In the coming year, Rattie said the chamber will continue to push for increased investment in transportation, both in improving highways and in public transportation projects like extending TRAX and commuter rail. The chamber supports the quarter-cent sales tax increase to fund transportation projects in Salt Lake and Utah counties.

The chamber will continue to support the Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) initiative and keep pushing for tax reform. It will achieve consensus in its Downtown Rising initiative, according to Beattie, and will weigh in on and develop programs to improve the state's work force, health care, immigration policies and education.

"We are creating jobs three times faster than the national average," Beattie said. "We will have more than a million and a half people in our state by 2030, the equivalent of adding a city the size of Layton each year for 24 years. It is our opportunity and our obligation to build an economy that can provide well for these residents, who will after all be our children and grandchildren."

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Contributing: Doug Smeath

E-mail: jnii@desnews.com