Utah’s economy received heaping praise in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual “Enterprising States” report, including a description as “perhaps the best-performing state overall.” The report ranked Utah as the only state in the top 10 in six major categories. Utah was third in overall economic performance (trailing only top-ranked North Dakota and Texas), third in exports, fourth in innovation and entrepreneurship, sixth in business climate, eighth in talent pipeline and fourth in infrastructure. “The state is booming, ranking second in both short- and long-term job growth,” the report said. Utah scored well in business creation, being third-ranked among states in business birthrate and seventh in growth of self-employed workers. Other positive comments about Utah in the report include: • “The state is becoming known as a professional services and finance center .…” • “Manufacturing is a competitive advantage for the state.” The report said Utah’s manufacturing sector saw a slight employment increase during the past decade, the same time that national manufacturing employment shrunk by 22 percent. • “Utah is increasingly becoming one of the nation’s high-tech centers.” • “Utah is a fast-emerging state for high technology and entrepreneurship.” Gov. Gary Herbert said the rankings “reflect our state’s determination to lead the nation in economic performance. As the Wall Street Journal noted, Utah truly is the ‘brightest shining star’ on the nation’s flag.” Spencer Eccles, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, said Utah “leads the charge as the nation comes back from the economic recession. We can say with confidence that Utah’s future as the emerging ‘Wall Street west’ looks brighter than ever.”

John M. Rogers The Enterprise Steve Sorensen didn’t set out to start a busi ness. He just needed a better way to mix his daily protein shake without the lumps that made it almost unpalatable. The result was the BlenderBottle and Sorenson’s company will break ground this week on a new 100,000 square foot headquarters building. Founded in 2000, BlenderBottle will consolidate its operations to a new state-of-the-art distribution center and office building at 250 S. 850 E. in Lehi. Currently the firm operates with about 45 people from a fragmented headquarters in Pleasant Grove. “And of course we’re building our new headquarters with plans for growth and expansion in mind,” said Sorenson. BlenderBottle is specifically designed as a shaker cup to facilitate the mixing of powdered fitness and health blends into liquid. Although the company does not release actual sales figures, Sorenson says the annual number of the various versions of the bottles sold is “in the millions.” Other products are in the development stages with launch dates set for later this year. The new Lehi complex will include 20,000 square feet of office space and the remaining 80,000 square feet will be dedicated to warehousing and distribution of the company’s variety of proprietary mixing bottle products. As a benefit to employees the building will feature a basketball court and well-equipped exercise facility, in keeping with the brand’s emphasis on an active and healthy lifestyle. According to Sorensen, BlenderBottle products are designed at company headquarters in Utah County but are manufactured in China. Because of the firm’s local roots it was important to the founders that the new building be located in the Utah Valley area. The combination of qualified graduates from the local universities, a strong work ethic among local employees, and a desire to support the economy of the area that supported their growth, was of paramount importance said Sorenson. “BlenderBottle has its roots in Utah Valley,” said Sorensen, co-founder and CEO. “This is not only our home, but the place that has enabled us to become the world market leader. Supporting the local economy by creating jobs and building our headquarters in this region is an important reflection on our dedication to the area.” BlenderBottle is a DBA of Sundesa Corp., the original name under which the company was founded. However, because of brand equity the company operates exclusively under the product name. Now available at over 35,000 retail outlets in the United States as well as in 34 countries worldwide, BlenderBottle has been hailed by multiple media outlets including leading fitness and health publications. Sorensen’s career started far from his now-entrepreneurial situation. As a former software sales and marketing executive, he tells the story of his frustration with a lumpy protein drink in his hotel room while on a business trip. The drink ended up down the drain and a candy bar substituted in its place. “There’s got to be a better way,” Sorensen told himself. After a number of attempts the patented BlenderBottle concept solved his problem. “This is one of those products that, right out of the gate, was embraced enthusiastically by our customers.”

