Talley Goodson, chief executive officer of 3form, a Salt Lake-based designer and manufacturer of architectural products, said Peterson Partners took a significant equity position in his company in 2002. The company has since grown its revenues roughly 15 times more than before Peterson Partners became involved.

One of Peterson Partners' smallest investments has been in West Valley-based Winder Farms, which specializes in home delivery of milk and other grocery products.

Even though the dairy home delivery industry has been flagging since the 1950s, Peterson Partners saw potential. Eric Jacobsen, CEO of Winder Farms, said Peterson offered $1.5 million despite no clear exit strategy. Today, Winder Farms delivers food products to more than 20,000 Utah households and has plans this fall to enter the Las Vegas market.

"I think Peterson's style is to invest in people they like and trust and believe in, and exit strategies are secondary to finding good partners," Jacobsen said. "We have both gone into this thing and said, 'Hey, we don't know what the exit is, but we'll figure out something that will make sense for both people.' "

Such connections keep Peterson Partners hitting investment home runs.

Several years after the firm was founded, Clements recalls being approached by a couple large institutions who wanted to be partners.

"We had a very strong track record of investment returns, and they wanted to invest some large amounts of money with us," Clements said. "But they wanted us to commit to grow much larger and to make much larger investments in any one company. And our response to that was, 'No, thanks.' Sure, we could do the other and we could perhaps make more money, but we really genuinely have fun working with these small businesses, and that's what we want to do."

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E-mail: danderton@desnews.com