Huntsman has grand plans for June economic summit

While his administration is still getting its feet on the ground now, Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. sees a summertime summit as a major launching point for economic development in Utah.

Speaking Thursday at the annual Coalition for Utah's Future Corporate Friends Breakfast, the governor said he wants to hear from everyone with ideas on economic development, and he has invited the leaders of the state's 100 fastest-growing companies to the June 22 summit.

"I want to make sure that I look every single one of those CEOs in the eye and I tell them that I never want to read in the paper about them skipping town," said Huntsman, a former chairman of Envision Utah. "I never want to hear about a company that was born and raised here in this state, that really wants to stay here, selling out to Denver or selling out to Clark County (Nevada).

"I've heard too many of those stories over the years, and it's largely because they can't get access to capital, they don't have the advisory services, they don't have access to the talent that a small business needs to move into the next generation."

Among his ideas for helping is a "talent bay" in which business schools would identify graduates moving into their professional lives and who have the ability to be in management.

"We can't do everything," Huntsman said of assisting companies, adding that the state will try "realistically to ensure that they will be here, they will be prosperous, they will continue to employ our people, continue to pay taxes which provides for the base that we need to pay the bills going forward."

Huntsman's strategy hinges on the idea that taxes generated from economic growth will pay for education, transportation and other needs facing the state. Economic development is "the core of everything else we do," he said. "If we do it right, we're going to be situated such that we can begin to pay the bills for a rapidly growing population."

As he did during his gubernatorial campaign, Huntsman stressed the need for reforming corporate, individual and sales taxes, as well as regulatory reform.

"I don't know where challenges lie," he said regarding the latter. "All I know is when I get up, I talk to the smallest of businesses around the state. . . . When I hear gripes about the difficulty in getting registered as a corporation and barriers that exist along the pathway toward growth, I say that we can't solve everyone's problems, but I think we can undertake a very meaningful exercise that will be good for the state, called regulatory reform."

He wants Utah's small businesses to identify the top five growth barriers at the June 22 summit.