Brice Wallace The Enterprise Be dumb. It’s not often that a successful businessman gives that advice to a large audience. But Larry Andreini, cofounder and chief innovation officer for Ridemakerz, suggested that and some other unusual advice during a presentation at the recent Governor’s Economic Development Summit. The Salt Lake City native, who described his four-store company as “Build-A-Bear for cars,” said being dumb has helped him through his career and said others could benefit from that approach. “If you know it all, you won’t ever discover anything,” Andreini said. “There is a framework that someone once gave me that said, ‘Try to proactively be dumb in every single conversation you’re in and everything you read. Bring that mentality that you don’t know anything, even if you think you do, because that is where you will find the discovery.’” The ideas of knowing and discovering were overarching themes in his presentation, during which Andreini acknowledged that he was once “a hard-headed, win-lose, know-it-all … trying to pound my way through my first set of businesses.” But a mentor taught him to expand beyond his two “domains of knowing.” Andreini knew there were things he knew and things he didn’t know. But the mentor helped him realize that an even larger domain existed: what you don’t know you don’t know. “If you will stay committed to the single biggest domain of knowledge - ‘what you don’t know that you don’t know,’ - your life will be one invention, one discovery, one ‘a-ha’ after another after another after another,” he said. Andreini spoke about his path through business life, with advancements made a result of nearly incredible circumstances, such as crossing paths with the right people at just the right time. “Better lucky than good,” he said. He also said most of his business success has come not from his own ideas but by “connecting the dots.” “When I think about innovation and talk about innovation, I contrast innovation with invention, because people tend to think of innovation as invention. For me, it’s not. And I think for most people, innovation is not invention. Think of the difference between an artist and a connect-the-dots drawer. … There are thousands and millions of folks out there who connect dots that create innovation,” he said. In chats with college students, Andreini said, he tells them to not be discouraged if they don’t yet have an invention or an idea. “You want to be an entrepreneur, you want to start a business, but you’re held back because you don’t have your great, breakthrough idea. And what I’ve said is, not one of the ideas that had led to a business I’ve been involved with is mine. All I can do is take credit for connecting dots,” he said. Along the way, he also learned that mistakes have a place in the business world — if one can learn from them. No one and nothing must be perfect in order to succeed, he said. Winning can occur by a 51-49 score. “You’ll actually benefit from owning, acknowledging, learning from the 49, and sometimes just that 2 percent shift can make a huge, huge difference. Mistakes and following up are a huge part of innovation,” he said. He also learned to view competition in a different way. Rather than a win-lose proposition, relationships can be forged to make it a successful upward spiral for both sides. “Seeking to find upward ways to partner led to virtually every one of [my] successes in business,” he said. “It’s connecting the dots. It’s not inventing anything. And that notion of viewing competition differently from a business development standpoint has been really key to my career.” An unwillingness to see possibilities, especially if another company beat your idea to the marketplace, often stalls true growth, he said. “It’s not the fact that people don’t have good ideas that businesses don’t grow,” he said. “I’m sure everybody in this room has had a great idea that you’ve shared with a boss, a peer, somebody else. It’s resource allocation, it’s bandwidth, it’s commitment to growth, it’s people — those are the things that keep good ideas from happening, not ‘oh, you thought of that idea first.’”  

By Andrew Haley The Enterprise One thing is clear: last winter’s heavy smog besmirched Utah’s reputation as an idyllic winter playground and imperiled the health of residents along the Wasatch Front. In January, thousands of out-of-state visitors arriving for the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market and the Sundance Film Festival took home stories of Utah’s terrible air quality, prompting a flurry of bad press from the national news and further enraging locals, who marched on the state Capitol in gas masks and took to social media to protest area industries. But populist anger about the situation, while justified, may fail to understand the complex issue of what causes these inversions, as they are locally known, and how state, county and municipal governments, industry, and citizens can help mitigate the problem. The primary culprit, known by its government moniker as pm2.5, is tiny particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers trapped in cold air bottled under a layer of warm air that sits like a lid over the mountain valleys of the Wasatch. The majority of the particles are tiny crystals of ammonium nitrate that form like a crust when ammonia and nitrogen gasses mingle in the air. During a strong inversion, which to meteorologists refers not to air pollution but to deviations in normal atmospheric patterns that see normally warm air closer to the ground replaced by unusually cold air that shuts down the natural convection cycle, levels of pm2.5 build and build until they muddy the air and become toxic. Area residents who point fingers at Kennecott and other Salt Lake County and other Wasatch Front industries misunderstand the sources and, ultimately, the causes of so-called inversions. Patrick Barickman, an