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ASSOCIATIONS
• The South Valley Chamber has named Jay Francis as its new president and CEO, succeeding Greg Summerhays, who has led the chamber the past four years. Francis retired from the Larry H. Miller Group in May after 35 years with the organization. He has been actively involved with the South Valley Chamber for 12 years, serving as a member of the board of directors, the executive committee, and as past board chair. Summerhays has announced he will be leaving the chamber to pursue a career in real estate with Chapman Richards & Associates. Francis will assume his new position in early September.
COMMUNICATIONS
• ClearOne, a Salt Lake City-based provider of audio and visual communication solutions, has appointed Craig Paller as senior director for sales development. Paller has over 20 years of professional audiovisual experience. He has held leadership positions with Harman Professional, Listen Technologies and Shure Inc., and most recently served as general manager of Americas and global business development for Music Tribe.
DIRECT SALES
• Nature’s Sunshine Products Inc., a Lehi-based manufacturer of nutritional and personal care products, has appointed Heidi Wissmiller to its board of directors. Wissmiller also will serve on the company’s Audit and Risk Management committees. Wissmiller has over 25 years of senior management experience at companies in the consumer products and direct marketing space. She last served in multiple C-suite positions for Rodan+Fields. Before that, she was CEO of Micro Analytical Systems and served in senior leadership roles with other companies, including PepsiCo, E&J Gallo Winery and RJR Nabisco.
• Young Living, a Lehi-based essential oils company, has promoted Prasad Gankanda to executive vice president of global sales. He has over 10 years of experience in directing global business operations, including expanding Young Living into new markets since joining the company in 2015. Prior to Young Living, Prasad held senior positions at MonaVie, where he led engineering, manufacturing and supply chain.
DIVIDENDS
• The board of directors of Zions Bancorporation NA, Salt Lake City, has declared a regular quarterly dividend of 34 cents per common share. The dividend is payable Aug. 20 to shareholders of record Aug. 13. 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 shares is payable Dec. 15 to shareholders of record Dec. 1.
• The board of directors of Medallion Bank, Salt Lake City, has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 50 cents per share on the bank’s fixed-to-floating rate non-cumulative perpetual preferred stock, Series F. The dividend is payable Oct. 1 to holder of record Sept. 15. The bank provides consumer loans for the purchase of recreational vehicles, boats and home improvements, along with loan origination services to fintech partners.
• The board of directors of Altabancorp, American Fork, has declared a quarterly dividend payment of 13 cents per common share. The dividend is payable Aug. 17 to shareholders of record Aug. 10. Altabancorp is the bank holding company for Altabank, a full-service bank with 26 branches in Utah and Idaho.
• The board of directors of Clarus Corp., Salt Lake City, has declared a quarterly stock dividend of 2.5 cents per share. The board has temporarily replaced the company’s regular quarterly cash dividend with a stock dividend as of May 1. Each Clarus stockholder of record will be entitled to receive 0.0021 of a share of Clarus common stock for each share of Clarus stock held on the record date of Aug. 10. Clarus will distribute the stock dividend Aug. 21. The company develops, manufactures and distributes outdoor equipment and lifestyle products.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• Morgan County leads all Utah counties where home values have risen the most the past five years, according to a ranking compiled by financial technology company SmartAsset. The rankings were one of three factors in the property tax study, which also included metrics on school ratings and effective property tax rates. Morgan County’s home value growth was 35.89 percent, it said. Morgan County was followed, in order, by Wasatch, Utah, Juab, Summit, Washington, Salt Lake, Iron, Davis and Tooele counties. Details are at https://smartasset.com/taxes/utah-property-tax-calculator#us/growth.
• Utah is the No. 32 most-targeted state for fraud scam complaints to the Federal Trade Commission, according to SocialCatfish.com. As of July 15, Utah residents filed 646 fraud complaints to the FTC, marking a 104 percent increase since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March, when 316 complaints were filed. This has resulted in $416,000 in losses, or $163 per victim in the state, it said. The data for the study was from the FTC, FBI and IRS. California led the U.S., with 10,938 complaints. North Dakota had the fewest, with 96.
GOVERNMENT
• Three Utah airports will receive funding under a federal airport safety and infrastructure grants program through the Federal Aviation Administration. Beaver Municipal will receive $110,338 to install weather reporting equipment. Blanding Municipal will receive $331,015 for an update to the airport master plan or study. Logan-Cache will receive $444,415 to acquire land for approaches. A total of $273 million was awarded in 41 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau and Puerto Rico.
INVESTMENTS
• NuView Life Sciences Inc., a Park City-based, clinical-stage oncology firm, has signed an agreement with GEM Global Yield LLC SCS, a Luxembourg-based private, alternative investment group. Under the agreement, GEM will purchase common shares from NuView on a firm commitment basis with an aggregate value of $90 million. The agreement provides NuView a 36-month drawdown period. NuView said it will use the funds to complete a 600-patient in vitro double-blind clinical trial and for its in vivo diagnostics and Theranostic programs. NuView is developing its NV-VPAC1 portfolio, a test used for in vitro and in vivo diagnostics detecting multiple types of cancer.
