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ASSOCIATIONS
• The Utah Ready-Mixed Concrete Association (URMCA) has formed the Concrete Paving Committee. Members of the former Utah Chapter ACPA (UCACPA) will be invited to join the URMCA team as part of the newly formed committee, which will leverage the resources and connections of the Pave Ahead Program. Supported by National Ready Mixed Concrete Association and Portland Cement Association, the new committee will continue to promote concrete pavement for highways, parking lots, city streets and roads.
DIRECT SALES
• DoTerra, a Pleasant Grove-based essential oils company, has appointed Murray Smith as president of Europe, Eurasia and the Middle East. Smith has been part of DoTerra Europe since 2014 and will be based in Munich, Germany. During his 30-year career, Murray has served in several high-level roles, including strategy, operations, manufacturing, IT, sales, marketing and geographic management. He served as managing director of DoTerra Europe from 2015-2017 and was vice president of Europe for the company prior to his appointment as president.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• Salt Lake City is ranked No. 15 on the Tech Talent Scorecard, produced by CBRE as part of its “Scoring Tech Talent Report,” which ranks 50 North American markets according to their ability to attract and grow tech talent. The top market is the San Francisco Bay Area. The scorecard is determined based on 13 metrics. Of the 32 large tech markets in the report, Salt Lake City, which includes both the Salt Lake and Provo office markets, is the smallest, with a tech labor pool of 51,220. Salt Lake City’s five-year tech talent growth rate of 42.7 percent is second only to Vancouver at 47.9 percent.
• Morgan County leads all Utah counties as places where home values have risen the most throughout a five-year period, based on a study 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. Following Morgan County were, in order, 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 ranked No. 29 among states for the most data breach victims, according to a study by SocialCatfish.com, which analyzed data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2020 annual report. Utah had 377 victims. The top state was California, with 5,377. South Dakota had the fewest, with 52.
EXPANSIONS
• Purple Innovation Inc., a Lehi-based manufacturer of comfort products, has expanded its U.S. manufacturing with a new plant in Henry County, Georgia. It has signed a lease for a 520,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and will create “hundreds of new jobs” by year-end, it said. The company currently has over 670,000 square feet of manufacturing space in Alpine and Grantsville. The decision to have a plant in George “came after an extensive search process to find the right location and state partner in this new venture,” Purple said.
FINANCE
• SPower, a Salt Lake City-based renewable energy independent power producer, has closed on a construction/term loan financing of more than $700 million for Spotsylvania Solar Energy Center in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. At 620 megawatts DC, it is the largest solar project east of the Rockies. The project is currently under construction, with phases coming online this year through project completion in the summer of 2021. The full financing package for the Spotsylvania Solar Energy Center exceeds $1 billion. In April, sPower secured a $350 million tax equity commitment for the project with Wells Fargo’s Renewable Energy & Environmental Finance group. Nine banks committed the $700 million of capital needed for the construction/term loan financing.
HEALTHCARE
• Myriad Genetics Inc., a Salt Lake City-based company focused on molecular diagnostics and precision medicine, has announced the election of Dr. Daniel M. Skovronsky to its board of directors. Skovronsky also was appointed to the Research and Product Innovation Committee of Myriad’s board. He serves as chief science officer and president of Lilly Research Laboratories at Eli Lilly and Co. He previously served as the founder and CEO of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals Inc. Myriad also announced the retirement of Walter “Wally” Gilbert as a director and vice chair of the board, effect in December. Gilbert, the company’s co-founder, has been on the board since March 1992.
• Intermountain Healthcare officials have announced that Dixie Regional Medical Center will be renamed Intermountain St. George Regional Hospital, effective Jan. 1. Mitch Cloward, hospital administrator, said the meaning of the Dixie name “has offensive connotations” for some people not from the area.
INVESTMENT
• VideoPeel, a Lehi-based automated video testimonial platform company, has announced a new $1.5 million round of funding. The round was led by Active Capital, with other participants being Next Coast Ventures; eonCaptial; and angels from Utah, Texas, California, New York and Brazil. The company said it will use the growth capital to expand its automated remote capturing and publishing video testimonial technology.
MANUFACTURING
• ClearOne, a Salt Lake City-based provider of audio and visual communications solutions, has promoted Ashanti Long to associate vice president for strategic partners and named Scott Fike as associate vice president and consultant liaison for North America. Long’s increased responsibility will be to further develop business opportunities with key partners. Long joined ClearOne April 2018. He most recently served as director of sales for strategic accounts and consultant services. Prior to that, he was the company’s director of sales for strategic accounts for Pro AV. He also was senior director of Pro AV Sales with Optoma and global vice president of commercial and federal sales and marketing at Black Diamond Video. Fike has over 22 years of professional audio/visual experience. He recently served as consultant liaison for both Harman International and Crestron Electronics. Prior to working with manufacturers, Fike spent 12 years as an audio/visual consultant.
