Industry Briefs - 4-29-24

Industry Briefs are provided as a free service to our readers. Company news information may be sent to brice.w@thecityjournals.com. The submission deadline is one week before publication.

BANKING

• Mountain America Credit Union has hired Irwin Laroza to the SBA lending team. Laroza has experience in banking and real estate. His career began in 2003 as an analyst in commercial real estate, specializing in SBA 504 loans. He also served as a relationship manager at banks and as an SBA business development officer excelled in originating SBA 7(a) loans. Before joining Mountain America, Laroza spearheaded a capital markets program for a commercial real estate firm. He earned a bachelor of science degree in finance from the University of Utah.

CONTESTS

• Nominations are being accepted through June 28 for 2024 Utah Outdoor Recreation Summit Awards. The summit takes place Aug. 27-28 at Bryce Canyon. Award categories are Economic Impact Award, Social Investment Award, Stewardship Award and Every Kid Outdoors Award. Nominations can be made by emailing outdoorteam@utah.gov with the name of the organization, the category, and why they are being nominated. The Utah Division of Outdoor Recreation team will narrow the list to three to five finalists per category. Finalists will be advanced to stakeholder advisory committees, which will vote to select the winner in each category.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

• Utah continues to dominate a list of “Best Small Cities to Start a Business,” compiled by personal finance website WalletHub. It compared more than 1,300 cities with fewer than 100,000 residents across 18 key metrics. This year’s rankings are led by Cedar City, which was No. 3 last year. Also in the top 20 are No. 2 St. George (No. 2 last year), No. 4 Washington (No. 1 last year), No. 8 Lehi (No. 9 last year), No. 12 Eagle Mountain (No. 11 last year), No. 14 Midvale (No. 15 last year), No. 15 American Fork (No. 20 last year) and No. 19 Springville. Also in the top 100 are Spanish Fork, Orem, Draper, Logan, Murray, Taylorsville, Saratoga Springs, Sandy and Herriman. Details are at https://wallethub.com/edu/best-small-cities-to-start-a-business/20180.
• Utahns underestimate their credit scores by an average of 26 points, according to a study by CardRates.com. The average Utahn estimates their credit score to be 682, compared with the actual score of 708. Mississippi residents overestimate their credit score by 14 points (676 when the actual score is 662). North Dakota respondents rated their credit scores 49 points below the state’s average (715, compared with the actual score of 666). Details are at https://www.cardrates.com/news/americans-perception-of-credit-scores-study/.
• Three Utah locations are on a list of the “most coveted urban havens in the country,” compiled by EasyCoops.com. They are No. 16 The Avenues, Salt Lake City; No. 20 Sugar House, Salt Lake City; and No. 31 Historic 25th Street, Ogden. A survey sought to identify the urban enclaves most coveted by those dreaming of a life that blends city convenience with rural tranquility. The top-ranked location is Old Northeast in St. Petersburg, Florida. Details are at https://easycoops.com/survey-the-top-urban-havens-in-america-of-2024/.
• St. George is No. 87 on a list of “Best Metro Areas for House Painters,” compiled by Paint Gnome. Salt Lake City is No. 177. Paint Gnome compared nearly 300 of the biggest U.S. metros based on four categories, considering the number of painting employers, average hourly pay for residential painters, and access to paint stores among eight metrics. The top metro area is the New York/Newark/Jersey City area. Details are at http://paintgnome.com/blog/studies/best-metro-areas-house-painters/.
• Salt Lake City is ranked No. 37 on a list of “Best Cities for Book Lovers,” compiled by Lawn Love. It compared the 500 biggest U.S. cities based on four categories, including looking at access to bookstores, libraries and book clubs, among 16 total metrics. Utah cities dominated the bottom of the rankings because they lack access to bookshops and bookmobiles and typically have libraries with fines for overdue items. They include No. 478 Orem, No. 485 Sandy, No. 490 West Jordan, No. 495 West Valley City, No. 497 Lehi, No. 498 Layton and No. 499 South Jordan. The top-ranked city overall is New York City. The bottom-ranked city is Rancho Cordova, California. Details are at https://lawnlove.com/blog/best-cities-for-book-lovers/.
• Salt Lake City is ranked No. 28 on a list of “Best Metro Areas to Start a Pest Control Business,” compiled by Pest Gnome. It compared over 230 of the biggest U.S. metro areas based on five, considering the number of common pest species, average hourly pay, and access to pest control training programs, among 10 metrics. The top-ranked city is Jacksonville, Florida. The bottom-ranked city is Madera, California. Details are at https://pestgnome.com/blog/studies/best-metro-areas-pest-control-business/.

EXPANSIONS

• Sky Zone, a Provo-based indoor active entertainment company, will open new locations in Oregon, Texas and three more in California by year-end. The locations are in Happy Valley, Oregon; Frisco, Texas; and San Jose, Santa Clarita and Huntington Beach, California.

