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ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT
• The Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah) board, at its May meeting approved film incentives for a pair of productions. 5001 Inc. was approved for an incentive of up to $625,000 for its production of the Hallmark family feature “Love in the Limelight.” The production is expected to spend $2.5 million in Utah, including during principal photography taking place through June 17 in Wasatch, Salt Lake and Utah counties. The production is expected to employ 17 cast, 58 crew and crew and 300 extras. The show will tell the story of a radio love expert who spends her days giving relationship advice and finds love unexpectedly. The producer is David Wulf. The director has not been determined. SLCPlus LLC was approved for an incentive of up to $700,000 for the feature drama “The QB Bad Boy and Me.” It is expected to spend $3.5 million in Utah, including during principal photography to take place July 5-29 in Salt Lake County. Twenty-seven cast, 75 crew and 1,000 extras are expected to be involved. The show focuses on a high school cheerleader intent on receiving a dance scholarship until a quarterback comes into her life. The producers are Adam Wescott and Nick Phillips. The director has not been determined.
CONSTRUCTION
• ABC Supply Co. Inc., a Wisconsin-based building products distributor, has promoted Leon Clark to district manager of its Mountain West District, based in Salt Lake City. The district includes locations in Utah, Idaho and Montana. After spending a decade working elsewhere in the building products industry, Clark began his career with ABC Supply as a branch manager of the Ogden, location in 2002. He later was promoted to managing partner and became a member of the company’s President’s Club. Clark most recently served as the low- and steep-slope business manager for the West Region. ABC Supply is a wholesale distributor of roofing and select exterior and interior building products.
CRYPTO
• Alta Finance, a Lehi-based crypto platform, has launched a crypto development shop called Alta Labs, a one-stop software development division that allows for global companies and projects to hire custom smart contract, NFT, DeFi, auditing and user interface work from talent found in Alta Finance’s in-house development team.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• Highland leads a list of “the most tax-friendly cities for retirees in Utah,” compiled by SmartAsset. It analyzed locations on how financially favorable it is for retirees using a theoretical $50,000 annual income to assess how much they will pay in income, property, sales and fuel taxes. Highland was followed, in order, by Enoch, Summit Park, Cedar Hills, Snyderville, St. George, Bluffdale, Nibley, Heber and Plain City. Details are at https://smartasset.com/retirement/utah-retirement-taxes#utah/mostTaxFriendlyPlacesForRetirees-3.
• JLL Research is predicting that Las Vegas, Orlando, Salt Lake City and Boise metro areas will have double-digit retail rent growth between 12 percent and 21 percent before 2025. It said those markets are in the middle of population growth booms, with 14 to 26 percent increases in residents, and are key areas identified for future investor demand. JLL Capital Markets is a global provider of capital solutions for real estate investors and occupiers.
• Utahns are among the least literate people when it comes to health insurance, according to a survey by Duffy & Duffy, a New York-based medical malpractice law firm. The survey indicated that 48 percent of Utahns cannot correctly identify common acronyms or terminology linked to health insurance, compared with a national average of 41 percent. People in Wyoming had the best healthcare insurance literacy score, at 77 percent, while South Carolinians finished in last place, at 43 percent.
• Eighty-five percent of surveyed Utahns would rather lose 20 pounds of weight than $2,000 of debt, according to a study by BarBend.com, a strength training resource and news outlet. That figure is generally in line with the national average.
EDUCATION/TRAINING
• The University of Utah College of Engineering has announced the appointment of professor Bruce Gale as the Merit Medical Systems Inc. Endowed Professor of Engineering. Gale, who is also chair of the UofU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, has published over 150 journal articles and 300 conference papers. He received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Brigham Young University and a doctorate degree in bioengineering from the UofU. He arrived at the UofU as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in 2001, was named professor in 2013, and became chair of the department in 2018. He also is director of the State of Utah Center of Excellence for Biomedical Microfluidics. Gale has started six companies and served as their head of engineering, including for Microsurgical Innovations, Espira, Advanced Conceptions, wFluidx and Carterra. His research is centered on biomedical applications of microfluidics. He also has expertise in biosensors, microarrays, micropumps, and microscale medical devices.
