Utah County.

PositionRegional Report - Discussion

Provide a brief assessment of how things are going in your particular industry.

LINEBAUGH: The resort travel industry has been hit hard, but we've really seemed to rebound this year.

GARFIELD: I agree, the industry has been hit pretty hard, but we are seeing a little bit of a rebound. You will see it mostly in rates--as people travel more, you'll see the rates starting to creep back up again.

SMITH: We represent and are the exclusive development agents for Kneaders Bakery and Cafe, and things are flourishing for us. We see a lot of very promising real estate opportunities, and we are tackling every single opportunity that we see. But people are opening up their pocketbooks a lot more now than they did at the same time last year.

M. BROWN: We opened our first Sweet Tooth Fairy Bake Shop here in Provo a year and half ago, and we have four stores now, with one set to open in a couple months. We've also seen the trends up.

CHRISTENSEN: We have just gone through some extensive research and have rebranded our organization as the Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau. We are really excited about that brand position and statement because we are the central location within the state.

CLAYTON: I'm the co-founder of Hogi Yogi and Teriyaki Stix and another food concept called Earth Fruits Yogurt, which we just launched on the corner of Bulldog and University. The last few months, with the different trends in the economy, we've put on a more innovative hat and had to reinvent ourselves.

WILLIAMS: The last two years have been a great market for our inventory software. Companies that were a little soft in management and processes have needed to manage their inventory more tightly and account for their resources, both human and capital. We've sold to almost 300 Utah companies in the last couple of years, which has doubled the amount we have sold in the last 10 years. We see really a lot of healthy things going on because of people having to stop and pay attention and reassess and value their resources.

NELSON: Veracity completed our merger late last year. We are seeing nice growth in the telecommunications business, driven by the technology advancements that are coming along. So we are exceeding our expectations.

WITTUSEN: A certain element of our business is a bit countercyclical. When there is a lot of employee and job turnover, our business tends to grow a little bit more quickly. So I guess the good news is that we are growing a little bit more slowly this year than we did last year, which is a sign of improvement.

GOODRICH: Our business [ProPay] is booming. When people are laid off from regular jobs, they often become entrepreneurs, starting businesses on the Internet, and they need to accept money safely. Also, data breaches are fueling our business. We step in and tokenize people's payment data and otherwise harden it with advanced encryption.

HIGGINSON: We just celebrated our 60th month in business, while opening in 60 countries. The first 18 months of this economic downturn was very good for us. But as it continues on, we've been seeing a trend of people living in fear, and so ordering monthly products is becoming a little bit more scarce for them. We feel like we've weathered through this fairly well so far.

SOTER: The last couple of years have been really quite good for us. My role as a consultant gives me a chance to see how various businesses are getting on. My own industry, the media, has a tendency to shovel off a lot of bad news; I don't dispute that there has been a lot of bad news the last couple of years, but I am so pleased that underneath that upper crust of bad news, there are so many good things going on.

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ANDERSON: Our business has done well in this tough environment. We are up about 20 percent over last year, year to date, which is really due to outstanding agents and hard work more than anything else. There are deals going on out there and we are getting a share of them.

WASHBURN: We [Thanksgiving...

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