Huntsman: Utah driven by 'lot of natural zeal'

By Brice Wallace

Utah “is at the position of launch,” according to a former governor looking to recapture that position this year.

Speaking at VentureCapital.Org’s 2020 Investors Choice Capital Conference, Jon Huntsman Jr. said “we can super-charge this state in the next decade to be a model of excellence,” not only economically but to tackle broader societal issues.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}

The gubernatorial candidate, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia and China, said Utah is unique in part because it is in the “great American frontier.”

“When you see this part of the United States, specifically Utah, from 10,000 miles away, whether it’s in China or Moscow, you can’t help but recognize that we are new, we are innovative, we are solutions-driven, we are part of the new world. We’re not part of the old, decaying, dying part of the United States, which, for a whole lot of reasons, is running out of fuel and energy.”

In contrast, Utah has “a lot of natural zeal,” he said.

“The magic of this place is the energy that we bring about through our diverse population, because the one thing that I think attracts people here and keeps people here, is the word ‘opportunity.’ Because things are possible. You can dream big, you can think big, and you can make it happen, and that is impossible in 90 percent of the world and even a whole lot of the country.”

Utah, from the time of the pioneers arriving, “learned to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, and I think that’s an ethic that is still very much present in today’s Utah.”

While many Utah companies are constrained by an inability find enough workers, Huntsman said it is “a good challenge to have.” One way to address the shortage is to bring in talent from outside the state, “and we’re going to keep receiving it for as far as the eye can see in the next decade,” he said.

The reason is that many major areas nearby are pricing themselves out of the market, and California state government has not managed its competitiveness well, resulting in people leaving, passing through Nevada and Arizona on the way to Utah.

“So, I think we will be the recipient of a lot of great people and great talent over the years, and we should cheer them on, and we should welcome them,” Huntsman said.

However, he warned, Utah should work to avoid the fate of Maricopa County, Arizona, and Clark County, Nevada, which grew too fast and damaged their quality of life.

“And when you lose control of growth, transportation, air quality, water resources, it’s ‘Katy bar the door.’ You lose talent — they look for the next big thing — you lose kids, you lose brainpower and ultimately you lose investment. You need both to make any economy successful: You need brainpower and you need investment.

“We’re still in the driver’s seat, but I think our biggest existential challenge right now is how we manage growth from here so that we don’t lose quality of life and we don’t lose our economic mojo, which could serve us well to the end of the 21st century.”

Utah has advanced from “Crossroads of the West” to “Crossroads of the World,” and, as a result, needs to improve education, job training and its environment for attracting people and capital. That includes addressing air quality issues, Huntsman said.

“What we can’t let happen is for our livability to be affected by air quality that really becomes so bad that people don’t want to come in and those here want to move out, and it becomes a health issue as much as a quality-of-life issue,” he said.

In the interview format, Huntsman was asked about how to expand the benefits of Silicon Slopes beyond Lehi. He said the state needs to raise unicorn companies, not “unicorpses.” Investors will be looking for real return on investment “as opposed to the foo foo dust evaluations that we hear in tech companies,” and resilient companies will be able to withstand economic downturns that typically hit the tech industry first.

Huntsman said he would love to see a “spillover” of tech company success into Draper, Cedar City, and Carbon and Emery counties. The area between Cedar City and St. George “is going to be one corridor of opportunity” because of the large numbers of people coming there from California, Nevada and Arizona, he said.

Another question was about the Utah Science Technology and Research initiative, or USTAR, which was a long-term project to boost economic development but is going away.

“I would, of course, revive something of that nature,” Huntsman said.

“The whole trick there was to steal intellectual leadership from major research universities, bring them here, incubate their ideas,” he said. That leadership also brought underlings who became the next generation of tech talent. Their research ultimately spun off technology and companies into the marketplace. Such companies need to “go from the bench to the marketplace with lightning speed, and we need to be in that business,” he said.

The conference included investment pitches by 19 companies and panel discussions focused on trends in angel, family office and venture investment on a national level, and a discussion on equity crowdfunding.

VentureCapital.Org’s new president and CEO, Trent Christensen, highlighted the organization’s success. Since 2009, VentureCapital.Org alumni have raised $1.6 billion of investment capital, realized $10.8 billion in exit transactions, and created more than 30,000 direct or indirect jobs in Utah.{/mprestriction}