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ASSOCIATIONS
• Spencer Terry, general manager of The Fear Factory, a Salt Lake City haunted attraction, has been unanimously elected president of the International Haunted Attraction Association. Presidents are approved by board members and typically serve one to two terms. The association is for professional haunt owners, operators, designers, vendors, enthusiasts, home haunters and artists. Haunted attractions total nearly 5,500 worldwide. Terry has spent nearly 20 years in the hospitality, nonprofit, retail and corporate human resources fields.
• The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), Utah Chapter, has appointed Louie A. Tafoya as director of workforce development. Tafoya will oversee the liensing, safety and management training programs while continuing his role as a master trainer NCCER. Tafoya has been with the ABC for over two years. Prior to ABC, he spent 15 years with Union Pacific Railroad as an instructor for its simulator training program. ABC is a national construction industry trade organization that represents more than 21,000 members.
BANKING
• WebBank, a Salt Lake City-based industrial bank, has appointed Seth Goodman as senior vice president/chief revenue officer. Goodman joined WebBank in May 2021 and his team is responsible for business development, strategy and M&A. He has over 20 years of banking, financial services and consulting industry experience. Before joining WebBank, Goodman worked at Marcus by Goldman Sachs, where he led business development for Marcus’s Banking as a Service, deposits and wealth management verticals. Prior to Goldman Sachs, he served in multiple roles at Citibank across credit cards, payments and commercial cards and at Sapient as a technology consultant.
CONSTRUCTION
• Big-D Construction, Salt Lake City, has completed the first phase of Utah Transit Authority’s Depot District Clean Fuels Technology Center. The center features a new wash building, facilities for both satellite and integrated diesel fueling with an existing CNG bus fueling building, and a parking lot for employees and visitors. The center is in downtown Salt Lake City at the former Denver & Rio Grande railroad yard. The center ultimately will become an 80,000-square foot bus maintenance facility to store, operate, maintain and service 135 buses on a regular basis. The facility will also contain room for future expansion, anticipating the continued growth of Salt Lake City’s population. Phase II is underway and will add 132,892 square feet of administration, operation and maintenance facilities, as well as canopied parking for the entire fleet of natural gas and electric vehicles. The entire $95 million project is expected to be completed in spring 2023. Big-D partnered on the UTA project with Stantec, a global architecture, engineering and design firm with offices in Denver and a presence in Salt Lake City.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• Utah is ranked No. 2, behind only South Dakota, on a list of states whose unemployment rates are bouncing back most during the economic recovery, compiled by WalletHub. It compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on five key metrics that compare unemployment rate statistics from the latest month for which data is available (April) to key dates in 2019 and 2020. Hawaii has bounced back the least. Details are at https://wallethub.com/edu/states-unemployment-rates/74907/.
• Salt Lake City residents pay an average of $98 in cable/Internet bills per month, according to a report from doxoINSIGHTS. That is the nation’s lowest average in the metro-level rankings, and the study showed that Utah is one of the five least-expensive states as well. The national average is $116. The study indicates that Salt Lake City residents would get a 51 percent discount if the FCC implements a $50 monthly broadband subsidy for low-income families, saving them $600 a year.
• Cache County leads all Utah counties on a list of places where residents are the most successful at being approved for their mortgages, compiled by SmartAsset. Cache County was followed, in order, by Washington, Box Elder, Davis, Utah, Rich, Weber, Salt Lake, Morgan and Tooele counties. The rankings are part of an overarching study on the “Best Places to Get a Mortgage,” which includes additional factors like borrowing costs and property taxes. Details are at https://smartasset.com/mortgage/utah-mortgage-rates#utah/origination-rate.
EDUCATION/TRAINING
• Weber State University’s Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of Julie Rich as dean of the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences (CSBS). Her research and writing focuses on arid environments and environmental change, with an emphasis on Quaternary paleoclimates, paleoenvironments and geochronology, using optical (luminescence) dating methods. She has served as a geography professor and has served as interim dean of the college since 2019. In addition to her role as dean, Rich will continue to advance Weber State’s Global Community Engaged Learning (GCEL) program, which undertakes projects to help alleviate poverty in developing nations.