FOODS

• Life Cider, a Draper-based non-alcoholic beverage company launched in June 2023, has announced that several NFL players, trainers and dietitians have joined the company’s group of investors and ambassadors. They include TJ Bass, Brock Hoffman, Dak Prescott, Tyler Smith, Terence Steele and Matt Waletzko, all of the Dallas Cowboys; Tyler Biadasz of the Washington Commanders; Aviante Collins of the Chicago Bears; Ryan Van Demark of the Buffalo Bills; Charles Johnson, retired from the Carolina Panthers; and Trey Smith of the Kansas City Chiefs. All are offensive linemen except for Johnson, a defensive end, and Prescott, a quarterback.

GOVERNMENT

• The Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity board, at its April meeting, approved a one-time, $400,000 Industrial Assistance Account grant for the Southeastern Utah Association of Local Governments. The funds will be used to establish an aviation maintenance training hangar at the Carbon County Airport.

HEALTHCARE

• Recursion, a Salt Lake City-based clinical-stage techbio company, has appointed Najat Khan as chief research and development officer and chief commercial officer. She also will join Recursion’s board of directors. Khan’s experience in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry spans biological, chemical and medical science, computational and data science, and general business leadership. She served as chief data science officer and global head of strategy and portfolio organization for innovative medicine R&D at Johnson & Johnson. She also co-chaired Johnson & Johnson’s Data Science Council. Khan serves as a board member for Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and is a steering committee member of the White House’s Moonshot CancerX program to enhance outcomes for cancer patients. She also is the founder and co-chair of the Data Science in Industry Roundtable (DISRUPT), a cross-industry forum dedicated to driving impact through data science.
• Co-Diagnostics recently marked the grand opening of the company’s new manufacturing facility at 3222 S. Washington St., South Salt Lake. The facility will be home to an additional 400 jobs and bring quality molecular testing to homes and point-of-care settings.

HOSPITALITY

• The Athens Group, an Arizona-based luxury hospitality development company, and partner Hatteras Sky, a commercial real estate firm, have selected Pivot to operate and manage Asher Adams, its 225-room Marriott Autograph Collection hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. Pivot is part of Davidson Hospitality Group. Asher Adams is expected to open this fall and involves the reuse of the historic Union Pacific Depot Train Station. The hotel will consist of the train station as well as a new, eight-story guestroom tower, a restaurant, a patisserie, two bars, a fitness center, and meeting and event spaces.

INDOOR ENTERTAINMENT

• The Picklr, a Kaysville-based indoor pickleball franchise, has promoted Kathryn Bullough to chief marketing officer, Chris Walker to chief development officer, and Madison Walker to vice president of people. Bullough previously was senior vice president of marketing. Chris Walker was vice president of real estate. Madison Walker previously was director of human resources.

INVESTMENTS

• The Larry H. Miller Co. has announced an investment in ATTYX, a Lehi-based home improvement company specializing in energy-efficient upgrades and clean energy solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed. ATTYX uses experts who identify federal and state home efficiency incentives designed to help homeowners lower costs and save energy, and bundle products and installation services.

LABOR

• Archeologists at SWCA Environmental Consultants in Salt Lake City voted to join Teamsters Local 222. The union local said the archeological field crew at that office are the first archeologists within the private-sector cultural resource management industry to win a union election. Local 222 serves more than 4,500 members working for 35 employers in Utah.

LAW

• Buchalter has added four attorneys at its Salt Lake City office: shareholders Brent Baker and Antonio “Tony” Mejia, along with Payton Bednarek and Tucker Levis. Baker joins the firm as a shareholder in the Litigation and White Collar practice groups. Baker most recently was with Parsons Behle & Latimer. Baker has over a decade of service at the SEC and held subsequent roles in private practice and as in-house counsel for a public company. Is a shareholder in the Corporate practice group. He specializes his practice in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, and business law. He most recently was with Kirton McConkie. Bednarek also joins the firm’s Corporate group and also was most recently with Kirton McConkie. Levis joins the Litigation practice group with a focus on defending insurers, healthcare professionals and healthcare systems. Buchalter’s Salt Lake City office opened in 2021 and now has more than 30 attorneys and 12 paralegals and support personnel.

MILESTONES

• The Picklr, a Kaysville-based indoor pickleball franchise, has announced 276 total units sold to 36 unique direct franchising groups, which amounts to approximately 2,760 indoor courts, at the end of the first quarter of the year. The franchising groups will be developing all of these units themselves over the next few years. Also, 38 new clubs will open across the United States in 23 states, with 52 additional leases in final negotiations for openings in 2024 and 2025.

OUTDOOR PRODUCTS

• Kent Outdoors, a Park City-based company that offers personal flotation devices, wakeboards, water skis, towable tubes, snowboards and more, has hired Rob Otto as chief financial officer. Otto has experience in the consumer packaged goods industry. He joins Kent after completing the sale of RW Designs, where he served as the company’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer. Before that, he held CFO and COO roles at multiple CPG companies, including Z Gallerie, Hudson Jeans, Seven For All Mankind and Affliction Holdings.

