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ASSOCIATIONS
• Justin Farnsworth has been selected to represent BOMA Utah on BOMA International’s Pacific Northwest Region Board of Directors. He will be one of eight board members responsible for overseeing the region’s operations. Farnsworth is BOMA Utah’s president-elect and vice president of asset services for Newmark Grubb ACRES.
BANKING
• Zions Bank, Salt Lake City, has promoted Mike Griffiths to president of its South Davis/Capital Retail Region. His responsibilities include overseeing branch operations and business development at 13 financial centers in Davis and Salt Lake counties. Griffiths most recently was a senior vice president in retail lending at Zions. He previously served as a commercial relationship manager and an executive banking relationship manager. His education includes a master’s degree in business administration from University of Phoenix and a bachelor’s degree in finance from University of Utah.
CONSTRUCTION
• WSP USA, Murray, has appointed Kevin Cox as a vice president. The company formerly was known as WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff. Cox will provide leadership, management and technical support for transit and rail projects throughout the country. Cox has 25 years of industry experience, including leading program management for the Utah Transit Authority’s FrontLines 2015 program, and he was project director for the airport light rail extension in Salt Lake City as well as the FrontRunner commuter rail corridor. He previously served in various senior positions with WSP. He returns to the company from an international engineering organization, where he served as deputy director of construction for the Hawaii Area Rapid Transit program in Honolulu. He received a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering from Brigham Young University.
DIVIDENDS
• The board of directors of Zions Bancorporation, Salt Lake City, has declared a regularly quarterly dividend of 12 cents per common share. The dividend is payable Aug. 24 to shareholders of record Aug. 17. The board also declared regular quarterly cash dividends on the company’s various perpetual preferred shares. The cash dividend on the series A, G, H and J shares are payable Sept. 15 to shareholders of record Sept. 1. The dividend on the Series I is payable Dec. 15 to shareholders of record Dec. 1.
EDUCATION/TRAINING
• The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program is accepting applications through Sept. 13 for its Cohort 15. The program, offered in partnership with Salt Lake Community College and held at its Miller Business Resource Center, will have activities Jan. 4-April 6. It is open to owners or co-owners of business with at least four full-time employees, $150,000 in revenue and two years of operations. The program offers participants practical skills in topics such as negotiation, marketing and employee management. Details are available by emailing 10ksb@slcc.edu.
• Western Governors University, Salt Lake City, has named two new members of its Board of Trustees: Jessie Woolley-Wilson, chief executive officer and president of Dreambox Learning, and Joseph B. Fuller, professor of management practice and co-director of the “Managing the Future of Work Project” at Harvard Business School. Woolley-Wilson has held executive leadership positions in several education technology companies, including Kaplan, LeapFrog SchoolHouse and Blackboard. Fuller teaches the “General Management Processes and Action” course in Harvard Business School’s MBA program. He previously was founder and CEO of consulting firm Monitor Group.
GOVERNMENT
• The Utah Department of Workforce Services (DWS) has selected Sarah Brenna as division director of the Utah State Office of Rehabilitation. She will be responsible for the oversight and administration of programs serving individuals with disabilities. Brenna previously held various positions for Salt Lake County as the human services associate department director and aging services director. She also has served as the county’s administrative services department director and worked for DWS for 11 years as a program manager and legislative director. Brenna earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Utah.
• Salt Lake County has hired Zach Posner as chief information officer. He will oversee the county’s Information Services (IS) division and will serve as a member of the mayor’s cabinet. Posner previously was the vice president for e-commerce and information technology for Black Diamond Inc. and was the director of IT operations at National Public Radio (NPR) in Washington, D.C.
• Alex Gragun has been selected to represent Salt Lake City on the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) Board of Trustees. Gragun is the public affairs coordinator for Association for Utah Community Health (AUCH). He served as a board member of the Utah Transit Riders Union from 2014-2016, as well as the Community Transit Advisory Committee from 2015-2017. He is also involved with the Emerging Leaders Initiative.
RECOGNITIONS
• The Salt Lake Chamber has announced award winners that will be honored at its Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony, set for Sept. 7, noon-1:30 p.m., at the Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek. Corporate Partner of the Year is Rio Tinto Kennecott. Small Business of the Year is Kaddas International Enterprises. Community Partner of the Year is UCAIR. President’s Award for Excellence is Tom Guinney, Gastronomy. Chamber Champion are Jim Crowder, Enterprise Holdings Inc.; Natalie Peay, Webb; Jody Williams, Holland & Hart LLP; Andrew Croshaw, Leavitt Partners; Brent Lange, Hale Center Theater; and Brian Garrett, Zions Bank. The 2016-2017 Board Chair is Keith McMullin, Deseret Management Corp.
