Joel M. Racker: energizing Utah Valley's tourism sector.

• Author: Ritter, Patrick
• Position: UTAH VALLEY

As the current president and CEO of the Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, Joel M. Racker has his hands full wooing and wowing visitors to Utah Valley. "We may not be the largest venue in Utah," he says. "That doesn't mean we can't attract quality groups with venues as sophisticated as our northern neighbors."

It's that kind of enthusiasm that serves Racker--and Utah Valley--well. And his enthusiasm is catching. Recently elected president of the Western Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus (WACVB), he has achieved a conspicuous honor for himself and Utah.

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With cities like San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Phoenix on its 200-member roster, the WACVB is populated with bureau CEOs administrating multi-million dollar budgets aimed at bringing in visitors and conventions that can boost a city or state's revenues by tens of millions of dollars.

"We had a $1.3 million budget last year," Racker says, "but that doesn't mean we can't handle big-budget projects."

Racker is a bottom-line guy. Born in Ogden and raised in Roy, he learned the importance of keeping an eye on costs as the ninth child out of 10 in a family whose income came from two family-run hardware stores. "Back...