environmental program manager at the Utah Division of Air Quality (DAQ), said annual measurements of emissions inventories in the airshed show that industry sources, including Kennecott and five major refineries, produce a fraction of Wasatch Front pollution, while passenger vehicles produce more emissions than all other sources put together. “When we sum those [sources] up, what we have in our inventory in the Wasatch Front counties is industry is a little over 10 percent and auto and other area sources make up the other 90 percent,” Barickman said. “It’s mostly cars.” A full 57 percent of pollution in Salt Lake County comes from passenger vehicles on freeways. Area sources, such as restaurants char broiling hamburgers, snow blowers, auto body shops spraying on a new paint job and cozy wood fires account for 32 percent. Of the remaining 11 percent, Kennecott contributes less than half, accounting for 3.5 percent of total emissions in the county. “What the data tell us is that it’s relevant to make cuts to industry, but if it only makes up 10 percent, you can make pretty big cuts and have a smaller effect overall,” Barickman said. “We are reducing emissions more when we project out into the future, and we’re not saying industry is only 10 percent so let’s leave them alone, but I guess the low hanging fruit is gone. We still have reductions that need to be made, but controls get more and more expensive. You get to a certain point where it gets more expensive to get that last little bit, and that’s where we’re at now,” he said. Complicating the issue, Barickman said that while anecdotally this past winter’s inversions were among the worst in memory, overall pollution levels are down. Emissions in Salt Lake County dropped close to 20 percent between 2002 and 2008, he said. “I was surprised by this and I’ve worked here for 20 years,” he said. While prolonged temperature inversions may trap more pollution in the long run, the amount of pollution they start off with is down, making a dramatic solution to the air quality problem even more unlikely. “I’m not an apologist for Kennecott, nor do I think they are the silver bullet, not only them but the refineries. They’re players, just like everybody else is, but it’s pretty simple arithmetic: if you doubled their emissions to 20 percent, it’s still only 20 percent,” Barickman said. “It comes back to the issue of meteorology. You do kind of reach a level where you can’t do much really. You get to the point where you have to start shutting down parts of industry to have an effect. When an inversion sets in, it’s not locally generated. There’s just variability in the weather,” he said. University of Utah professors David Whiteman and John Horel are leading an ongoing, $1.3 million, three-year study of Utah’s atmospheric conditions in order to better understand the causes — and hopefully the solutions — to the state’s terrible winter air quality. “The presence of inversions is tied directly to the weather, and there is no trend in their prevalence over the last 20-30 years,” Horel said by email. “The weather ingredients that make our cold-air pools (the layer below the trapping inversion filled with pollutants) is the often elevated inversion or strong stable layer, weak winds within the cold air pool limiting mixing, and the presence of snow cover. Those can happen at any time during the period from December through February. That is the random element. But, the randomness of when such events may happen during a particular winter is of much less importance than the need for planning and regulation for mitigation of the worst cases, such as this past winter,” he said. “As a citizen living in the valley, there are things all of us can do to reduce emissions more than at present that go beyond what is required now (i.e., no drive or highly restricted driving days). It will become increasingly critical to do so as we have no choice if the health of people along the Wasatch Front is to be protected,” Horel said. Whiteman said that a key part to solving the air pollution problem lies in understanding that once a prolonged inversion sets in, pm2.5 levels build quite quickly. He said that primary sources of pm2.5 and other chemicals that bond together to form pm2.5, so called secondary sources, generate enough of the dangerous particulate matter to exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s pm2.5 limits of 35 µg/m3 (micrograms per cubic meter), in four days, once an inversion has trapped pollution in the Salt Lake Valley. Inversions lasting five days or more cause the build up of pm2.5 to considerably exceed those levels. “You’re not going to be changing the weather. You get what you get. But the pollution we’re getting depends on how long these last,” he said. Further exacerbating the problem are higher average temperatures that increase overall humidity, Whiteman said. “There are a lot of different effects of humidity. Let’s say you have a fog. There are a lot of different chemical reactions in air that lead to pm2.5. There are probably different chemical reactions that occur in aqueous solutions that in clear, dry air. Pollution particles in humidity attract water droplets and grow,” he said. Not only do fogs aid in the production of harmful chemicals, supercharging the secondary sources of pm2.5, once morning fogs dissipate on cold, clear days, they rise into the air and form a stratus layer of high, thin cloud cover, Whiteman said. “When we have stratus layers in the clouds, we get better mixing. So instead of having layered smog, it’s mixed through the shallow layer,” he said. While rising temperatures bring increased humidity, and increased humidity aids in the growth of secondary pm2.5 and in the mixing of air pollution in the lower air, overall, the big culprit remains the inversion itself, and whether or not it appears. While temperature trends are creeping