Trailblazers: 12 enduring companies building Utah.

• Author: Kennedy, Linda T.

TRUE GRIT * COMPANIES KEEPING THEIR BRAND ALIVE AND PROMINENT IN UTAH'S BUSINESS TERRITORY. Few periods in history demonstrate the brawn, courage and spirit of forging new frontiers like the Old West and its legends. Utah's business, heritage is rich with those legends, situated from one end of the state to the other and our 2009 Utah Business Trailblazers personify some of the best of them. Tough economic times and threats to their survival have always been part of these 12 company's journey, many of them starting for the purpose of strengthening the community and solving its ills. SO COME SIT A SPELL, AND LET US TELL YOU ABOUT BACK IN THE DAY WHEN. ...

1891

CENTRAL BANK OF PROVO NABBED THE OUTLAWS. Nothing quite captures the spirit of the "wild west" better than a story about bandits holding up banks and townsmen coming to the rescue. And Central Bank President Matt Packard has a good one. As a matter of fact, it's about his own bank founded by his great-great-grandfather, Milan, almost 123 years ago, before Utah became the 45th state in the Union. It's no horse tale; he still has the original minutes of the meeting held June 1, 1898, a few days after the hold up.

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"Two men entered the bank and presented guns at the bookkeeper, Mr. Packard (relationship to Milan unknown), ordered him to hold up his hands. While one of the men kept Mr. Packard covered with his gun, the other came around behind the counter and took all the gold and currency in sight, and about $90 in silver. The full amount taken being $3,008. The men then backed out of the bank, jumped into a buggy standing near, and drove toward the mouth of Hobble Creek Canyon. The alarm being given, they were immediately pursued ... in a very short time, a large number of citizens were also in pursuit. Respectfully, H.L. Cummings, Cashier."

Matt Packard says the community pulling together has been the constant story of the bank since its beginnings as The Springville Banking Company, and through decades of challenges and hardship. During the Great Depression, the bank was one of few U.S. banks that remained healthy and didn't require Government Debenture Capital. And with today's financial crisis, Central Bank has not applied for TARP funds from the government.

"We have coped because we learned from our predecessors loan-to-value ratios that came from the experience of the Depression and as such, we took on less risk than some institutions when real estate values decreased so dramatically," says Matt Packard about the current financial crisis. "We also saved our earnings and carry a high capital ratio to help with the inevitable rainy day that always comes with up and down business cycles."

Those savings have resulted in more than $600 million in assets that includes more than $400 million in loans in Utah and more than $450 million in local deposits. "We are taking our local community neighbor's money in as deposits and lending it out to other community members--a responsibility that we take very seriously."

And what happened to those bandits? The good guys won, of course.

1919

WOODBURY CORPORATION BUILT THE FRAMEWORK FOR UTAH'S REAL ESTATE FUTURE. Rick Woodbury says his 90-year-old family commercial real estate business has always been about solving problems. It started, after all, when his grandfather, F. Orin Woodbury, was looking for a solution to a problem.

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"When he got married, he actually wanted to be in the furniture business, but he didn't have any money," says Woodbury. "So, he started selling real estate and at night he would buy homes and fix them up, so my grandmother said she lived in eight or nine houses her first 10 years of marriage." By the time Orin Woodbury had enough money to be in the furniture business, he was not interested in it anymore.

Instead, he spearheaded the establishment of multiple listing services in Utah. When his brother and grandson, Rick Wood's father, later joined the business, the company moved toward real estate development and property management.

"Today, we call ourselves kind of a multi-dimensional commercial real estate development company. We have about eight million square feet of retail space and about 55 shopping centers, approximately a million and a half square feet of office space and nine hotels," explains Rick Woodbury, adding that the company's new Falcon Hill project, near Hill Air Force base, is one of the most significant projects the company has been involved with. But solving problems relating to the ownership of commercial real estate properties is still what the company does best, says Rick Woodbury. Whether it's a piece of vacant land or a building that's being underutilized, he says staying open to new ideas is the company's tool for finding successful solutions.

"Nothing beats hard work though, and often you have problems and really the only way to solve it is to just get down and get your hands dirty and work and solve the problem."

1951

WADMAN CORPORATION COMPLETED ITS FIRST PROJECT WITH NO PAY. Many of Wadman Corporation's employee's careers follow in the heritage of how...