2003 Best of Business.

• Author: Fields, Melissa O'Brien
• Position: On The Cover

BUSINESS ARE MANY-FACETED CREATURES. We often measure their success in traditional ways: how they grow, what feeds them, what they produce and what impact they make. For this year's Best of Business, we highlight some companies based on these classic standards as well as a few less-traditional means of measuring what delineates the "best." Earmarked by eclectic tags from "Best Marketing to Generation Y" to the "Best Imitation of the Jetsons," we share a few of the lesser-known faces and facets of Utah business.

BEST IMITATION OF THE JETSONS

MIRROR IMAGE'S SKYWALKER VTOL

For your 2004 Christmas wish list, how about a personal flying machine--if you've the nerve to ask for the $200,000 gift. Ogden-based Mirror Image Aerospace is building the SkyWalker VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) device, which can take off from your backyard, fly up to 8,000 feet high and land wherever you please (pending the FAA's approval). A prototype will be launched this fall, and the futuristic craft is predicted to be available to consumers by 2004. The craft will be regulated under the FAA's Sports Pilot license (requiring 20 hours of flight time and prohibiting flying over 120 miles per hour.)

MOST EXOTIC BUSINESS LOCATION

SNOWBIRD ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES

Besides being located in a rugged canyon that receives more snowfall than almost anywhere else in the contiguous United States, the Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort's administrative offices take utilizing space to a new level. The long hallway housing the resort's sales, marketing and communications staff is suspended under the Snowbird Center's skier bridge, over which thousands of skiers and snowboarders, and the occasional very loud and vibrating snowcat, pass every year en route to the Tram.

BEST COMPANY VOICEMAIL

A N D

If you get the company voicemail system for the Salt Lake City-based advertising and branding agency A N D (named for co-founders Anderson 'n Douglas), the recorded voice provides instructions for using the system in English, and then offers to give you the same directions in Pig Latin--and delivers. E-way ink-thay at-thay's abulous-fay.

A N D was also a top choice for Best Web Site: Quippy text, unusual graphics, a monkey: The company's site has all this and more, including insight into a staff member's former job as a Solid Gold dancer. A N D's entertaining web site is a testament to the company's creative bent and frequent industry success--last year A N D submitted six entries to the Addys and took home seven awards.

MOST EARTH-FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENT

UINTA BREWERY

Green is as green does, and if Uinta Brewing Company's success is any reflection of how much they plan to give back to the environment, then Utah can look forward to enjoying both better land and air, as well as beer, for years to come. Uinta Brewing owner and conservationist Will Hamill, at the helm of Utah's number one seller of craft beer, puts his money where his mouth is by operating his brewery (1722 S. Fremont Drive) with 100 percent wind-generated power, covering the building's roof with reflective material for natural cooling in the summer and using low-energy lighting in the building. Hamill also donates all of the brewery's spent grain to local farmers, thereby reducing what goes in the landfill, and is a loyal sponsor of several local environmental organizations...