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DIVIDENDS
• The board of directors of Nu Skin Enterprises Inc., Provo, has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 37.5 cents per share. The dividend will be paid Sept. 9 to shareholders of record Aug. 28. Nu Skin is focused on consumer products, product manufacturing and controlled environment agriculture technology.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• Utah is ranked No. 2, behind only Rhode Island, in a list of top states for a camping vacation, compiled based on a survey conducted by InsureMyTrip. Criteria included the number of national parks, campsite quality, wildlife biodiversity, safety and average annual rainfall. Utah received high scores for its quality of campsites, low average rainfall and good Internet access. Several neighboring states were ranked among the worst states for camping: worst-ranked Wyoming, due to its high number of recorded accidents and criminal activity; second-worst-ranked Montana; third-worst ranked Nevada; and fifth-worst-ranked Idaho.
• Taylorsville is the easiest place in Utah to sell a home, according to rankings by financial technology company SmartAsset, which ranked places by the number of days homes spend on the market. Homes on the market in Taylorsville spent an average of 35.2 days in the market. Following Taylorsville on the list are (in order) West Valley City, Murray, West Jordan, Clearfield, Bountiful, Roy, Cottonwood Heights, Ogden and North Salt Lake. Details are at https://smartasset.com/mortgage/mortgage-calculator#Utah/ease.
• Utah is ranked as the No. 4 state where people are most likely to be a victim of an online dating scam, according to HighSpeedInternet.com. It used FBI data to rank the states with the most and fewest “catfish” scams per capita. Utah trailed only Nevada, Wyoming and Washington. People in South Dakota are the least likely to face such scams. Details are at https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/states-with-most-catfishing-scams.
ENERGY/NATURAL RESOURCES
• Rocky Mountain Power has announced three new solar projects to be built in Utah to serve the Facebook data center in Eagle Mountain. The projects are developed under Rocky Mountain Power’s Schedule 34 green energy tariff, which allows large customers to purchase renewable energy generated on their behalf. The three projects represent 235 megawatts of additional solar capacity in Utah and bring the total amount of in-state solar energy signed to support Facebook’s regional data centers to 694 megawatts, which is equivalent to 63 percent of the solar energy currently produced in Utah. The projects are scheduled to be in service by 2023. RPlus Energies will develop Graphite Solar, 80 megawatts in Carbon County. D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments and Enyo Renewable Energy will develop both Rocket Solar, 80 megawatts in Box Elder County, and Horseshoe Solar, 75 megawatts in Tooele County.
• The board of directors of Profire Energy Inc., a Lindon-based company that creates, installs and services burner management solutions in the oil and gas industry, has appointed Collene L. Bell as a new director. Bell has 30 years of experience in the natural gas and energy industry as a legal professional in which she has held various executive roles. She was vice president and general manager of Dominion Energy Western Distribution’s Gas Infrastructure Group from 2016-2019. Prior to that, she was vice president and general counsel for Questar Corp. Bell succeeds Arlen B. Crouch, who resigned after serving on the board since 2013.
EXPANSIONS
• New U Life Corp., a Lehi-based company that offers Somaderm Gel to elevate growth hormone levels, has entered the market in Taiwan to serve as a regional hub for Greater China. It already had opened an office and hired staff for the Hong Kong market.
FINANCE
• Hunt Real Estate Capital has provided Fannie Mae convention loans totaled $41.4 million to refinance manufactured housing communities in the West. They include Cottonwood Estates in Uintah, an 83-site MHC developed in 1976; and Midland MHC in Roy, a 224-site first developed in 1938 and again in 1973.
HEALTHCARE
• Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, has appointed Tracy Onega as senior director of population sciences and professor of population sciences at the University of Utah. A cancer epidemiologist and health services researcher, Onega’s research focuses on cancer control. Onega serves as principal investigator of several National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) grants studying breast cancer screening and surveillance and novel approaches for access to, and evaluation of, cancer care. Onega previously served as associate director of community outreach and engagement and co-leader of the Cancer Population Sciences Program at Dartmouth’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center. She was also director of the Division of Biomedical Informatics and director of the New Hampshire Mammography Network. Onega served as a professor of biomedical data science and epidemiology in the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Onega succeeds Kathleen Mooney, who held the senior director of population sciences position in an interim capacity since August 2019.
• Forum Health LLC, Salt Lake City, has hired Kurtis Hinderman, a family nurse practitioner. Hinderman has an extensive background in medical aesthetics and Lyme disease and treats the whole patient spectrum, from health optimization to chronic illness recovery. His education includes a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Brigham Young University-Idaho.
OUTDOOR PRODUCTS/RECREATION/SPORTS
• Deer Valley Resort has hired Rob Sogard as director of skier services. Sogard succeeds John Guay, who retired in July. Sogard has spent much of his life in the ski industry. He grew up playing and working in his family’s ski-shop in Illinois and started teaching skiing and coaching in high school. In 1987, he moved to Utah to attend the University of Utah. He began as an instructor at Snowbird and it turned into a 34-year career there. Over the years Sogard managed every part of Snowbird’s Ski School operation. In addition to being selected to serve on the Professional Ski Instructors of America’s (PSIA) National Alpine team for 20 years, Sogard was also the co-author and project manager for the current PSIA educational manuals. While on the National Alpine team, he served eight years as a team member and 12 years as head coach.
