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CONTESTS
• Nominations are be-ing accepted for the 2016 International Person/Company of Year, to be presented Oct. 24 at the 2016 Utah Global Forum at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. Anyone can nominate up to three companies, if they are not employed or affiliated with any of the companies. Separate forms are required for each nomination, and completed forms should be emailed to bbagnasacco@wtaofutah.org and fkolb@wtaofutah.org.
CORPORATE
• Superior Drilling Products Inc., Vernal, has launched an underwritten public offering of 5 million shares of its common stock, subject to market and other conditions. The underwriters will have an option to purchase up to an additional 750,000 shares of common stock from the company. Roth Capital Partners LLC is acting as sole book-running manager of the offering and Wunderlich Securities Inc. is acting as co-lead manager.
DIRECT SALES
• Young Living Essential Oils, Lehi, has hired Lauren Walker as senior vice president of global operations. Walker oversees the company’s global supply chain, which includes forecasting, planning, procurement, manufacturing, warehousing, fulfillment and transportation. Walker has 25 years of experience in international companies, including working as an engineer at Xerox; 10 years with Procter & Gamble in supply chain, manufacturing/technical operation, and quality; seven years with Johnson & Johnson as a plant manager and as program manager of its Oral Care franchise; and most recently as vice president of manufacturing at Amway.
EDUCATION/TRAINING
• Nolan Karras has been elected chair of the Weber State University Board of Trustees, and Louenda Downs has been elected vice chair. Karras is chief executive officer and chairman of The Karras Co. Inc., a national financial advisory firm. Appointed to the Board of Trustees in 2013, he graduated from Weber State College in 1970. Karras succeeds Alan E. Hall, who had served as chairman of the WSU board since 2010. A WSU trustee since 2014, Downs is a former Davis County commissioner and commission chair. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Weber State in education with an emphasis in art and music. She taught elementary-aged children in Davis County for seven years. The board also welcomed Greg Woodfield, 2016-17 WSU student body president, who will serve a one-year term on the board as part of his duties as president.
ENERGY/NATURAL RESOURCES
• Rocky Mountain Power has named Jon Cox as vice president of government affairs and Jeff Barrett as strategic affairs advisor. Cox will oversee state government affairs in the three states served by Rocky Mountain Power. Cox has been a senior advisor and communications director for Gov. Gary Herbert and is a former member of the Utah House of Representatives and Sanpete County Commission. Cox also served as a constituent liaison for U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett and an assistant professor of history at Snow College. Barrett will provide technical advice involving customer service, regulation and legislation. He has been the deputy director of the Utah Governor’s Office of Energy Development since 2014 and has been with the office in a number of capacities since its inception in 2011.
GOVERNMENT
• Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski has appointed Lisa Shaffer as director of the Department of Public Services. Shaffer is an 11-year employee of the city, including two years as administrative services director for public services. She has served for the past five months as the department’s interim director. The Public Services Department oversees 13 divisions and operates under a $67 million annual budget. Prior to joining the city in 2006 as a plans examiner for the Building Division, Shaffer worked in the private sector as a project manager and designer for Alliant Techsystems in Clearfield. She has been a project manager and development review administrator for the city’s Building Division, where she acted as a liaison between the city and developers on City Creek Center, the 222 South Main high-rise, and other projects. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Westminster College.
HOSPITALITY/FOOD SERVICE
• The Ascend Hotel Collection from Choice Hotels International Inc. has added the Peery Hotel, Salt Lake City, to its portfolio. The 73-room hotel, built in 1910, is at 110 W. Broadway and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Marin Management Inc. manages or operates 25 hotels in Utah and five other states, including the Pery Hotel in Salt Lake City and the Ben Lomond in Ogden.
PHILANTHROPY
• A first-of-its-kind “Give Back Badge” program at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2016 in Salt Lake City raised $25,000 for the Parks4Kids Initiative, designed to get more children to visit their national parks and recreate outdoors. Outdoor Retailer, in partnership with the Outdoor Foundation, had nearly 100 brands and businesses join the cause with a financial commitment. Attendees were asked during the Outdoor Retailer online registration process for a $15 donation. In all, 2,000 children will experience a national park as a result of the effort. Funds will be donated to the Parks4Kids program, an initiative of the Outdoor Foundation and Outdoor Industry Association, which supports projects across the country that connect young people to national parks. Launched at Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2016, the program has already helped give outdoor experiences to more than 20,000 youth.