• The University of Utah College of Engineering has appointed professor Feng Liu as the Ivan B. Cutler Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. Since joining the UofU in 2000, he has become an expert in the fields of surface science and thin films, with a current focus on low-dimensional nano, quantum and topological-materials. Liu served as chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering from 2011 to 2019 and is currently serving as the divisional associate editor of Physical Review Letters. In addition to fundamental research, Liu co-founded two startup companies, Solan and Life-E.
• Forty-five students were the first to complete the “Lassonde+X” program, doing so during the 2020-21 academic year at the University of Utah. The program allows students to add entrepreneurial skills to any major. The three-course program that allows any undergraduate student at the University of Utah to “entrepreneur your major,” with the “X” being their major. The program is offered by the Department of Entrepreneurship & Strategy, in partnership with the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, at the David Eccles School of Business. The first students to complete the program are studying 24 majors. Details are at eccles.utah.edu/lassondex.
• Nightingale College, a Salt Lake City-based college focused on distance learning prelicensure nursing education programs, has received continuing education accreditation from the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training (IACET). The accreditation is for a five-year cycle. Nightingale’s first offering will be an implicit bias workshop being offered at no cost to all college collaborators and learners. In January, the college was accepted as a candidate for regional accreditation by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU).
FOOD
• Servy, a mobile food ordering services company, has launched a touchless food ordering service at Salt Lake City International Airport in partnership with Emerging Domestic Market Ventures (EDMV). Powered by Servy’s Grab Airport Marketplace technology, the new SLCtoGo platform provides a convenient, safe alternative to dining-in or waiting for a to-go order. Customers order food items via a streamlined touchless mobile ordering website or by scanning a QR code. They then have the option of picking up their order at the restaurant or having it delivered to their gate by a human or a delivery robot called Gita. The airport currently has five restaurants participating in the program. Additional restaurants will be added as the program expands.
HEALTHCARE
• Xenter Inc., a Salt Lake City-based startup device-data-drug healthcare technologies company, has appointed Scott Heuler as senior vice president of global sales and marketing and Gary Baldwin as chief technology officer in its Hospital Technologies business unit. Heuler has more than 25 years of experience in the industry. His background includes regional and senior sales leadership positions with Boston Scientific in interventional cardiology, structural heart, cardiac rhythm management, and peripheral vascular. Heuler held senior sales and marketing leadership roles with NeuroOne Medical Technologies, Guidant Corp. and U.S. Surgical Corp. Baldwin is a technology executive and entrepreneur with a successful career in high technology companies ranging from startups through Fortune 50 companies and including two startup exits. Prior to Xenter, Baldwin led research and development, engineering and product teams for multiple organizations. He served as vice president of engineering for Cisco Systems; led software engineering at Cerent; and worked at ECI Telecom, Raytheon/E-Systems, Zipit Wireless and Dynepic.
• Amp Human, a Park City-based company focused on human performance, has added NFL all-pro defensive lineman and Super Bowl champion Ndamukong Suh to its athlete roster and investor list. The partnership marks a four-year agreement that will see Suh as an active advisor to Amp Human. Suh also will be a shareholder.
INVESTMENT
• Banner Ventures, a private equity and venture capital firm focused on partnering with founder-led and family-owned businesses and with office in Lehi and Boston, has announced several additions. Tyler Price has joined the firm as vice president. He has experience in dealing with founder-led businesses as an investment banker with Citigroup, private equity investor with Tower Arch Capital and corporate development lead with Lucid Software. In addition to Price, Banner unveiled a network of advisors and operating executives from a variety of backgrounds, including family office investor Mike McGovern, tech entrepreneurs and investors Ryan Westwood and Kent Madsen, executives Greg Woodward and Ronell Hugh, two-time NBA champion Mike Miller and innovation expert Ann Christensen. NBA player Georges Niang also joined the firm through the Venture Associate Program, an initiative designed by Banner to mentor professional athletes toward their long-term business and investment goals.
INVESTMENTS
• Blackrock Neurotech, a Salt Lake City-based company offering a platform for brain-computer interface (BCI) technology and manufacturing, has closed a $10 million financing round led by re.Mind Capital with participation from Peter Thiel, German entrepreneur Tim Sievers, and Sorenson Impact’s University Venture Fund II. Christian Angermayer and Jan Hardorp of re.Mind, as well as Sievers, will join the Blackrock Neurotech board of directors. The funding will be used to expand the number of programs on the Blackrock platform, including clinical studies and research, and to continue development of its technology platform. In addition to the investment announcement, Blackrock will begin using the brand Blackrock Neurotech to better reflect the company’s longstanding focus on neurotechnology and BCI. The company will keep the Blackrock Microsystems brand in place for continuity with its research community.
