Financial incentives often capture the headlines, but sometimes less-tangible things persuade companies to put operations in Utah.

Such as the great outdoors and hospitable and helpful residents. Plus a willingness to have workers relocate to Utah.

Representatives of three companies that have moved some of their business to Utah said as much Thursday at the Governor's Utah Economic Summit '07.

"I have to say this state has a lot to offer from a cultural standpoint, obviously from an outdoors standpoint, which is my day-to-day life, and we're just very pleased to be here," Francois Goulet, president of Rossignol North America, said during a panel discussion titled "Why Utah?"

Rossignol, a winter sports equipment company, relocated 25 people from Vermont to Park City and has hired 80 other workers in Park City and Ogden. "On behalf of the 25 employees that relocated, not one of them has regrets or wants their money back," Goulet said.

Ditto for glass manufacturer Viracon, which is preparing to open a plant in St. George. It is fully staffed with 144, including 25 from two other facilities.

"We have had so many requests, especially from Minnesota, from our people who want to come to Utah to work," Viracon president Don Pyatt said. "And we were afraid that if we didn't close the door temporarily that we would have too many people move in but not enough people being hired from Utah, so we have temporarily had to shut that door, and we really aren't posting jobs in our Minnesota facility or our Georgia facility for St. George right now."

The company's managers so loved St. George — the company also was considering Tucson for the plant — that Pyatt worried other site-selection criteria would be forgotten. "I can tell you that St. George was so popular right from the start that the challenge I had was how was I going to keep this decision objective," he said.

Liberty Foods selected Utah over Arizona and Nevada in part because of hospitality and help offered by Utahns. It is building a plant in Tremonton, Box Elder County, that will start with 225 employees.

"Every time we'd come into town, whether it was Tremonton or Salt Lake or any other of the northern Utah cities, everybody was very helpful and willing to go out of their way to help us with our transition," said David Frett, manager of the Tremonton facility. He noted that Utahns' worth ethic, commitment and values matched those of the company.

Goulet also mentioned "friendly and welcoming" Utah residents, as well as world-class ski resorts close to an international airport, a large base of athletes with whom the company can interact, "incredible" facilities from the 2002 Olympics and the governor's strategy of attracting similar sports companies to the state.