• Sintx Technologies Inc., a Salt Lake City-based original equipment manufacturer ceramics company focused on silicon nitride and its applications, has closed on a previously announced registered direct offering of 1.5 million shares of its common stock at a purchase price of $2 per share, for gross proceeds of $3 million. Sintx said it intends to use the net proceeds from the offerings for general working capital and general corporate purposes. Maxim Group LLC acted as the sole placement agent for the offering.
NONPROFITS
• United Way of Salt Lake (UWSL) has named Mikelle Moore as chair and Kirk Aubry as vice chair of its board of directors. Moore is senior vice president and chief community health officer at Intermountain Healthcare. Aubry is president and CEO of Savage. UWSL also has welcomed several new board members over the past few months, including Deneiva Knight of Comcast, Kevin Peterson of WCF Insurance, Rick Foster of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and Gary Porter of Deseret Management Corp. Michael Anglin of UPS, a longtime board member with UWSL, also joined the board’s executive committee. Selected by a nominating committee of current board members, the new members are eligible to serve up to two three-year terms.
PHILANTHROPY
• In recognition of National Hot Dog Day, members of the North American Meat Institute worked with Feeding America to donate more than 325,000 hot dogs to 25 food banks across the nation for people in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. The effort included Lower Foods donating to the Utah Food Bank.
REAL ESTATE
• Trez Capital, based in Dallas, has closed construction loans totaling $12.1 million for two townhome rental communities in Ogden: Foxridge and Whisperwood. They are part of Trez’s first financing agreement with Lotus Co. to develop Class A affordable townhome rental properties. Foxridge spans 38,000 square feet of rentable space and will feature 26 townhomes with two- and three-bedroom floorplans. The project broke ground in January of this year and is expected to be complete by December. Whisperwood also broke ground in January and will feature 40 townhomes with 57,000 square feet of rentable space. Residents can choose from two- and three-bedroom floorplans. It is slated for completion by February 2021.
• Gateway Mortgage, based in Oklahoma, has opened 10 new mortgage centers, including one in Farmington. The company, a division of Gateway First Bank, has more than 150 mortgage centers. Gateway Mortgage in 2020 had originated more than $5.3 billion in mortgage loans through June. It originated $7.7 billion in funded loans in 2019.
• Promontory, a 6,400-acre private vacation home community in Park City, has completed and debuted Double Deer, an event venue. The expansion completes the Jack Nicklaus Clubhouse at 31,609 square feet and is specifically designed to accommodate members’ private events, for up to 250 guests, for both corporate and social entertaining. The next phase will feature 26 single-story, individually owned cottages adjacent to the venue.
SERVICES
• CPR Construction Cleaning, based in Arizona, has expanded into the Utah market with a contract at Utah Valley University in Orem. The company offers three phases of cleaning: progress/rough cleaning, final cleaning and touch-up cleaning. The UVU contract, for student housing, occupies one of CPR’s five teams.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• Galileo, a Salt Lake City-based payments platform company, has hired Amit Jhawar as a special advisor. Jhawar recently joined Accel as a venture partner, advising Accel’s portfolio companies and helping make new investments. He spent the previous nine years building and scaling two fintech businesses from their earliest days: Braintree and Venmo. He was chief operations officer and chief financial officer at Braintree. He led the business functions of the Braintree business at PayPal. Most recently, Jhawar was general manager of Venmo.
• Friendemic, a Salt Lake City-based company specializing in digital communication and reputation management tools for automotive brands, retail-level dealer groups and individual dealerships, has hired Denise Chudy as chief growth officer and appointed her as a member of the company board of directors. As chief growth officer, Chudy will be responsible for leading the sales and marketing divisions of Friendemic, as well as growing the base of the company's solutions with her network of manufacturers, dealer groups and industry partners. Chudy has nearly two decades of automotive technology experience, including leading the automotive digital marketing division of LivePerson and serving as co-founder and president of retail at LotLinx. She also worked at Google and Cars.com.
• Impulsify Inc., a Denver-based retail technology company, serving the hospitality industry, recently signed several “glamping” (a fusion of “glamour” and “camping”) sites and will soon launch the general store of its first luxury campground in Escalante.