PHILANTHROPY
• The D. Gary Young, Young Living Foundation recently raised $1.2 million during the 2020 Young Living Virtual International Grand Convention to provide funds to support the organization’s newly defined mission of protecting and empowering the world’s young. New and expanded projects include Cities Without Hunger, a nonprofit transforming unused spaces into community gardens in Brazil to help reduce hunger and nutrition deficiency; Hope for Justice, an organization working to end modern-day slavery; Goals for Girls, a nonprofit using soccer to teach young women how to be leaders and change-makers in their own lives and communities; Escalera, a Mexican organization working to improve education; and Global Artisan Collaboration, an organization providing small-capacity building grants to scale businesses and expand income generating opportunities.
• Mountain America Credit Union, Sandy, and the Utah Jazz have announced Friends of Giant Steps as this season’s fifth and final recipient of “Pass It Along,” a program featuring fan-nominated opportunities that rewards five local charitable organizations each season with $5,000 each. Friends of Giant Steps is a nonprofit organization that supports the Giant Steps Autism Preschool, which offers an individualized plan for 72 preschool-aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and their families. With this donation, “Pass It Along” has contributed $180,000 to local nonprofits since its inception in 2013.
REAL ESTATE
• The Salt Lake City office of CBRE has been selected to oversee leasing of the A&Z Building, the former home of A&Z Produce and an adaptive reuse project in The Post District, a $300 million master-planned neighborhood development. Scott Wilmarth, Nadia Letey and Melina Miramontes will oversee the office leasing. The A&Z Building is a three-story office building with a garden level, totaling approximately 36,000 square feet. Renovations are already underway, and the building should be ready for occupancy in September. The building will share an above-grade parking structure with an adjacent building and has a surface lot that can facilitate additional future phases of development.
• Dakota Mountain Lodge Homeowners Association, Park City, has acquired the Waldorf Astoria Park City, which has 159 guest rooms and suites at the Canyons Village base. Financial terms were not disclosed. The hotel opened in 2009.
• American Homes 4 Rent, based in California, has opened Perelle Meadows, a 112-home leased community in Saratoga Springs, and Legacy Farms, a 75-home, single-family rental community in Spanish Fork. Perelle Meadows features four-bedroom homes. Legacy Farms features four and five-bedroom homes.
RECOGNITIONS
• The Salt Lake Chamber has announced award recipients that will be honored during the chamber’s annual meeting Sept. 10. Honorees are for President’s Award for Excellence, Scott Parson, Staker Parson Materials & Companies; Board Chair’s Initiative Award, Rick Folkerson, Ken Garff Automotive Group; Corporate Partner of the Year, Smith’s; Community Partner of the Year, University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business; Outgoing Board Chair, Linda Wardell, City Creek Center, The Taubman Group; and Chamber Champions Lloyd Allen, CBRE; Rebecca Dutson, The Children’s Center; Michael Hanson, Zions Bank; Juanita Meske, Deseret Digital Media; Shawn Newell, Industrial Supply Co.; and Craig Weston, BluNovus Consultancy. The annual meeting takes place 8-9:30 a.m. at the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Draper.
• Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 has been named Global Product of the Year by the Business Intelligence Group in its 2020 Sales and Technology Marketing Awards program, also known as the Sammys.
RETAIL
• The board of directors of Overstock.com Inc., a Salt Lake City-based online retailer and technology company, has appointed Barbara Messing to the board as an independent director. Messing has more than two decades of experience in global retail and e-commerce. Most recently, she was senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Walmart U.S. Prior to that, she was the SVP and CMO of TripAdvisor and served in management positions at Hotwire.com. Messing is on the board of Diamond Resorts International and served on the board of directors for XO Group Inc. during its successful merger with WeddingWire, and on the board of directors for Mashable Inc.
TECHNOLOGY
• Axcend, a Provo-based manufacturer of a capillary high-performance liquid chromatography system, has hired Sheldon Henderson as director of U.S. sales and Matthew Morse as director of global services and support. For 30 years, Henderson has served in the separation science industry in a variety of sales, product marketing and analytical chemistry roles, with special emphasis on sample preparation, chromatography data systems (CDS), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectrometry and LC/MS systems. Most recently, he served for 11 years as a technical sales representative for Thermo Fisher Scientific in the Rocky Mountain region. He also was a global product marketing specialist for nine years with Dionex, prior to its acquisition by Thermo Fisher, and worked for 12 years at two commercial environmental/analytical laboratories in Salt Lake City — American West Analytical Laboratory and DataChem Laboratories — in various supervisory, management and chemist roles. Henderson attended Westminster College in Salt Lake City where he received both an MBA and a bachelor’s degree in sports science/physical education. Morse has over 22 years of extensive service and technical support expertise across dozens of analytical chemistry instruments and their related software packages. Most recently, he was senior manager of global technical services, instrument and enterprise services for Thermo Fisher Scientific, and he had been with Thermo Fisher/Dionex in the United States for 13 years in several technical support and services positions. Previously, he held different service positions with Dionex UK for over seven years and Sci-Tek Instruments for over two years.