RECOGNITIONS
• Fit to Recover of Salt Lake City is among winners of the 2016 SCORE Awards, which recognize outstanding examples of successful, innovative SCORE clients, as well as advocates for small business. Fit to Recover was named Outstanding Community Impact Business. SCORE provides mentors to small businesses in the U.S. Fit to Recover’s SCORE mentor is Doug McNeil. Recipients of the eighth annual awards were honored Sept. 15 in Washington, D.C.
• Five Utah companies were named to the inaugural “Forbes 2016 Cloud 100,” a list of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world, developed in partnership with Bessemer Venture Partners: Qualtrics, Provo; Domo, American Fork; Workfront, Lehi; Pluralsight, Farmington; and Health Catalyst, Salt Lake City. Winners were selected by a panel of judges representing leading public cloud companies, using qualitative and quantitative data submitted by nominees, along with publically available third-party data sources.
• Women in Architecture, a Salt Lake City-based organization, has named GSBS Architects, Salt Lake City, as Firm of the Year for excellence in creating “a forward-thinking, flexible and employee-oriented work environment.” GSBS has people in architecture, planning, landscape architecture, interior design and economic consulting that are in an open-office environment, which encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing between disciplines. Women make up 45 percent of the workforce and are represented at every level, from board member to the newest interns.
• Several Utah companies and one individual were winners of Golden Bridge Awards. The awards program, in its eighth year, recognizes the world’s best in organizational performance, innovations, products and services, executives and management teams, women in business and the professions, innovations, best deployments, product management, public relations, marketing and customer satisfaction programs. Earning Gold were My Agent eXperience – MAX by InContact, Salt Lake City, in the Cloud Computing/Saas/Internet category; FuturePay, Salt Lake City, in the category of Startup of the Year, Accounting, Banking, Financial and Insurance; and Niel Nickolaisen, senior vice president and chief technology officer at O.C. Tanner, Salt Lake City, as Information Technology Executive of the Year. Earning Silver were ageLOC Youth v1 by Nu Skin Enterprises, Provo, in the Consumer Products and Services category; Ameo Gene Expression Science & Products, Version 2, by Zija International, Lehi, also in the Consumer Products and Services category; and My Agent eXperience — MAX by InContact in the Technology (All) Innovations – Cloud Computing/Saas/Internet category.
• ShadowProtect SPX, by StorageCraft Technology Corp., Draper, was named a “Best of VMworld 2016” Gold Award co-winner in the Data Protection category. The “Best of VMworld” awards recognize the most innovative new products in the server virtualization, cloud and end-user computing markets. A panel of judges evaluated 145 nominated products on display recently at VMworld 2016 U.S. in Las Vegas and named winners in seven categories, plus one Best of Show.
• TMC, an integrated media company, has awarded TCN Platform 3.0, by TCN Inc., St. George, with a 2016 Communications Solutions Product of the Year Award. It is the second consecutive year for the platform to earn the award. TCN provides cloud-based call center technology. TMC publishes several magazines, including Cloud Computing, IoT Evolution, Customer and Internet Telephony.
SERVICES
• McDermott Company & Associates, South Jordan, is the newest partner firm of United Benefit Advisors (UBA), an independent employee benefits advisory organization. McDermott Company & Associates has served Utah and surrounding states since 1988 for all phases of employee benefits. UBA has more than 200 offices throughout the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.
• Ancestry, Lehi, has appointed Catherine Ball as chief scientific officer. In addition to overseeing the science team, Ball leads the company’s initiatives to develop innovative new technologies and analyze genetic data at a rapidly-increasing scale. Ball joined Ancestry in 2011 as vice president of genomics and bioinformatics.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• Spring Mobile and Simply Mac, the technology brands division of GameStop and both based in Salt Lake City, have named Sherry Jones as head of operations, a new position. She will focus on eliminating barriers and providing resources for Spring Mobile and Simply Mac. Jones has 20 years of experience in operations, specializing in rapid-growth companies.