up around the world, Whiteman said that the occurrence of severe, prolonged inversions remains random. “Looking back 38 years, there’s a huge variation in temperature inversions. I don’t see any trend in that,” Whiteman said. The chief culprit of last winter’s terrible air was not the Kennecott smoke stack, or even rush hour gridlock choking the freeways, but a high pressure system over the Pacific that wobbled eastward over the Rockies and pinned pollution to the ground. According to one area doctor and air quality advocate, concentrating on those super-sized weather patterns instead of the local sources of pollution only exacerbates the problem. “I think people all too often focus on our inversions when they want to talk about air pollution,” Dr. Brian Moench said. Moench is president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and an anesthesiologist in private practice. “While inversions get most the attention, and EPA standards we're in violation of, the issue of air pollution is its impact on public health year round. Our air pollution problems are more than inversions,” Moench said. While pm2.5 levels can reach upwards of 90 µg/m3 during a severe inversion event, dust storms out of the west desert can drive up pm2.5 levels to over 250 µg/m3, he said. According to Moench, dust blown off the dry lakebed of the Great Salt Lake, off Kennecott’s tailings piles, from gravel pits and off the west desert can contain high levels of heavy metals such mercury and even radioactive fallout scattered decades ago by above ground nuclear testing in neighboring Nevada. “Not all pm2.5 is created equal,” Moench said. “The fact that heavy metals are attached to it is not brought up because the DAQ is focused on meeting national regulatory standards. Whatever particulate matter has heavy metals attached to it is especially toxic,” he said. Moench said while their total emissions levels might fall within federal standards, and their percentage contribution to the total amount of pm2.5 might be minimal, Kennecott and the refineries had an outsize negative effect on public health because of benzene related emissions from the refineries and other heavy metals exposed by Kennecott’s mining activity. “Heavy metals are not biodegradable, they are not combustible, so literally for 100 years dust from Kennecott’s operation drifts over the rest of the valley and anything like Geneva that throws up dust is likely to kick up heavy metals from Kennecott’s operation,” he said. Moench said there are practical steps to solving the Wasatch Front’s bad air problem. “First off, we need to acknowledge that it isn’t just inversion events we need to worry about,” he said. Since the leading two emitters of pollution along the Wasatch Front are cars and homes, a robust mass transit network and bans on certain activities like burning wood for heat would have a tremendous impact on air pollution, he said. “We need to stop funding new highways and start funding mass transit. The more freeways we build, the more pollution we’re going to generate. Wood smoke is highly toxic. [Burning wood] really is a 50 or 60-year old idea that needs to change. Woodsmoke may be 10 times more toxic to the lungs than urban smog. We need to phase out the wood burning period and help people who are dependent on it for heat,” Moench said. “The dangerous mindset of the legislature is they don’t see other communities doing much so they figure we don’t have to either, but they don’t take into account our unique geographic circumstances with mountains on both sides,” he said. While the pace of change may be slow in the state legislature, that is not the case at Kennecott, said Kennecott Utah Copper spokesperson Kyle Bennett. “We have been highly regulated since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970. We have invested a lot in capital, and a lot in our employees to create behavioral change. There has been some great progress,” he said. Bennett said Kennecott had poured well over $1 billion in capital upgrades into the mine since 1970. Its mid-1990s smelter modernization alone cost $1 billion, while recent acquisitions of 22 enormous haul trucks, at $3.5 million each, cost $77 million. Two decades later, the smelter remains one of the cleanest and most modern in the world, and, because of their greater size and efficiency, the new haul trucks reduced the mine’s haul truck emissions by half, he said. According to Bennett, further efforts are under way to convert the mine’s enormous fleet of small trucks to compressed natural gas, and a no-idling policy encouraging employees to turn their engines off when parked has further reducing emissions. He said employees are taking environmental lessons home from work and reducing idling in their personal vehicles. Others are taking advantage of Kennecott programs incentivizing the use of mass transit to get to work, he said. With only 3.5 percent of emissions coming from its mining operations, Kennecott’s greatest contribution to air pollution in Salt Lake County may come from the tens of thousands of residents the company hopes to attract to its 20,000-unit Daybreak housing development. But even here, Kennecott is actively trying to get out in front of environmentalist critics by committing itself to strict energy efficiency standards and advocacy of public transit. All of the homes in Daybreak are ENERGY STAR rated and Kennecott is largely responsible for bringing light rail to the southwest corner of the valley, Bennett said. “We have consistently seen regulations get stricter and stricter. All of the easy things to accomplish are done. Everyone needs to get involved. It really is a shared responsibility. We’ve got to turn off our engines when we’re dropping our kids off. We’ve got to ride public transportation on red air days,” Bennett said. “The easy solutions with a big impact are getting harder to find,” he said.