• The Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce has named its 2017 Titan Award honorees: Kem C. Gardner, chairman of the Gardner Co.; Jeanette Herbert, Utah’s first lady; and Ronald W. Jibson, former chairman, president and chief executive officer of Questar Corp. (now Dominion Energy). The Titan Awards ceremony will be Oct. 19 at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City.
• Ivanti, South Jordan, has been named among the “Top 10 Support Websites” by the Association of Support Professionals (ASP), which recognizes companies that provide a great online self-service experience to customers. This is the third consecutive time the company has been included on the list, having previously won under the LANDesk brand. Ivanti was honored in the medium-sized company division, which includes companies with revenues between $100 million to $1 billion. Winners were selected by a panel of 90 judges with aptitude and competence in web support design and implementation and who used a scoring system based on 25 performance criteria.
• Weber State University is one of 18 similarly sized institutions nationwide to make the “2017 Great Colleges to Work For” Honor Roll, based on a survey commission by The Chronicle of Higher Education. The results, part of the publication’s 10th annual report on The Academic Workplace, are based on an employee survey conducted at 232 colleges and universities nationwide. Seventy-nine institutions achieved “Great College to Work For” recognition for specific best practices and policies. The 42 universities of any size, including Weber State, that received the additional Honor Roll distinction had high employee marks in multiple categories.
• The Governmental Research Association (GRA) recently presented the Utah Foundation staff with the Most Distinguished Research Award for its 2016 Utah Priorities Project. The presentation was made during the association’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City. The Utah Priorities Project looked at the key concerns of candidates, party convention delegates and voters during the 2016 election cycle. Utah Foundation’s new president, Peter Reichard, was among those also recognized with the Most Distinguished Research award presented to the Bureau of Governmental Research in New Orleans, where he served as research director for 15 years. Outgoing Utah Foundation President Steve Kroes also won GRA’s Frederick P. Gruenberg Award for his contribution to governmental research over three decades, most recently through his leadership of Utah Foundation as well as his work with the California Taxpayers Association and Synergy Consulting. Kroes is leaving Utah Foundation to begin an independent consulting practice in Sacramento, California.
RETAIL
• Sportsman’s Warehouse, Midvale, has announced it will open retail stores in Sheridan, Wyoming; and Walla Walla, Washington. The Sheridan store is the company’s fifth in Wyoming. The Walla Walla store is its 12th in Washington. Both will be smaller-format stores and are expected to open in the first half of 2018. After the openings, the company will operate 89 stores in 22 states.
SERVICES
• Simplus, Salt Lake City, has appointed Amy Cook as vice president of marketing. She has 20 years of experience in marketing, writing, public relations and education. Cook previously was chief executive officer of Osmond Marketing; taught business, writing and communication courses at Arizona State University, the University of Utah and Brigham Young University for 15 years; and worked as an academic editor at BYU.
• ATS, Salt Lake City, has hired Kirk Langston as executive vice president of sales and appointed Stephen Allred as executive vice president of marketing. Langston has more than 17 years of experience in enterprise sales, marketing and business development. Langston has a B.S. degree from the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. Allred began his career in director sales and was promoted to a director of sales at a billion-dollar company. He started and owned a marketing consulting company and most recently was director of marketing at ATS. He graduated from Utah Valley University.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• Domo, American Fork, has hired Shane Atchison as chief marketing officer and Jason Burby as chief customer success officer. Atchison comes to the company after serving as global chief executive officer of Possible, WPP’s digital agency. He has more than 25 years of advertising and digital marketing experience. Burby comes to Domo after serving as president of the Americas region for Possible. The two men have co-authored two books on digital strategy.
• Pluralsight, Farmington, has hired Lindsey Kneuven as head of social impact. In the newly created position, Kneuven will lead the company’s philanthropic initiatives. Most recently, she was chief impact officer at Cotopaxi. She also has served in senior management at Silicon Valley Community Foundation and held philanthropic positions with nonprofit and private organizations, including Nuru International and Salesforce Foundation.
• Simplus, Salt Lake City-based provider of quote-to-cash implementations, has opened an office in Manila, Philippines. The new office will allow customers to have access to Simplus service experts 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Brad Warnock, director of operations and enablement at Simplus since 2014, will lead the Manila office.
• Vivint Smart Home, Provo, has hired Nate Randle as chief marketing officer. He will lead the company’s global marketing and communications. Randle has more than 17 years of experience in marketing, including previously serving as senior vice president of marketing for the Utah Jazz. He also spent five years at Nike as brand director for football and baseball and drove the brand strategy and consumer initiatives for Nike Golf; and worked in several marketing and sales positions at Amer Sports, Callaway Golf Co. and Hewlett-Packard. At Vivint, he succeeds Jeff Lyman, who is taking on a newly created executive role where he will work to define the future of Vivint product experiences.