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AGRICULTURE
• The Downtown Farmers Market has opened at Pioneer Park, 300 S. 300 W., Salt Lake City. Now in its 26th year, the market features more than 250 vendors. It will be open Saturday mornings starting at 8 a.m. The Downtown Art and Craft Market is held every Saturday, adjacent to the Farmers Market. This is a juried show of handmade goods, which features more than 130 local Utah artists on a rotating basis. Details are at slcfarmersmarket.org.
ASSOCIATIONS
• Women in Sports and Events (WISE) has announced a new chapter in Utah. The organization, providing a voice and resource for women in the business of sports, now has 15 chapters across the nation. Local chapters provide programming and networking opportunities in their regions while offering national resources, including the WISE Within Mentor Program and Speed Mentoring Roundtables. The Utah chapter will be led by Jenn Andrs, executive director of the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah. Details about the organization are at WISEworks.org.
BANKING
• Amy Dunkley has been named president of the new mortgage division that will serve Bank of American Fork and Lewiston State Bank. She has more than 28 years of experience in the mortgage industry, including at Far West Bank and also at American West Bank. She joined Bank of American Fork in 2010 as a mortgage loan officer and a year later began managing the mortgage department. Since then, the department doubled in size and became its own division June 1. Her education includes attending Utah Valley University.
• Brighton Bank has named Scott C. Petty as vice president and commercial loan officer. He is located at the City Center office, 311 S. State St., Salt Lake City. Petty has over 15 years of experience in commercial lending, loan production, account management, business development and SBA lending programs, with a focus on working capital, business acquisition, and real estate financing. He is a graduate of Weber State University, holding both a Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Marketing.
EDUCATION/TRAINING
• Western Governors University (WGU), Salt Lake City, has named Boyd Bischoff as chief information officer and senior vice president of technology. Bischoff has more than 20 years of experience, including 10 years with Amazon, where he was most recently director of software development for retail. Before that, he held leadership positions at Kindle, Amazon Webstore and Aspen Technology.
• Four student startups this summer are participating in the “Get Seeded Rush to Revenue” program provided by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, an interdisciplinary division of the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business that supports aspiring entrepreneurs. The startups in the program are challenged to set milestones, then the Lassonde Institute provides support to achieve those goals, including mentoring, work space at Lossonde Studios and up to $18,000 in grants. The startups are Coffee Pops, a line of coffee popsicles; Blerp, a platform for sharing soundbites; Clovitek, a Wi-Fi transmitter for streaming audio to personal devices; and The Society, a discount membership card for night life in Salt Lake City. The program milestones vary by company: Coffee Pops wants carts set up around Salt Lake City, Blerp wants 50,000 daily active users, Clovitek wants to complete a Kickstarter campaign, and The Society wants to expand into neighboring states. Get Seeded is a monthly seed-grant program provided by the institute. During the summer, it offers the more intensive “Rush to Revenue" program to accelerate the development of the startups that showed the most potential during the academic year.
• The Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree at Eagle Gate College, Murray, has earned accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). The commission ensures the quality and integrity of baccalaureate, graduate and residency programs in nursing that operate in accordance with national nursing standards.
GOVERNMENT
• Greg Sheehan has been appointed to the new position of deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He previously was director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Service. Sheehan has more than 25 years of experience with the state of Utah working in wildlife and natural resource management. Prior to joining the state, he worked with the Air Force for six years as a civilian, where his focus was on correcting inefficiencies in cost and pricing between the Air Force and major Department of Defense government contractors.
• Heather Zynczak has been appointed as a member of the Governing Authority of Utah Science, Technology and Research (USTAR). Zynczak is chief marketing officer at Pluralsight and previously was CMO of Domo; held executive positions at large enterprise technology companies, including SAP and Oracle; and led teams at several Silicon Valley startups. She also served as a business consultant. Jennifer Hwu, chief executive officer of InnoSys Inc., was recently reappointed to serve a second term as a member of the USTAR Governing Authority.
• Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski has appointed state Sen. Jim Dabakis to the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) Board of Trustees. Dabakis represents State Senate District 2, which encompasses a section of Salt Lake City, and he is a member of the Senate Transportation, Public Utilities, Energy and Technology Committee.
HEALTHCARE
• Fusion Healthcare Staffing, Sandy, has secured strategic equity financing from Paul Sorensen and Gregory Sorensen to continue its rapid growth in the locum tenens staffing market. In connection with the equity financing, Fusion expanded their board of directors to include Gregory Sorensen, who has been appointed as the chairman of the board. Paul Sorensen has been serving on the board of directors since October 2016. Paul Sorensen comes to Fusion with 15 years of executive management experience in the staffing industry. He served as president of the Select Family of Staffing Companies/EmployBridge. Gregory Sorensen is a neuroradiologist who has served as president and chief executive officer of Siemens Healthcare North America, carried out research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and served as a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School.