By John M. Rogers The Enterprise At least some of the 570 jobs lost last fall in Utah when Hostess Brands Inc. went of business are coming back. Franz Bakery of Portland, Ore., has acquired the Wonder bakery in Salt Lake City along with other Hostess properties in Seattle; Billings, Mont.; and Anchorage. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York has approved the sale of the Wonder properties in the four western cities for $30.9 million. Franz officials hope to have the Salt Lake plant, located at 734 E. 400 S., open and producing bread by May 13. At least 65 people will be hired immediately to man the bakery, and that number will include some former Wonder employees idled since the shutdown last fall, according to company sources. The interview process has begun for bakery personnel to staff the reopened facility. The Franz purchase does not include the other major Utah Hostess bakery, located in Ogden. However, the transaction does include the Wonder warehouse and distribution facility on west North Temple in Salt Lake. Also included are a limited number of distribution assets such as trucks and warehousing equipment. It has not been decided if the thrift store on North Temple will reopen as a Franz outlet, but it is expected that there will be a thrift store at the 400 South site. “We’re excited to move forward with re-opening the bakery and start supplying Utah with fresh baked goods,” said Marc Albers, president Franz Bakery. “We’re also looking forward to contributing to the local economy by providing jobs.” Although primarily a bread bakery, the Salt Lake facility will also produce a bun line, according to company spokesperson Jessica Larson. “We really are excited about expanding into the territory, opening the bakery and getting people back to work,” she said. Franz is a fourth-generation family business that was started in Portland in 1906 by Austrian immigrants. It operates seven bakeries and distributes its breads, buns, bagels, English muffins, rolls, pastries and cookies throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and northern California. With the purchase of the Salt Lake bakery, Franz plans to introduce its entire line of baked goods in the Utah market through its own distribution and route-sales system. The popular Grandma Emilie’s brand of bread, which went away with the closing of the Wonder bakeries last year, will be reintroduced in Utah by Franz, the company has said. As it does in other markets, Franz will offer discounted products to consumers through outlet stores and will make product donations in conjunction with local charities. Officials of the bankrupt Hostess Brands are still in the process of finding a buyer for the Ogden plant and some of the snack cake brands that were produced there. That plant was idled at the same time as the Salt Lake bakery in November of last year when Hostess reacted to a crippling strike and inability to reach a new collective bargaining agreement by shuttering operations. Hostess Brands had been rumored to have been having financial difficulties for some time prior to the strike by one of the company’s largest unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which curtailed the company’s ability to produce and deliver products at multiple facilities. Through the bankruptcy process, Ogden and other Hostess facilities are currently in the “stalking horse bid” phase of liquidation. Stalking horse bids are sought from potential buyers by the bankrupt entity in order to set the value of the assets and avoid lowball bids. There is no word yet on the possible disposition of the Ogden facility.

