Industry outlook.

What are some of the emerging issues you would like Utah's business leaders to be aware of?

BURKHOLDER: The emerging issues for us have to do with women's wellbeing. These issues are connected to business because the strength ofwomen's wellbeing affects the strengths of business. It affects their consumer power. It affects their education and their earning power. It affects their health. The degree to which Utah's women are flourishing is going to affect the economic vitality of our state and the degree to which we flourish as a whole.

How would you characterize the status of women in Utah?

BURKHOLDER: There are areas in which we have been improving. But there are areas where we can still do better. For example, if you look at education, the graduation rate for women from public, four-year institutions is almost 10 percentage points lower than women nationwide. That's a problem. There are almost 25 percent of women who have gone to college but not graduated from college.

The gender pay gap is also an issue that businesses need to pay attention to in terms of being able to attract women to the workforce. Although we've improved slightly over the years, the wage gap is about 69 percent on the dollar. How does that affect the lives of children when women are not achieving equity in pay or equity in education? CROMPTON: If we have large numbers of women who are not completing their education, it's a pattern that's going to be repeated. Earnings potential, life success opportunities are so dependant on education today.

If you look at the face of poverty in our state, and in our nation for that matter, single mothers are the majority. And that's not a criticism of single moms, it's just a fact. When you look at where the women who are living in poverty and raising families work, it's in the retail sector, it's in the service industry, typically places that have low wages and very few benefits. For a lot of moms it's very complicated to work and raise a child. You have childcare issues. And if your work schedule is uncertain, planning for childcare can be very, very difficult.

Utah's a pretty great place for kids to grow up for the most part. We rank pretty high on most indicators. But over the last few years, we've started to see those rankings drop a little bit. It's not so much that we're doing things differently, it's the fact that we're not doing things differently. Other states are moving ahead with more funding for education in preschool, earned income tax credit, and other kinds of work support. We're kind of holding still and other people are moving up at this point.

Jack, let's pick up on what you're seeing in rural parts of the state. Does this conversation resonate with you and Maria, our two rural people?

SYKES: When you say things like "childcare," that doesn't even exist in Green River. We're dealing with some major issues there.

One of the things we're most concerned about is the issue of "brain drain" in our rural communities. The kids with ambition come up, they go to the University of Utah, they go to BYU, and then they don't necessarily come back to Green River. They're not coming back and being a rural entrepreneur.

There's also the aging population of Green River. We've started gearing our programs and projects toward the elderly in terms of home repair and letting people age in place because the closest nursing home is over 60 miles away. If someone has to leave Green River, and they've lived there their whole life, that's a terrible situation.

We've heard about the changing demographics in the state and we've heard about the economic pressures that women and lower income people are facing. What innovations have you put in place to respond to this market need for increased economic security for families and individuals?

WUNDERLI: We all know there's a problem. There's a wage gap here. There's a lot of despair among people who don't feel like they can get out of intergenerational poverty. Rather than fight some of the larger systems, we're coming up with some new programs that will meet people where they are and build their behavioral confidence and their ability to get out of poverty. We've been working with the Department of Workforce Services and people coming off TANF.

We're starting a new program based on a cultural practice that's been used globally for centuries, most commonly in the Hispanic community. It's basically groups of people who come together monthly and save. We're going to start that model with low-income people, even people who are still on benefits. Some of you know that we have individual development accounts, but it's for working people. This may be for people who are just trying to manage their public benefits because basically, you have to be internally driven to move ahead.

We'll move people along a financial spectrum with the services that we have where they eventually get into IDAs, credit worthiness. Because, for example, with the Department of Workforce Service, for people looking for jobs, they check your credit score. If you want to get car insurance, they check your credit score. There's a lot of things that work against low-income people who are trying to do concrete work and starting at a basic level. Meeting people where they are and then giving them the encouragement to move ahead.

That's what we're looking at--some concrete saving circles where we go in and we give advice. And then people--almost as a Weight Watcher's model or a 12-step model--encourage each other to save and then we can move from there. Sometimes people say, "Oh, I don't have enough and I need to be here," but they can't see the steps in between.

Adam, Odyssey House has created some social enterprises to respond to the economic needs of its clients. What would you like to share about that with Utah's business leaders?

COHEN: There's a lot of talk about "medical homes." What we've tried to do is take that to the next level. We're addressing their employment needs, their behavioral health needs, their medical needs, and then housing. We're really preparing our clients to be able to move forward in the community and get out of the cycle of substance abuse and poverty so that they have the skills in order to be tax payers, to be employed, and support their family in the future. Integrating all the facets of life is really key to the client's success.

We have bifurcated vocational training programs. We have shelter workshops that are like an upholstery shop and a construction company where we can help teach clients skills that are marketable in the community, while being very hands on with them behaviorally so we can intervene if they're having a tough day. Then we actually move them into an apprenticeship-type program where we partner with the businesses in the community and they hire our...