CONTESTS
• Nominations are be-ing accepted for the 2016 International Person/Company of Year, to be presented Oct. 24 at the 2016 Utah Global Forum at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. Anyone can nominate up to three companies, if they are not employed or affiliated with any of the companies. Separate forms are required for each nomination, and completed forms should be emailed to bbagnasacco@wtaofutah.org and fkolb@wtaofutah.org.
CORPORATE
• Superior Drilling Products Inc., Vernal, has launched an underwritten public offering of 5 million shares of its common stock, subject to market and other conditions. The underwriters will have an option to purchase up to an additional 750,000 shares of common stock from the company. Roth Capital Partners LLC is acting as sole book-running manager of the offering and Wunderlich Securities Inc. is acting as co-lead manager.
DIRECT SALES
• Young Living Essential Oils, Lehi, has hired Lauren Walker as senior vice president of global operations. Walker oversees the company’s global supply chain, which includes forecasting, planning, procurement, manufacturing, warehousing, fulfillment and transportation. Walker has 25 years of experience in international companies, including working as an engineer at Xerox; 10 years with Procter & Gamble in supply chain, manufacturing/technical operation, and quality; seven years with Johnson & Johnson as a plant manager and as program manager of its Oral Care franchise; and most recently as vice president of manufacturing at Amway.
EDUCATION/TRAINING
• Nolan Karras has been elected chair of the Weber State University Board of Trustees, and Louenda Downs has been elected vice chair. Karras is chief executive officer and chairman of The Karras Co. Inc., a national financial advisory firm. Appointed to the Board of Trustees in 2013, he graduated from Weber State College in 1970. Karras succeeds Alan E. Hall, who had served as chairman of the WSU board since 2010. A WSU trustee since 2014, Downs is a former Davis County commissioner and commission chair. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Weber State in education with an emphasis in art and music. She taught elementary-aged children in Davis County for seven years. The board also welcomed Greg Woodfield, 2016-17 WSU student body president, who will serve a one-year term on the board as part of his duties as president.
ENERGY/NATURAL RESOURCES
• Rocky Mountain Power has named Jon Cox as vice president of government affairs and Jeff Barrett as strategic affairs advisor. Cox will oversee state government affairs in the three states served by Rocky Mountain Power. Cox has been a senior advisor and communications director for Gov. Gary Herbert and is a former member of the Utah House of Representatives and Sanpete County Commission. Cox also served as a constituent liaison for U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett and an assistant professor of history at Snow College. Barrett will provide technical advice involving customer service, regulation and legislation. He has been the deputy director of the Utah Governor’s Office of Energy Development since 2014 and has been with the office in a number of capacities since its inception in 2011.
GOVERNMENT
• Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski has appointed Lisa Shaffer as director of the Department of Public Services. Shaffer is an 11-year employee of the city, including two years as administrative services director for public services. She has served for the past five months as the department’s interim director. The Public Services Department oversees 13 divisions and operates under a $67 million annual budget. Prior to joining the city in 2006 as a plans examiner for the Building Division, Shaffer worked in the private sector as a project manager and designer for Alliant Techsystems in Clearfield. She has been a project manager and development review administrator for the city’s Building Division, where she acted as a liaison between the city and developers on City Creek Center, the 222 South Main high-rise, and other projects. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Westminster College.
HOSPITALITY/FOOD SERVICE
• The Ascend Hotel Collection from Choice Hotels International Inc. has added the Peery Hotel, Salt Lake City, to its portfolio. The 73-room hotel, built in 1910, is at 110 W. Broadway and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Marin Management Inc. manages or operates 25 hotels in Utah and five other states, including the Pery Hotel in Salt Lake City and the Ben Lomond in Ogden.
PHILANTHROPY
• A first-of-its-kind “Give Back Badge” program at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2016 in Salt Lake City raised $25,000 for the Parks4Kids Initiative, designed to get more children to visit their national parks and recreate outdoors. Outdoor Retailer, in partnership with the Outdoor Foundation, had nearly 100 brands and businesses join the cause with a financial commitment. Attendees were asked during the Outdoor Retailer online registration process for a $15 donation. In all, 2,000 children will experience a national park as a result of the effort. Funds will be donated to the Parks4Kids program, an initiative of the Outdoor Foundation and Outdoor Industry Association, which supports projects across the country that connect young people to national parks. Launched at Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2016, the program has already helped give outdoor experiences to more than 20,000 youth.