INVESTMENT
• Vivint Solar, Lehi, has secured tax equity commitments totaling $100 million from two undisclosed repeat investors. These tax equity commitments will enable the company to install an estimated 70 megawatts of residential solar energy systems. The funding is expected to enable the company to design, procure and build systems for roughly 10,000 new residential customers. The company operates in 16 states.
LAW
• Dorsey & Whitney LLP has hired M. Benjamin Machlis as a partner in the firm’s Regulatory Affairs Group in Salt Lake City. Machlis’ practice focuses primarily on natural resources and environmental compliance, rulemaking, permitting, administrative appeals, litigation and transactional matters. Machlis joins Dorsey from Holland & Hart LLP. Prior to that, he was an associate at Holme Roberts & Owen and served as a policy advisor in the Utah Governor’s Office of Public Land Policy Coordination. Machlis has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah and a J.D. degree from the university’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.
RECOGNITIONS
• Patrick O’Donnell has been inducted into the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) Hall of Fame. O’Donnell is president of YESCO Outdoor Media. He was honored by the association for his contribution to the growth of the out-of-home industry during a career that has spanned more than 35 years. The announcement was made at the 2017 OAAA Geopath National Convention and Expo. O’Donnell began his career in outdoor advertising with Donrey Media Group in Reno, Nevada, in the 1980s. He joined YESCO in 1985. The company now operates more than 2,000 traditional and digital outdoor advertising displays along major roadways in the Rocky Mountain West. He also serves on the OAAA board of directors as chairman of the Legislative Committee and sits on the boards of Geopath and the Foundation for Outdoor Advertising, Research and Education (FOARE).
• Salt Lake City topped the rankings of “Best Cities for Young Professionals 2017,” a list compiled by Forbes. The rankings were based on metrics crucial to recent graduates: salary, rent, employment prospects, networking opportunities and social outlook. It said the Salt Lake Metropolitan Statistical Area indicated recent graduates’ median salary to be $50,500; the median rent as share of median salary to be 17 percent; the unemployment rate to be 3.4 percent; projected annual job growth to be 1.56 percent; the percentage of adults with bachelor’s degrees or higher to be 40 percent; and the population aged 20-29 to be 13 percent.
• Four Utah areas are ranked among the best small and medium-sized cities for jobs in 2017 by Forbes. Provo-Orem was No. 1 and Ogden-Clearfield was No. 6 among midsized cities. St. George was No. 2 among small cities. The rankings were based on short-, medium- and long-term job creation, going back to 2005, and factor in whether growth is slowing or accelerating. Provo-Orem saw 4.4 percent job growth in 2016 and had 243,000 people working. Ogden-Clearfield has 2.9 percent growth and 249,800 people employed. St. George had 5.7 percent job growth and 61,800 workers.
• Eleven Utah-based companies have been named in a list of “Best Workplaces for 2017” by Inc. magazine, including Health Catalyst, Salt Lake City, being named in the top 50. It is the publication’s second annual ranking of the fast-growing private company sector, with listings based on benefits offered and employees’ responses to a 30-question survey fielded by each of the applying companies. Others in the listings are 97th Floor, BGZ brands, BrainStorm, Executech, PrinterLogic, Sorenson Media, Teem, Xima Software, Xyngular and Zarbee’s.
• Eight Utah companies have earned the “2017 When Work Works” Award for innovative and effective practices in the workplace. It is part of the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) “When Work Works” project. Utah award winners are 1-800 CONTACTS, Draper; Access Development, Salt Lake City; Alpha Warranty Services Inc., Riverton; BambooHR, Lindon; CBIZ, Salt Lake City; Ryan LLC, Lehi; Software Technology Group, Salt Lake City; and Xima Software, South Jordan.
RESTAURANTS
• 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza has opened at 7101 S. Bingham Junction Blvd., Midvale. It is the first 1000 Degrees pizzeria in Utah. Launched in 2014 in New Jersey, the company has 27 locations, including two in Malaysia.
SERVICES
• Shannon & Wilson Inc. has hired Colin Cummins for its Salt Lake City office. Cummins is a senior geotechnical engineer with eight years of experience on transportation projects, including highway, transit, rail and airport work. He also has experience with water infrastructure projects. Colin’s areas of expertise include geotechnical seismic design and mitigation, global stability, foundations (shallow and deep), retaining structures, and instrumentation installation and interpretation.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• NetPro Networks, a managed service provider, has changed its name to Mereo Networks and moved its headquarters from downtown Salt Lake City to Bountiful. The company said the name “represents what our company stands for” because “mereo” is Latin for “to serve.” The headquarters change will provide the company with more space to expand staff and infrastructure.
• Reflect Scientific Inc., Orem, has named V B Balrai Singh as senior advisor. Balrai Singh started at the age of 18 in the diamond trade and over 25 years built his businesses and gained experience, knowledge and relationships in the Asia Pacific region and other international markets. He is chairman of several companies and sits as an advisor on several others.