ENERGY
• Utah Clean Energy has announced the public phase of its capital campaign to build the “Climate Innovation Center” in downtown Salt Lake City. When completed, the center will be in a renovated 70-plus-year-old building to become one of the city’s most high-performance, net-zero buildings. In addition to serving as Utah Clean Energy’s headquarters, the Climate Innovation Center will be a laboratory that will educate the public and the business community about the role that buildings have in solving the climate crisis, and the ways to renovate and build for a healthy climate.
ENVIRONMENT
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced that three Utah organizations will receive nearly $6 million to advance environmental cleanups. The Utah Department of Environmental Quality will receive $1,320,845 under the EPA Brownfields Community-wide Assessment Grant for States and Tribes program. It will use the grant funds to prepare an inventory of underutilized and abandoned sites and conduct 45 environmental site assessments. The city of Green River will receive $500,000 under the EPA Brownfields Assessment Grant program. It will complete a brownfields site inventory and conduct 27 environmental site assessments and to develop five cleanup plans and support community outreach activities. Salt Lake County, on behalf of the Wasatch Coalition, will receive $3.9 million in supplemental funding under the EPA Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Coalition program. Salt Lake County and the Wasatch Front Brownfields Coalition will use additional funding to provide low-interest loans to support the cleanup and redevelopment of sites in Salt Lake City, Ogden and Murray. The three organizations are among 265 nationwide to receive Brownfields Cleanup, Assessment and Revolving Loan Fund grants.
• Hawx, an Ogden-based national pest control company, has announced a partnership with One Tree Planted, a nonprofit making it simple for anyone to help the environment by planting trees. Every new Hawx customer signed up equals another planted tree.
EXPANSIONS
• Lucid Software, a South Jordan-based provider of visual collaboration software, has expanded its EMEA headquarters in Amsterdam’s City Center. The 24,500-square-foot office will continue to serve as a hub for Lucid’s growing sales, marketing and customer success teams supporting its European markets. Lucid’s EMEA office has more than tripled its headcount in the past fiscal year and currently has over 125 employees in the Netherlands. Lucid has millions of users and nearly a third of its fiscal 2022 revenue coming from outside the United States.
• IsoTruss Inc., a Springville-based engineering, design and manufacturing services provider, has expanded its operations with the opening of a new production facility in the Philippines to fabricate IsoTruss carbon fiber cell towers. The 11,625-square-foot, one-story manufacturing facility property is undergoing a complete renovation program as IsoTruss repositions the facility for manufacturing and ramps up its production capabilities in preparation for shipments. Cell tower fabrication is slated to begin this month, with plans for the doubling of the enterprise’s workforce and manufacturing by year-end.
HEALTHCARE
• ARUP Laboratories, a Salt Lake City-based national reference laboratory and a nonprofit enterprise of the University of Utah and its Department of Pathology, has announced several new executive appointments. Effective July 1, Dr. Jonathan Genzen will become chief medical officer. Genzen, who is currently chief operations officer, will replace ARUP’s president, Dr. Tracy George, in the chief medical officer role. George retained the CMO role she had held since September 2020 after she became president in July 2021 to provide consistent leadership for ARUP medical directors through the COVID-19 pandemic. Adam Barker, currently chief scientific officer, will succeed Genzen as chief operations officer. George will assume the chief scientific officer role while continuing to serve as president and will directly oversee the New Technologies Group and the ARUP Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology. George, who in addition to her roles at ARUP is a professor in the University of Utah School of Medicine, will also oversee ARUP’s PharmaDx and Clinical Trials Division and the company’s strategic investments. Genzen has been with ARUP since 2013. Before becoming COO, he served as section chief of chemistry, and he remains a co-medical director for the Automated Core Laboratory and medical director of Laboratory Automation. He also is an associate professor in the UofU School of Medicine. Barker is also a UofU School of Medicine associate professor. He joined ARUP in 2010 as a fellow in microbiology and went on to act as medical director of the Acid-Fast Bacilli/Mycology Laboratory, the Reagent Laboratory, and Research and Development Special Operations. Before being named chief scientific officer, he was head of research and development, a position he had held since 2017.