• Recyclops, a Sandy-based sustainability and recycling startup, has closed a $3 million seed round investment led by Lerer Hippeau and Glad, a member of the Clorox Co. family of brands. Other key investors include Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and the Utah-based Kickstart. The funding will help the company expand recycling to over 100,000 households over three years. As part of the investment, Recyclops has also formed a partnership with Glad to help support the company’s sustainability goals, which include dramatically reducing its environmental footprint by 2030. Through the new partnership, Glad and Recyclops will innovate on more sustainable materials and bring recycling to more households. Recyclops uses a smart-routing app and a gig-economy model to facilitate recycling pickup and drop-off in rural and dense urban communities. The company, which launched in 2014, currently serves more than 10,000 households in nearly 100 cities across 10 states, and employs approximately 200 independent contractors across the country.
NONPROFITS
• The Suazo Business Center, in a partnership with Weber State University and Ogden City, is expanding its geographic reach by opening a second location, at 2036 Lincoln Ave., Suite 105, Ogden. The center is a Salt Lake City nonprofit organization devoted to business and economic development for the region’s Hispanic, Latino and other minority communities. Since 2002, the Suazo Business Center has assisted in the education, growth, and development of over 10,000 clients. They have created over 5,000 new small businesses, and have helped generate over $250 million in revenues.
OUTDOORS
• Snowbasin has revamped the Squirrel Downhill Bike Trail, located near its base area. It can be accessed above the Wildcat parking lot and ends near the bottom of the Earl’s parking lots. It now features an optional rock drop on the lower section of the trail.
PHILANTHROPY
• To commemorate the first anniversary of the creation of its “Farmers Feeding Utah” campaign, the Miracle of Agriculture Foundation recently held a “Miracle Project Blitz” at seven Utah cities, with a smaller distribution in Piute County. As the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on and families and individuals continue, the campaign will work to assist those struggling with food insecurity. Since its beginning in May 2020, the campaign has fed more than 23,000 families. Farmers Feeding Utah is a campaign of the Miracle of Agriculture Foundation, a nonprofit organization set up as the charitable arm of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation. Additional logistical and in-kind support has come from several partners, including Utah State University (USU) and its Hunger Solutions Institute & Create Better Health program, the Utah Department of Agriculture & Food (UDAF) and Farm Bureau Financial Services. The “Blitz” projects included food and financial donations by ranchers in Duchesne County, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Utah Petroleum Association and others.
• Progressive Leasing, a provider of in-store and e-commerce lease-to-own solutions and owned by Salt Lake City-based PROG Holdings Inc., has donated $25,000 to AmeriCares in support of its efforts to combat India’s COVID-19 crisis. Thanks to a current AmeriCares matching program, the company’s donation will result in $50,000 to provide life-saving equipment, protect healthcare workers, and educate community members on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 across India. Progressive Leasing is also matching all individual employee donations to AmeriCares.
• Alterra Mountain Co., Denver, has established the Alterra Mountain Co. Community Foundation, a public charity created to provide financial support to the members of the North American communities in which the company operates. Its family of destination communities include Deer Valley Resort and Solitude Mountain Resort in Utah. Company founders from Henry Crown and Co. and KSL Capital Partners, plus company CEO Rusty Gregory, have donated an initial $2.6 million to fund grants. Ongoing financial support for the Community Foundation will come from public donations. Currently, the Community Foundation’s focus will be granting emergency relief and hardship assistance to those in need within the company’s North American mountain and city communities. The foundation is available to provide emergency relief and hardship assistance to those in need due to situations and unforeseen circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, crime, illness or death, and other emergency hardships. Individuals and companies in the U.S. and Canada may apply for grants. Applications are being accepted at http://www.alterracommunityfoundation.com.