By Brice Wallace The Enterprise Construction on the Sugar House streetcar and greenway project is more than halfway complete and should provide a boost to businesses near the line, according to the executive director of the Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency. Speaking to the Utah chapter of NAIOP last week, D.J. Baxter also said the two-mile Sugar House line will be the first leg of what ultimately could become a citywide streetcar network. While the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) has built “a regional backbone” for long-haul trips, the streetcar will “help extend a pedestrian’s walking trip,” he said. Its slow speeds and frequent stops — seven are planned, about three-tens of a mile apart — should benefit businesses along the line, which will run in an old freight corridor from the Central Pointe TRAX station at 2100 South to McClelland Street (1045 East) along 2230 South. “In other cities that have put these in, because it stops frequently and it stops right at the curb instead of the middle of the street, it’s been phenomenally successful at putting more feet on the street, and as a result they are very beneficial to retail businesses,” Baxter said. Streetcar systems have been successful in Portland, Ore., and about a dozen other cities, he said. “What we’ve seen in a number of other communities around the country is streetcars are uniquely capable of stimulating private investment. What other communities have discovered is the permanency of tracks in the street distinguish this pretty significantly from a bus route, in the sense that providing a high-quality form of transit for a very large group of people and in a form that we all know is going to be there 50 years from now provides a lot more certainty for private investment, whereas a bus route can change overnight. You just take the sign down and move it to the next block and suddenly your investment is next to a former bus stop instead of a current one.” Planning began in 2006 with a study of transit alternatives through Salt Lake City and South Salt Lake. Construction began in April 2012 and now is about 65 percent complete. When finished in July, the line will undergo about four months of testing. It is expected to be operating in December, starting with about 3,000 riders daily and seeing that figure climb to about 4,000 by 2030. The RDA has been working on the project with Salt Lake City; South Salt Lake, which has about half the line; and UTA, which owns the corridor. The corridor is wide, so it also will feature a greenway, or linear park, that will feature a bike trail and strolling paths. Baxter said the city will look at possible zoning changes along the corridor. Commercial nodes exist at some intersections and zoning changes could help them proper and perhaps expand. He said new developments would be encouraged to face the corridor, and adjacent property owners could have café tables or other features in the corridor. “We would like those developments to spill right into the corridor and face the corridor,” he said. The $45 million project is getting a $26 million boost from federal funds. Private investment planned within a half-mile of the streetcar terminus is estimated at $405 million in the Sugar House Business District. Salt Lake City once had 145 miles of streetcar lines, often undertaken by private developers. And the Sugar House line could be the first part of a citywide streetcar network. The RDA envisions the line extending along Sugarmont Drive (2225 South) to Highland Drive, then north to the Sugar House Monument, then north on 1100 East. It then could jog to 900 East 900 South, then north to the University of Utah and west to the west side of the city, he said. “So this is really the beginning of a network, we hope, and this first piece will open soon,” Baxter said.

By Brice Wallace The Enterprise Current Utah law is silent about allowing companies to determine whether guns are allowed at their workplaces, but a shareholder at Parsons Behle & Latimer believes the state’s “gun-friendly legislature” may make some noise on the issue during the next few years. Speaking at the 25th annual Employment Law Seminar presented by the law firm, Chris Wangsgard said Utah law allows people to bring guns into a workplace parking lot but private property laws allow businesses to determine whether guns are allowed elsewhere in the workplace. However, that could change, with the next five years expected to see an average of four new gun-related laws annually, he said. “We have a concern,” said Wangsgard, whose practice is focused on employment litigation. “We think that your private property rights, to control whether you do or do not allow guns in your business, are at risk. The legislature which passed the so-called ‘constitutional carry law’ presents a great risk to the private property rights that you now enjoy. “Our, sadly, best opinion is that it’s not going to be favorable to your private property rights. We think it’s highly likely that they will be threatened.” He noted the Second Amendment does not apply to workplace situations because it applies to government and an individual’s rights. While federal law requires employers to provide a workplace “free from recognized hazards,” firearms are not a recognized hazard, so that law does not require employers to ban guns in the workplace. But employers do have private property rights allowing them “to control how their property is used and who gets to use it,” he said. “Am I telling you you should allow guns in your workplace? No, not at this point. That would be a long conversation. We should have that in private. It should be subject to attorney-client privilege. Do you have the right to keep guns out of your workplace? I’m going to tell you that I’m convinced that you do,“ Wangsgard said. While companies and employees might be worried about an accidental shooting injuring a worker or a visitor, that is a long-shot scenario, he said. “I had to look in a lot of places to even find such a case. I did find one. But the fact that I had to look so hard to find one might be the most important fact that you need to know about that. These cases don’t happen.” The ability to ban employees from bringing guns into the workplace is bolstered not only by employers’ property rights, but also by having at-will employees — they can be fired if they do not follow company rules. In the real world, he said, companies won’t be able to foresee gun violence problems “unless you have a workforce which is in the habit of, oh, writing messages about how much they would like to shoot your customers, or maybe you allow guns in your workplace and you’ve observed that employees take them out and point them at each other or a customer. I’m being a smart-aleck because I want you to understand that it is inherently unlikely that you would have noticed in your workplace any of the kinds of actions which would constitute evidence that you have noticed a risk of gun violence.” But the situation gets more complex with visitors — for example, vendors or customers — who tote a firearm into a workplace with a gun ban. “Suppose your best client came into your workplace and you noticed a funny-looking bulge and you said, ‘Are you carrying a gun?’ and he said, ‘Damn right I am.’ Are you going to ask them to leave? It’s your best client, your best customer. Are you going to ask him to leave? Tough question. … “When we’re talking about your best client or customer who comes in packing a gun, the at-will [employee] rule does not apply there. The leverage is different. You really ought to think the chess game through a couple of moves ahead. Does your company really want you to exclude that person? Have you brought your upper-level management in on that decision? Today this is riskier and more complicated, and just putting a policy in a policy manual is, in my opinion, not an adequate response to this.”