• Whistic, a Pleasant Grove-based company focused on a vendor security platform for buyers and sellers, has closed a $12 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Emergence, with participation from Album VC and existing investors. The funding will be used to scale operations and continue to hire top talent, the company said. Emergence’s Gordon Ritter currently serves as the chairman of Veeva Systems, and Carlotta Siniscalco is a senior associate. Both investors will join the Whistic board of directors as a part of this funding round. As part of Whistic’s recent growth, it hired Duane Newman as vice president of product and Tom Rhoton as vice president of marketing. Newman previously was senior director of product management at Symantec. Rhoton was vice president of global digital marketing and operations at Symantec.
NONPROFITS
• VentureCapital.Org, which empowers entrepreneurs to create technologically and commercially sustainable companies, has announced two new Board of Trustees members: Tara Spalding and R. Adam Smith. Spalding is the president and founder of Hen House Ventures, which creates, implements and validates successful go-to-market programs for technology companies that need to rapidly scale new products when entering massive emerging technology markets. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Hen House Ventures has been instrumental in raising over $17 million in seed and Series A funding for more than 30 startups throughout the U.S. Spalding began her high-tech career in Silicon Valley when she taught herself to code software and became the first employee and eventually vice president of marketing at SugarCRM. Her Silicon Valley experience included roles as chief marketing officer at GroundWork Open Source and co-founder and chief product officer at BenchPick. Smith is a veteran in mergers and acquisitions, corporate development, founder partnerships, direct investing and governance. He has had a 25-year career in investment banking, M&A, family offices and alternative investments, and has backed numerous founders, entrepreneurs, and operating partners in 14 private investments involving almost $1 billion in total capitalization. He has served on 12 investor-backed, for-profit private companies since 1998, as chairman of several, and also on several nonprofit boards, including in a founder role.
PHILANTHROPY
• Mountain America Credit Union, Sandy, recently presented Fighter Country Foundation with a $10,000 check as part of the Arizona Coyotes Goal Donation Program. Mountain America donated $50 for every goal made by the Coyotes. During the 2019-2020 season, the team made nearly 200 goals. Fighter Country Foundation supports the men, women, and families at Luke Air Force Base by enhancing the morale, well-being, culture and tradition, and sustainability of the airbase.
REAL ESTATE
• The Ridge, a new single-family home community by Toll Brothers, has opened at 105 E. Edgecrest Lane, North Salt Lake, marking the company’s entry into Davis County. The community has 85 single-family homes. Model homes are expected to open in October. The Ridge is Toll Brothers fourth community under construction in northern Utah. The other communities are Canyon Point at Traverse Mountain in Lehi, Toll Brothers at Edelweiss in Draper, and Toll Brothers at Rosecrest in Herriman. Altogether, Toll Brothers has more than 500 new home sites along the Wasatch Front.
• Century Communities Inc. recently had a weekend-long model home grand opening at Summerfield Estates, 716 S. 1400 W., Provo. The community will offer single-family rambler and two-story homes.
RECOGNITIONS
• Douglas Brockett, president of StorageCraft, a Draper-based data management, protection and recovery solutions company, has been named to the 2020 list of Top 100 Executives by CRN, a brand of The Channel Co. The list recognizes tech visionaries who are shaping, transforming, and disrupting the IT channel. The list is broken down into four sub-lists, and Brockett was recognized in the Top 25 Enterprise IT Innovators list. Brockett joined the company in 2017 with the acquisition of Exablox.
• EFileCabinet was recently recognized as the document management software that is “Best for SMBs,” according to The Blueprint, a Motley Fool venture that provides business and tech expertise to sole proprietors and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Nearly 700 competing document management softwares were considered for this award. EFileCabinet Inc. is based in Lehi.
• Avetta, an Orem-based supply chain risk management tools company, has received a Readers’ Choice Award from Canadian Occupational Safety in the contractor management solutions category. It is the third year the company is being honored by readers of the magazine. The awards showcase the occupational health and safety companies and suppliers preferred by the magazine’s readers. More than 20,000 votes were cast to determine the top three companies in each category.
• U.S. Reps. John Curtis and Ben McAdam recently received the 2020 Champion for Health Seniors Awards, presented by the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, BioUtah and several local organizations. The awards were presented for their leadership in protecting those with chronic conditions.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• Xant, a Lehi-based sales engagement platform company formerly known as InsideSales.com, has appointed Peter Black as chief revenue officer. Black has more than 30 years of sales experience at Anaplan, Domo, SAP Ariba, Acxiom and Dun & Bradstreet. Most recently, he was vice president of sales at Anaplan.
• Lendio, a Lehi-based marketplace for small-business loans, has hired Karen Peterson as chief marketing officer. In the newly created role, she will lead a marketing and communications team with oversight of brand strategy, demand generation, content marketing, messaging and creative across all divisions of the company. Prior to her appointment at Lendio, she most recently served as chief marketing officer for BrainStorm Inc. Before that, Peterson spent over a decade at Ancestry, including rising to senior vice president of U.S. marketing. Her education includes an MBA in marketing and marketing analysis from Brigham Young University.
TRANSPORTATION
• The board of directors of Garff Enterprises Inc., Salt Lake City, has named Katharine B. Garff as chair, filling the position long held by her husband, Robert, who died in March. Katharine Garff is a board member of Garff Enterprises Inc., a director of the Robert H. and Katharine B. Garff Foundation, the past chair of the Utah State Board of Education, and a former member of the Utah Board of Regents and Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind. Garff Enterprises employs over 4,000 people at the 48 companies in the corporate family.