REAL ESTATE
• Midtown National Group, a boutique investment company, has acquired Highland Marketplace in Highland after waiting three years due to prior legal issues to resolve and the title to be cleared. Highland Marketplace is a mixed-use town center that houses major and local chain restaurants and services. MNG has completed the purchase of 40,000 square feet of existing retail and 9.2 acres of land for which they’ve received site approval on which to build. Mountain West Commercial Real Estate agent Lance Pendleton helped in the success of the transaction and continues to help develop the space. Midtown National is also under contract with a 65,000-square-foot high-performance athletic facility that will be constructed on the north boundary line of the shopping center. The owners of this venture will also incorporate their family office on the top floor of the building.
• Interfirst Mortgage Co., a Chicago-based mortgage originator, has announced that Draper-based Austen Richards has joined the company as the wholesale senior account executive for its Western Division. Richards has more than 15 years of mortgage industry experience, primarily in the wholesale channel. He most recently worked as a wholesale account executive for Rocket Pro-TPO/Quicken Loans. He also was a wholesale senior account executive at U.S. Bank Home Mortgage, a mortgage broker for Flagship Financial Group, sales and marketing manager for S&H Professional Recruiting, and mortgage planner and senior loan consultant for New Freedom Mortgage and Utah Financial Inc.
• The Camino Verde Group LLC, based in Las Vegas, recently acquired an 85,297-square-foot industrial building located on 9.3 acres at 455 W. 100 N., Ephraim, for an undisclosed amount. The building has six bays. The group, which is also developing the mixed-use Ephraim Crossing campus, plans to improve the 40-year-old building for industrial uses.
RECOGNITIONS
• Finalists for ChamberWest’s 2021 Annual Awards Gala have been announced. The finalists for Best New Business are Shiro Kuma Snow Cream, F45 Jordan Landing and Utah Warriors Rugby LLC. Finalists for Business of the Year are Jordan Valley Medical Center, The Puppy Store and Danone North America. Finalists for Best Place to Work are Cyprus Credit Union, Summit Vista and Kearns Library Branch of Salt Lake County Library. Finalists for Small Business of the Year are Hidden Peaks Coffee & Roasting Co., Penny Ann’s Café and Ad Wear. Finalists for Volunteer of the Year are Clyde Marshall, Perspicacity LLC; Oz Hutton, Melange LLC; and Wendy Buckner, Cyprus Credit Union. ChamberWest previously announced that Dan England, chairman of C.R. England, is this year’s Hall of Fame Award recipient. The event takes place June 15, 5-8:30 p.m. at the Maverik Center, West Valley City. Details are at chamberwest.com.
• Clene Inc., Salt Lake City, has received a Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award from the U.S. National Academy of Medicine (NAM) to accelerate the preclinical development of CNM-Au8, a bioenergetic nanocatalyst, for treatment of neuronal aging-related deficits and Alzheimer’s disease. The Healthy Longevity Global Competition was founded in 2019 by NAM to “kickstart innovation by the world’s greatest minds” to support worldwide healthy longevity. NAM and its seven global collaborators received over 1,500 applications and ultimately issued more than $7.7 million in prizes in the inaugural round of Catalyst Awards. In addition to receiving a prize, awardees will participate in the first annual Healthy Longevity Innovator Summit in September 2021 to share their work with policy makers, researchers and fellow innovators from around the world.
• Four organizations have been named “Best STD Organizations in Salt Lake City” by Testing.com for providing vital services, such as free or low-cost STD testing and treatment, to fight the growing STD epidemic. Testing.com is an informational guide for medical lab testing and at-home screening. The organizations are Martindale Clinic, part of the nonprofit Odyssey House behavioral health program; Salt Lake Health Center, operated by Planned Parenthood; the Salt Lake County Health Department STD Clinic; the Utah AIDS Foundation Test Site; and the Maliheh Free Clinic.
RETAIL
• A promotion called “Open Streets” will result in downtown Salt Lake City’s Main Street being closed to traffic and transformed into a pedestrian promenade each weekend (Thursday, Friday and Saturday, noon to midnight) this summer. The promotion is a partnership among the Downtown Alliance, The Blocks and Salt Lake City, with support from Visit Salt Lake. Restaurants, bars and retailers from 400 South to South Temple may extend their service areas onto the sidewalks for more outdoor dining and shopping. A mix of musicians, buskers and artists will enliven the public space on Main from Exchange Place to City Creek Center. Last fall, organizers tested the Open Streets concept to help downtown restaurants, bars and retailers suffering from the pandemic. Details are at downtownslc.org/openstreets.