By Lee Snedaker The Enterprise Following on the heels of last year’s poor ski season, the 2011-2012 was a “recovery season” for most ski manufacturing companies headquartered in Utah. The average increase in sales was 39 percent, with some companies reporting flat sales while, on the other end of the scale, DPS Skis enjoyed a 100 percent increase. According on one local ski manufacturing executive, “the industry looks to Utah as the focal point for innovation in ski construction and design.” Dan Burwell, house production manager for 4FRNT Skis LLC in Salt Lake City, said FRNT 4 is one of roughly a dozen local ski manufacturers. 4FRNT distributed about 500 pairs of skis this year, up 20 percent from last. New designs and innovations are responsible for bringing skis “back from the dead,” Burwell said. “Basically the industry looks to Utah as a focal point … having all of the ski areas within easy reach and so many skiers, it just makes sense to be located here. I don’t think there is an end to the potential of what could be done in this state.” That said, Burwell cautioned, “You have to come to making skis with some heart rather than dollar signs. I don’t know how much money you’re going to make from making skis … it really has to be passion-driven rather than financially driven.” Another ski manufacturer that has put its hopes in Utah is DPS Skis, Salt Lake City. According to Erme Catino, PR and marketing asssociate for DPS, “After a decade of overseas production, we closed manufacturing for our skis in China and opened a state-of-the-art ski factory at the base of Utah’s Wasatch Range. As of January 2013 we have consolidated all of our production and ski development in this location.” Catino said DPS sold exclusively online for the first three years in business, “but our growth exploded when we started selling through ski shops — 125 to 150 percent each of the past three years. In addition to the direct sales, we now have 130 dealers worldwide and they are now an important part of DPS’ sales strategy. This year we produced 6,700 pairs of skis.” Many of the ski manufacturers based in Utah saw gains this ski season. According to a sampling of the leading local manufacturers, this was a good sales year for many. Some manufactures, however, were even. According to Jared Richards, managing partner at Bluehouse Skis, Salt Lake City, while the production of the skis made in Utah increased, the total number of sales was pretty flat this year over last. Skis are only part of the story for Goode Ski Technologies, based in Ogden. Dave Goode, founder of the company, pointed to the firm’s overall carbon technology. “We led the industry by introducing the first pure carbon fiber ‘pencil’ ski pole, the first composite rental pole, the first pure carbon fiber waterski and the first pure carbon fiber snow ski,” he said. Today, Goode is the leading supplier of ski poles in the industry and the largest manufacturer of rental ski poles in the world. It all started in 1975. Driven by a passion for the sport, Goode founded a company deeply rooted in skiing. “Today, in our research, development, and production facility in Ogden, we are continuing to innovate,” he said. “Conceptual design, engineering, mold making, layout, pressing, finishing, and testing all take place at the foot of the Wasatch only a half-hour from the ultimate testing ground, Snowbasin – site of the 2002 Winter Olympic Men’s and Women’s Downhill, Super G, and Combined events.” All indications are that the growth of ski manufacturing in Utah is growing and the industry is strong and will continue on its uphill climb.