RECOGNITIONS
• Fit to Recover of Salt Lake City is among winners of the 2016 SCORE Awards, which recognize outstanding examples of successful, innovative SCORE clients, as well as advocates for small business. Fit to Recover was named Outstanding Community Impact Business. SCORE provides mentors to small businesses in the U.S. Fit to Recover’s SCORE mentor is Doug McNeil. Recipients of the eighth annual awards were honored Sept. 15 in Washington, D.C.
• Five Utah companies were named to the inaugural “Forbes 2016 Cloud 100,” a list of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world, developed in partnership with Bessemer Venture Partners: Qualtrics, Provo; Domo, American Fork; Workfront, Lehi; Pluralsight, Farmington; and Health Catalyst, Salt Lake City. Winners were selected by a panel of judges representing leading public cloud companies, using qualitative and quantitative data submitted by nominees, along with publically available third-party data sources.
• Women in Architecture, a Salt Lake City-based organization, has named GSBS Architects, Salt Lake City, as Firm of the Year for excellence in creating “a forward-thinking, flexible and employee-oriented work environment.” GSBS has people in architecture, planning, landscape architecture, interior design and economic consulting that are in an open-office environment, which encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing between disciplines. Women make up 45 percent of the workforce and are represented at every level, from board member to the newest interns.
• Several Utah companies and one individual were winners of Golden Bridge Awards. The awards program, in its eighth year, recognizes the world’s best in organizational performance, innovations, products and services, executives and management teams, women in business and the professions, innovations, best deployments, product management, public relations, marketing and customer satisfaction programs. Earning Gold were My Agent eXperience – MAX by InContact, Salt Lake City, in the Cloud Computing/Saas/Internet category; FuturePay, Salt Lake City, in the category of Startup of the Year, Accounting, Banking, Financial and Insurance; and Niel Nickolaisen, senior vice president and chief technology officer at O.C. Tanner, Salt Lake City, as Information Technology Executive of the Year. Earning Silver were ageLOC Youth v1 by Nu Skin Enterprises, Provo, in the Consumer Products and Services category; Ameo Gene Expression Science & Products, Version 2, by Zija International, Lehi, also in the Consumer Products and Services category; and My Agent eXperience — MAX by InContact in the Technology (All) Innovations – Cloud Computing/Saas/Internet category.
• ShadowProtect SPX, by StorageCraft Technology Corp., Draper, was named a “Best of VMworld 2016” Gold Award co-winner in the Data Protection category. The “Best of VMworld” awards recognize the most innovative new products in the server virtualization, cloud and end-user computing markets. A panel of judges evaluated 145 nominated products on display recently at VMworld 2016 U.S. in Las Vegas and named winners in seven categories, plus one Best of Show.
• TMC, an integrated media company, has awarded TCN Platform 3.0, by TCN Inc., St. George, with a 2016 Communications Solutions Product of the Year Award. It is the second consecutive year for the platform to earn the award. TCN provides cloud-based call center technology. TMC publishes several magazines, including Cloud Computing, IoT Evolution, Customer and Internet Telephony.
SERVICES
• McDermott Company & Associates, South Jordan, is the newest partner firm of United Benefit Advisors (UBA), an independent employee benefits advisory organization. McDermott Company & Associates has served Utah and surrounding states since 1988 for all phases of employee benefits. UBA has more than 200 offices throughout the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.
• Ancestry, Lehi, has appointed Catherine Ball as chief scientific officer. In addition to overseeing the science team, Ball leads the company’s initiatives to develop innovative new technologies and analyze genetic data at a rapidly-increasing scale. Ball joined Ancestry in 2011 as vice president of genomics and bioinformatics.
TECHNOLOGY/LIFE SCIENCES
• Spring Mobile and Simply Mac, the technology brands division of GameStop and both based in Salt Lake City, have named Sherry Jones as head of operations, a new position. She will focus on eliminating barriers and providing resources for Spring Mobile and Simply Mac. Jones has 20 years of experience in operations, specializing in rapid-growth companies.