INSURANCE
• PCF Insurance Services, a Lehi-based insurance brokerage, has appointed Mike Green as vice president of technology and Jeff Hutchins as vice president of human resources. Green has 25 years of experience in various technical disciplines and systems management. He previously served as the chief technology officer at Amerilife. Green graduated from Snow College with associates of applied science degrees in computer information systems and business management. Hutchins most recently served as the chief people officer at Finicity, a Mastercard company. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Weber State University.
INVESTMENTS
• Album VC, based in Lehi, has announced the $200 million Album Fund IV. The company said it will use the funds “to fuel a new class of impactful companies — big ideas from big thinkers, and teams of talented individuals that will create opportunities for countless others.”
• Tamarak Capital, a Springville-based venture capital firm, has completed a growth investment in Pillow Cube. The amount was not disclosed. Utah Valley resident Jay Davis founded Pillow Cube in July 2019 for people who sleep on their sides. Tamarak is a limited private fund of the Hatch and Malouf families that focuses on pre-seed funding in strategic companies.
• EvolvedMD, an Arizona-based company delivering integrated Psychiatric Collaborative Care Management services in primary care, has raised $5.4 million in Series A funding to integrate behavioral health support and primary care. The financing was led by Waterline Ventures and Conductive Ventures. The company is working with several primary care partners in Arizona and Utah, such as Honor Health, Foothill Family Clinic, Ogden Clinic, Apricus Health, Granger Medical, Premiere Family Health, and many others. The new investment will be used to scale technology infrastructure and continue building the clinical delivery team. Along with the expansion in Arizona and Utah, the company plans on launching in additional states.
LABOR
• A group of 40 rail operations supervisors at the Utah Transit Authority are now members of Teamsters Local 222. They had approached Local 222 seeking representation in 2014, and the issue turned into a court and legislative battle. Teamsters Local 222 serves over 3,000 members working for dozens of employers throughout Utah.
LAW
• Snell & Wilmer has announced that Geoffrey L. Gunnerson has rejoined its Salt Lake City office as counsel. His practice is concentrated in federal, state and local tax matters. Gunnerson previously was a tax associate based in the Phoenix office of Snell & Wilmer from 2011-17. Immediately prior to rejoining the firm, he was the tax attorney at Jones Waldo Holbrook & McDonough PC in Salt Lake City. Gunnerson’s education includes a B.S. from Westminster College.
LOGISTICS
• The Utah Inland Port Authority board of directors has new leadership. Miles Hansen, president and CEO of World Trade Center Utah, was unanimously elected as chairman, and Dan Hemmert, executive director of the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, was unanimously elected as vice chair. The other board members sworn-in during the board’s most recent meeting were Utah Rep. Mike Schultz, R-Hooper; Utah Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton; and Salt Lake City Councilwoman Victoria Petro-Eschler. The authority is a multimodal logistics agency with a regional approach to increase utilization and expand access for commerce throughout Utah.