SERVICES
• 1-800-HANSONS, a home improvement company specializing in windows, roofing, siding, gutters guards and patio doors, has hired Marco Alaniz as general manager of its Salt Lake City location. Alaniz has over 20 years of experience leading and managing organizations.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• Nearmap, a Salt Lake City-based aerial imagery company, has named Don Weigel as vice president of products. Weigel will oversee all strategic initiatives related to products including product roadmap, promotion, customer experience, and communicating the product vision across internal teams and customers. Weigel has more than 30 years of experience building products for companies in the mapping, geospatial and reality capture industries. Before joining Nearmap, Weigel held senior management positions at Silicon Valley startups and industry leading companies including Esri, Trimble and Autodesk, with roles in product, marketing, and engineering leadership.
• PassiveLogic, a Salt Lake City-based creator of an autonomous building platform, has hired Mike Luscombe as chief commercial officer and Kirsten Billhardt as vice president of marketing. Luscombe will lead commercial activities worldwide, including direct and channel sales, marketing, business development and customer success initiatives. Luscombe is a 10-year veteran of the executive leadership team at Tridium, Honeywell’s flagship division for IoT and building automation. He has international business development experience combined with leadership roles at three startups and 10 years at both GE and Honeywell. Billhardt will lead marketing strategy, corporate communications, demand generation and overall marketing operations. She has emerging-technology experience from leading Edge and IoT marketing at Dell Technologies. Prior to her 15 years at Dell, Billhardt was an engineer and product planner for General Motors.
• Clene Inc. and subsidiary Clene Nanomedicine Inc., have appointed David J. Matlin as chairman of the board. Matlin is the CEO of MatlinPatterson Global Advisers, a global private equity firm he co-founded in 2002. Previously, he was a managing director at Credit Suisse First Boston and a founding partner of Merrion Group. Matlin currently serves on the boards of publicly held companies Flagstar Bancorp, U.S. Well Services and MedTech Acquisition Corp, as well as privately held companies DermaSensor, Pristine Surgical and Traffk. He has served as a director of Clene since 2020. Matlin is succeeding Shalom Jacobovitz, who has stepped down as chairman but will continue to serve on the board. Salt Lake City-based Clene is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on neurodegenerative disease by using nanotechnology to treat bioenergetic failure.
• Fortem Technologies, a Pleasant Grove-based company focused on airspace security and defense for detecting and defeating dangerous drones, has hired former U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Wayne Phelps as director of federal business development. Phelps will help Fortem expand and evolve its work with government agencies and military organizations around the world, and support the company’s efforts to impact drone and security-related legislation. Phelps has 23 years of military drone and counter-drone expertise and is the author of the upcoming book On Killing Remotely, which examines the military units operating armed drones on remote battlefields around the world. In the two years prior to his retirement in 2018, he served as the commanding officer of an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) squadron active abroad in fighting violent extremist organizations.
• ShePlace has been established as an online platform and community to boost the prosperity and well-being of women, including all self-identifying women, including cis and transgender women, as well as non-binary and gender-fluid individuals. ShePlace will offer virtual and in-person events, curated resources, educational opportunities and an online community. It is based at the Kiln workspace in Park City, which will be the site for many of the startup’s activities. The founder and CEO is Jacki Zehner, the first female and youngest woman to make partner at Goldman Sachs. Since she departed the firm in 2002, her focus has been mainly on philanthropy. She led a global philanthropic network called Women Moving Millions, whose members have collectively given over $1 billion to women and girls’ organizations. Joining ShePlace as COO is Utah native Madison Limansky, formerly managing partner at fashion consulting company Farasha.
• MX, a Lehi-based company focused on connectivity and data enhancement for financial institutions, has hired Lexi Hall as director of public policy. Hall will oversee the company’s public policy initiatives, including federal, state and local government relations. Hall joins MX from the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, where she has served since January 2019 as a policy advisor for fintech and data governance. Prior to that, she spent two years at Morning Consult, a global data intelligence company, following roles at The Winston Group and Bain Capital as a data analyst.
• Bosom Besties has rebranded as Fit Finder AI. The Salt Lake City-based company is focused on emerging apparel artificial intelligence, designed to augment the retail sector by innovating product discovery and fit while decreasing returns for its customers.