PARTNERSHIPS

• Black Deseret, St. George, and Caddiemaster, a Troon company based in Florida, have announced a partnership, with Caddiemaster facilitating the day-to-day operations of Black Desert’s program providing forecaddie services to guests. Financial terms were not disclosed. When making tee times at Black Desert Resort Golf Course, golfers will have a forecaddie assigned to their group, as the forecaddie fee is included in green fees. During the round, forecaddies will track ball flights off the tee, provide yardages, read putts, and help the group maintain pace of play. Black Desert opened for play in May 2023. Troon, based in Arizona, manages the golf operations at Black Desert Resort Golf Course.

PHILANTHROPY

• The Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation has partnered with Salt Lake City to fund and install lights on two baseball fields at Riverside Park, 730 N. 1400 W. The project began last fall. The original baseball fields at Riverside Park were built between 1956 and 1958.

REAL ESTATE

• Colliers/U.S., a commercial real estate brokerage, has named Jeanette Bennett as executive managing director and market leader for its brokerage operations in Utah. Bennett will directly oversee all brokerage operations, recruitment, retention and business development across Utah markets. Bennett’s experience includes served in various top executive positions within Utah’s entrepreneurial business community. Most recently, she founded and operated one of the top media conglomerates in the state. She has successfully founded and grown multiple companies throughout her career.

RECOGNITIONS

• Dr. Dan Fischer has been inducted into the Dental Innovators Hall of Fame by national dental publication Incisal Edge Magazine. Fischer is the founder and CEO-emeritus of Ultradent Products Inc., a South Jordan-based manufacturer of high-tech dental materials and equipment. He is one of two people in the nation inducted this year. Founded in 1978, Ultradent grew from a basement operation to a global powerhouse selling more than 550 products worldwide.
• The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute has announced the recipients of its “Informed Decision Makers of the Year” Awards, recognizing individuals and entities that work, often behind the scenes and with little fanfare, to help the community prosper. Theresa Foxley is chief of staff at rPlus Energies, a company focused on utility-scale renewable energy and energy storage development. She previously served as president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. Ross Van Vranken is the former executive director for the Huntsman Mental Health Institute with the University of Utah Health. Van Vranken has been a leader in behavioral health, dating back to the early 1980s. Bicycle Collective is a group of nonprofit bike shops refurbishing donated bicycles and putting them into the hands of those in need, focusing on children, newly resettled refugees, immigrants, individuals experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity, individuals recovering from substance abuse, and low-to-moderate income households. Bicycle Collective operates programs in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo and St. George. In 2023, Bicycle Collective gave 1,349 bicycles to those in need through their Bikes-for-Goodwill and Earn-A-Bike programs. Circles Salt Lake has a mission is to build community to end poverty through intentional friendships, personal transformation, and systemic change led by the people closest to the challenge. Circles is committed to helping community members with lesser means become financially independent and free of government services. The average duration in the program is three years before graduating. The Seager Memorial Clinic has a mission is to provide the underserved with free, easy-access, non-judgmental, charitable medical, dental, vision, and mental healthcare. Located in Ogden, the clinic has completed 84,300 patient visits since 1988.
• Smithfield Foods, Salt Lake City, is among more than 200 meat and poultry plants to receive 2023 Environmental Achievement Awards from the Meat Institute. Smithfield won first place in the category of energy conservation and received the award at the 2024 Environmental, Labor and Safety+ Conference in New Orleans. Thirteen additional establishments that went above and beyond were granted Environmental Achievement Awards for their progress with emissions reduction, energy conservation, packaging/food waste reduction, technological innovation, and water conservation.
• MasterControl, a Salt Lake City-based provider of quality management and manufacturing execution software for life sciences, has been recognized by the Imapac 2024 Asia-Pacific Biopharma Excellence Awards in the “Best Bioprocessing Supplier: Software” category. The award was presented at the annual Imapac “Meet the Industry” gala, attended by leaders and innovators from across the biotechnology sector.

RESTAURANTS

• Mo’ Bettahs, a Bountiful-based Hawaiian BBQ restaurant company, has named Clay Hansen as its chief financial officer. Hansen has experience in finance, IT, marketing and strategy, both in and outside of the food and beverage industry. He worked at Cafe Rio for 10 years and most recently served as vice president of marketing and advanced through business development, vice president of strategy and then chief information officer at Greenix Pest Control. Mo’ Bettahs has 52 locations in seven states.

RETAIL

• American Freight has opened a 25,000-square-foot warehouse showroom at 2159 Harris Blvd., Layton. The company offers furniture, mattresses and appliances through its direct-to-consumer, warehouse-style stores and e-commerce site. The company has more than 370 U.S. locations across 40 states.

SERVICES

• Stratus HR, a Sandy-based professional employer organization, has hired Clay Kelley as chief revenue officer. He has been a fractional CRO for Stratus HR for more than three years. Kelley has more than 39 years of industry experience, including through his Clay Kelley HR Outsourcing Sales University and his Training Camp.

TECHNOLOGY

• Qualtrics, a company based in Provo and Seattle that focuses on experience management software, has appointed Gurdeep Singh Pall as president of AI strategy. He will guide the company’s AI initiatives as Qualtrics develops powerful, generative, causal and predictive AI innovations. Pall, based in Seattle, has more than 30 years of experience at Microsoft, including most recently being responsible for creating new products and solutions with emergent AI technologies.