PARTNERSHIPS
• Sera Prognostics Inc., a Salt Lake City-based company focused on improving maternal and neonatal health by providing innovative pregnancy biomarker information to doctors and patients, has partnered with the Newborn Foundation to launch the “Every Mother, Every Baby” Project. It is designed to educate clinical practitioners, policymakers and public health stakeholders about the role that validated biomarker-based preterm risk assessment tests like Sera’s PreTRM test can play in improving neonatal and maternal health outcomes. The foundation will work collaboratively with industry and public health stakeholders to advance the educational, policy and implementation framework around earlier recognition of risks associated with preterm birth as a means to improve health equity and achieve commitments to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
PHILANTHROPY
• The grandchildren of philanthropists Larry H. and Gail Miller have gifted $62,500 to Salt Lake Community College for scholarships through the Miller Legacy Project as part of the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation. The gift will also provide childcare vouchers to make pursuing education more accessible for student parents. This is the first time the third generation of the Miller family has given to SLCC. The Miller Legacy Project provides an educational giving experience to future generations of the Miller family and is specifically designed to perpetuate the philanthropic legacy of both Gail and Larry Miller.
• The 30th annual National Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive took place recently, with local letter carriers teaming up with Utah Food Bank to collect food donations for Utahns facing hunger. The drive is sponsored nationally by the National Association of Letter Carriers in conjunction with the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association and United States Postal Service. Residents across the state were asked to fill bags with non-perishable food donations and leave them at their mailbox. Local letter carriers collected and delivered food donations to Utah Food Bank and its statewide network of 216 partner agencies.
REAL ESTATE
• PEG Cos., a Provo-based real estate development and investment firm, has acquired a nine-property portfolio of extended-stay hotels that ultimately will be converted into multifamily communities. Financial terms were not disclosed. The hotels were built between 1984 and 1997 and are in Boston; Vancouver, Washington; Dallas; Atlanta; Jacksonville; Philadelphia; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Princeton, New Jersey; and Ocean City, New Jersey. Most were built as Residence Inn by Marriott extended-stay hotels. To date, through the PEG Extended Stay Conversion Fund LP, PEG has acquired 15 extended-stay hotels and is currently finishing out a $130 million fundraise for the closed-end commingled real estate investment fund focusing on the strategy.
RECOGNITIONS
• Six Salt Lake County programs have earned 2022 Achievement Awards from the National Association of Counties. The awards recognize innovative government programs from across the nation. Among the honored programs is the Economic Inclusion Community Assistance Program, a small-business assistance program that increased access to grants, loans and other resources for small-business owners of color and lower-income business owners. It assisted over 800 businesses with over 2,500 employees. Its success prompted the county to launch a long-term project called Salt Lake Center for Opportunity Partnership, which focuses on connecting lower-income businesses with community resources.
• RainFocus, a Lehi-based provider of an enterprise event marketing platform, has been awarded eight 2022 Eventex Awards. They include the Platinum award for the Event Management Solution category, six Gold awards, and one Silver award. The total made RainFocus the most awarded technology platform in this year’s Eventex awards program. The Eventex Awards honor excellence in events and experiential marketing. The Gold awards include People’s Choice Event Technology, Audience Engagement Technology, Conference Technology, Data Collection/Event Analytics Technology, Event Registration Technology and Hybrid Event Platform. The Silver is for Attendee Management Technology.
• AvantGuard, an Ogden-based monitoring solutions company, and a subsidiary of Becklar, has been awarded the 2022 Monitoring Center of the Year from the Monitoring Association. The honor recognizes the dedication and effort of AvantGuard’s team to build a company with a powerful culture, centered on innovation and service. Becklar and its subsidiary companies provide safety solutions, including monitoring for life and property protection solutions, such as fire and burglary detection, personal emergency response services, workforce safety, connected wellness and personal safety applications.
• Salt Lake County has been awarded a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2020, by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. The annual financial report was judged by an impartial panel to meet the high standards of the program, which includes demonstrating a constructive “spirit of full disclosure” to clearly communicate its financial story and motivate potential users and user groups to read the report. It is the 35th consecutive year that Salt Lake County has achieved the honor.
• The South Valley Chamber of Commerce recently held its annual Shark Tank Competition, sponsored by the Doman Innovation Studio and the Larry H. Miller Automotive Group and featuring state DECA and FBLA winners from Weber, Provo, Bear River and Herriman high schools. The first place ($5,000) winners are Ella Larson and Reagan Rasmussen. Katie Hewlett finished in second place ($2,500). Sarah Crowell finished in third place ($1,000).
