key metrics, including small-business growth rates, accessibility of financing, investor access and labor costs. Clearfield is ranked No. 18, Cedar City is No. 19 and Springville is No. 20. The top-ranked city is Holland, Michigan. Details are at https://wallethub.com/edu/best-small-cities-to-start-a-business/20180/.
EDUCATION/TRAINING
• May 8 is the deadline for applications for the August 2019 cohort of the 10,000 Small Businesses Program, a partnership locally between Goldman Sachs and Salt Lake Community College. The program offers participants practical skills in topics such as negotiation, marketing, and employee management that can immediately be put into action. The also will receive the tools and professional support they need to develop a strategic and customized business growth plan that will take their company to the next level. The program has trained 571 small-business owners in Utah alone. Details are at https://10ksbapply.com/.
EXPANSIONS
• Health Catalyst Inc., Salt Lake City, has entered the Asia Pacific market through a partnership with Fullerton Healthcare Corp. Ltd. Fullerton is a vertically integrated healthcare platform in the Asia Pacific region. Health Catalyst will assess Fullerton Health’s capabilities to design a comprehensive future-focused strategic plan for data analytics, designed to help drive improved outcomes across all stakeholders in all markets where the company operates.
GOVERNMENT
• The Salt Lake City Golf Division has hired Kelsey Chugg as associate golf director. Chugg has worked for the Utah Golf Association for the past five years, first as a USGA P.J Boatwright intern and then as the organization’s membership director. Chugg’s accomplishments as an amateur golfer include winning the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship and the Utah State Women’s Amateur Championship four times. Chugg was recognized three times as an academic and athletic All-American as a collegiate golfer at Redlands Community College in Oklahoma and Weber State University. Chugg was named the Utah Golf Association’s Women’s Player of the year in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Chugg graduated from Weber State with a degree in technical sales and worked in pro shop operations at Wingpointe Golf Course for four years.
INVESTMENT
• CleanSpark Inc., a Salt Lake City-based microgrid and custom electrical equipment company, has secured $20 million in financing to support various microgrid initiatives for commercial customers. The financing will help accelerate the development and deployment of CleanSpark’s Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Solutions to commercial customers.
PHILANTHROPY
• Sage Creek at Moab, a luxury resort property, has partnered with political commentator Glenn Beck to raise $1 million to fight child sex trafficking. The partnership is part of a fundraising giveaway dubbed the Sage Creek Drive in the Desert. Beck has long been a vocal proponent of Operation Underground Railroad, an organization that runs sting operations to apprehend traffickers and free their victims. Operation Underground Railroad is one of two nonprofits that will benefit from the fundraising effort. The other, Child Liberation Foundation, raises awareness and provides funds to vetted partner charities for the rescue and aftercare of child trafficking victims. Details are at sagecreek.rallyup.com/sagecreek.
REAL ESTATE
• Newmark Grubb ACRES, Salt Lake City, has hired Jackie Kingston as senior associate at its Salt Lake City office. Kingston joins Newmark’s industrial team, where she will focus on servicing landlords and tenants along the northern Wasatch Front. Kingston has over a decade of commercial real estate experience, including working as an associate at Colliers International. Starting in property management, she quickly made her way to vice president of operations.
RECOGNITIONS
• Salt Lake City’s Housing and Neighborhood Development (HAND) Division recently hosted its first Fair Housing & Community Development Awards breakfast and recognized the following: Michele Hutchins, equal housing opportunity specialist in the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development; Rob Ferris, CEO of Advantage Services Inc.; the Disability Law Center and Utah Community Action. During the event, Mayor Jackie Biskupski also honored two people with Keys to the City: Claudia O’Grady, vice president of the Multifamily Finance Department at UHC; and Shawn McMillen, executive director of First Step House.
• ARUP Laboratories, Salt Lake City, has been named Support Services Supplier of the Year by Vizient. It also was a finalist for the Compliance and Integrity Award. ARUP was one of 23 suppliers and distributors Vizient recognized for their excellence in providing value and benefit to Vizient’s members throughout 2018. Vizient is a member-driven healthcare performance improvement company.
RETAIL
• Valley Fair has named Dewey Richardson as general manager. He will oversee the transformation of the lifestyle center as it undergoes a revitalization. Richardson began his career with shopping centers in 1988 in Pocatello, Idaho, while attending Idaho State University. He later was operations manager at Pine Ridge Mall. He has been involved in managing lifestyle and shopping centers in Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, Michigan and Oregon. Most recently, he worked in Logan as senior general manager/national operations West at Cache Valley Mall. He worked for years with Rouse Properties.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• Sarcos Robotics, a Salt Lake City-based robotic systems company, has appointed Bill Keever as senior vice president of global sales and Tom Jackson as vice president of defense and public safety. Keever is a business leader with deep technology experience in industrial automation sales. Prior to Sarcos, he led large-scale and highly complex global sales teams. With more than 30 years of international experience, Keever has managed teams in EMEA, Asia and Latin America. Jackson is a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and 20-year defense, aerospace and energy industry veteran. Prior to joining Sarcos, Jackson served as vice president and general manager of Aeryon Defense USA Inc. Prior to joining Aeryon, Jackson worked for GE and Sierra Nevada Corp.