By Brice Wallace The Enterprise An investment strategist and economic commentator who spoke in Utah last week is predicting a future that is “interesting, complex and worrisome,” mostly because of the effects that emerging markets will have on the U.S. economy. Robert B. Anderson, a frequent commentator on CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg and principal and chief strategist of Sandler O’Neill & Partners LP, said domestic consumption has been stifled. But emerging markets will drive U.S. economic growth — with demand being just one way that they will play a huge role in the economy. “Quite frankly, you’re sitting here in a nice part of the country in a global community, running businesses … You have no idea, in my judgment, how much the global changes are going to affect all of our lives and our country,” Anderson said in Ogden at a Bank of Utah economic breakfast. Anderson foresees the consumer side of the economy — 70 percent of the U.S. GDP — to be “limping along for a long time,” although the commercial side of the economy should pick up the slack. Consumer spending traditionally has grown by about 4 percent annually but now barely reaches 2 percent growth. “The final demand we’re looking for to grow our economy ain’t here anymore. It’s outside our borders. That’s where the growth is,” he said, adding that no one should expect a U.S. recovery that features consumers getting jobs and spending the money that prompts further job creation. “That’s an old model that I think is over,” he said. One reason is job growth, which has been flat since 2000-01. The country needs about 26 million new jobs to meet its needs. “That ain’t happening,” he said. Instead, offshore, primarily emerging markets should be a target for companies looking to grow, he said. “To me, this is going to be a big transition and it’s going to be very powerful for those in the business community that see it and try and go after it, to try to figure out ways to participate in it,” Anderson said. Utah companies in some sectors can exploit that shift, he noted. “Utah’s better than most markets, you know that,” he said. “It’s still not that different from the U.S. economy in general versus what you could do trying to capitalize on growth outside the country. And here I’m thinking manufacturing, exports, to some extent services, definitely agriculture and definitely energy.” Another factor hampering consumer spending lies in the housing sector. Homebuying is growing but not yet back to traditional levels, and there is $1 trillion in underwater mortgages lingering in the economy, he said. “The consumer is sitting on a trillion dollars of shouldn’t-have-done-it home devaluation,” he said. With that and other factors, such as homeowners doing more saving, “I can’t fathom that the consumer acts normally again, the way you and I have known it, until a couple of trillion dollars is absorbed and if we were to do that over five years at zero growth in consumption. … The consumer can’t stay at that consumption level,” Anderson said. Among other predictions, Anderson said he expects emerging markets to continue “taking their cash hordes” and investing them to build their own economies — infrastructure and energy projects, for example — foreign demand in U.S. Treasuries causing higher interest rates; inflation rising to the 2.5 percent to 3 percent level; and a return to 1970s-style banking and away from nonbanks, with credit focusing on the industrial sector.

By John M. Rogers The Enterprise Forbes magazine named it one of its 10 hot new chains and Nation’s Restaurant News named it the winner of its 2012 Hot Concept award. John Gilleland believed it after a dining experience in Dallas. On April 26 he will open Pie Five Pizza in Holladay. The store will be the first of eight for which Gilleland has purchased franchises. The Utah pizza restaurant will be the first franchised operation for the chain, owned by Pizza Inn Holdings Inc. of The Colony, Texas. Pizza Inn operates 13 restaurants, including nine corporate-owned Pie Five sites, and franchises more than 300 other stores under the Pizza Inn brand in the U.S. and internationally. Pizza Inn Holdings has also granted multiple-location Pie Five franchises in North Carolina and Florida. Gilleland, of Durango, Colo., stopped at one of the corporate Pie Five locations on a business trip to Texas and immediately recognized its potential. “When I got home, I couldn’t get the Pie Five experience out of my mind. It was innovative and unlike any other pizza chain. The more research our team did, the more impressed we were with the concept and its accolades within the restaurant industry,” Gilleland said. “We are entrepreneurs at heart. When we learned Pie Five was getting ready to franchise across the country, we knew we wanted to get in on the ground floor and introduce Pie Five in Salt Lake City.” In addition to the Holladay, Gilleland expects to open four restaurants in 2013, with the second under way in the Quarry Bend development in Sandy. Other stores are in the planning stages in West Valley City and South Jordan. Rodney Jenson will manage the Holladay store as well as be involved in the development and opening of the other franchise locations. Jenson has multiple years of restaurant management and opening experience, most recently with Arby’s. Pie Five stores operate under a fast-casual concept and offer individual-sized pizzas made to order and cooked in under five minutes. Patrons direct the construction of their pies in cafeteria-like serving lines and choose from a menu of three crust options, six sauces, four cheeses and about two dozen toppings. All pizzas sell for the same price. “John and his partners are the perfect team to open our first franchised location,” said Randy Gier, CEO of Pie Five speaking of Gilleland. “They bring tremendous restaurant and operational experience, a solid business background, and share our vision for the future of the concept. We are proud to welcome them to the Pie Five family.”