RECREATION
• Park City Mountain has announced opening dates for summer activities. They include May 21 for Canyons Golf; May 27 for a limited summer opening for selected activities at Park City Mountain Village and Park City Adventure Park, plus scenic chairlift rides on Payday Express; and July 17 for the full summer opening at Park City Mountain Village and Park City Adventure Park, Canyons Village, and bike haul on Town Lift, Crescent Express and Red Pine Gondola.
• University Place, a 120-acre mixed-use development in Orem, has announced a series of summer activities that will take place at The Orchard, its outdoor gathering space. The series includes over 20 free events for the public from June through August. They include the Orem Chorale Spring Concert, Summer Kick-Off Luau, Orem Summerfest Kick-Off Party, Guys Night Out, family movie nights, Clog America: American Folk Dance Show, outdoor concerts, Renaissance Day, Pioneer Day fireworks, Bolivian Festival and African Heritage Festival. Details are at https://www.universityplaceorem.com/events/.
RETAIL
• Lee’s MarketPlace has opened a store at the corner of 150 North and State Highway 91 in Richmond, its third location in Cache Valley. Lee’s opened its first store in 1981 and now has seven locations.
SERVICES
• Scorpion, a Salt Lake City-based provider of technology and services for local businesses, has appointed Saurabh Goyal as its new president of small and medium-sized businesses. He will oversee growth, drive revenue and improve the productivity of Scorpion’s legal, home services and medical business areas. Goyal most recently spent nearly two decades at Google, where he was most recently the global head of product strategy and sales enablement for SMBs. Before that, he held multiple roles at Google across sales, go-to-market, tech services and YouTube.
• Protegrity, a Salt Lake City-based company focused on data-centric security, has hired Brad Rouse as chief revenue officer. Rouse has more than 30 years of sales and marketing leadership experience working with high acceleration startups and larger enterprise technology players. His experience includes serving as global vice president of SSL sales at Entrust and leading sales teams at Ping Identity and Gemalto after starting his career at IBM.
SPORTS
• Sports Salt Lake, a division of Visit Salt Lake, has launched a program seeking volunteers for upcoming events, including USA Climbing, the 2023 NBA All-Star Weekend and USA Volleyball. Many of the opportunities, it said, include access to exclusive sporting events and networking opportunities and can include hourly wages for participants. A list of events and volunteer registration are available at www.visitsaltlake.com/sports/services/volunteers. In the past three years, Sports Salt Lake has booked 107 sport-related events that are projected to attract 575,000-plus attendees.
TECHNOLOGY
• Swell, a Holladay-based company offering a customer experience platform for businesses, has hired Justin Strong as chief marketing officer and Casey Morgan as vice president of creative. Strong’s background is in planning and executing growth strategies for software as a service (SaaS) companies. He and Morgan were co-founders and partners at agency Room 118. Before that, Strong served as vice president of marketing and chief revenue officer at Loveland Innovations and vice president of marketing at Moki. Morgan will lead the creative team, taking on Swell’s branding and asset creation, including creative process, design and content.
• Entrata, a Lehi-based company offering an operating system for the multifamily community industry, has hired Nico Dato as chief marketing officer. Dato most recently was executive vice president of marketing at Podium.
• Vivint Smart Home Inc., a Provo-based smart home company, has announced the appointment of Dana Russell as chief financial officer. He succeeds Dale R. Garard, who will be leaving the company after 12 years to pursue an opportunity with a company outside of the smart home industry. Russell has 25 years of finance and operational experience, including serving as chief financial officer of Vivint Solar (acquired by Sunrun) from 2013-20. His other roles have included serving as an auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and holding various positions during 12 years at Novell, including vice president of finance, treasurer and corporate controller before being named its chief financial officer.