Utahns to share their secrets of success

Hundreds expected to gather for rural business conference

ST. GEORGE — "Boo" and "Bee" found fame and fortune in cyberspace, but their hearts belong to Hurricane.

By Nancy Perkins
Deseret News staff writer

Popularly known as the booby bird mascots of Chums Inc., these two busy birds sell the company’s famous eye wear retainers, lanyards and other accessories all over the world from downtown Hurricane, a city of about 8,500 residents.

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, took note of Chum’s ability to succeed while keeping its headquarters in a small Washington County town.

"Chums made it into Inc. Magazine’s list of the top 500 fastest-growing companies," Bennett said. "It just goes to prove you can have the lifestyle you want to have, like living in Hurricane, and still have a worldwide market."

That’s the kind of business success story Bennett hopes will be shared at the second annual Rural Utah Business Technology Conference May 28 and 29 at the Dixie Center in St. George.

Bennett, along with the Utah Rural Development Council, expects the conference to draw hundreds of business owners and entrepreneurs together to explore new technologies and discuss ways to take advantage of them, he said.

"While St. George is becoming very metropolitan, people around St. George still consider themselves as rural," Bennett said. "But rural now can mean more than agriculture, livestock and grazing. It means the image of distance."

That sense of distance, he said, disappears when companies take advantage of the Internet.

"If you have the kind of business skills you need, even though you’re away from a physical market, you can do business anywhere," Bennett said.

This year’s conference boasts another homegrown Utah success story in keynote speaker Kevin Rollins, president and chief operating officer of Dell Computer Corp. Rollins, a graduate of Brigham Young University, is responsible for the day-to-day global operations of a company with $33.7 billion in revenues.

Another Utah entrepreneur, Larry H. Miller, will speak during the breakfast hour.

Breakout sessions will focus on specific areas of interest to small-business owners, including Internet commerce, e-mail marketing, search engine optimization, data security, agribusiness technologies, local business success stories and the latest high-tech tools and toys.

"There is an optimism and a sense of growth in this area which is wonderful," Bennett said. "I also sense some apprehension with that growth."

Some of that apprehension comes from basic issues such as whether there will be enough water for everyone during the state’s fifth year of drought. The recent dedication of Sand Hollow Reservoir, Utah’s 41st state park, is of some help because its water also is stored in underground aquifers for later use.

"Water is the number one issue in my view this year. I think we’ll have adequate capacity, providing we have a close to normal water year," said Jim Eardley, a Washington County commissioner. "The last thing we would want is for the golf courses to dry up. Your lawn and my lawn should dry up first."

In spite of the drought, sales tax revenues were up by more than 10 percent over the same period last year, and tourism jumped by 12 percent in what has been billed as the fastest growing county in the state, Eardley said.

"We have a vibrant economy in Washington County. We get 500 new residents a month. That’s the same as adding a city the size of Santa Clara each year. I guess it depends on your point of view whether that growth impacts the quality of life. All in all, I’d rather have our problem than those counties going in reverse," he said.

More information about the conference can be found by calling Quinn Warnick, Bennett’s southern Utah area director, at 1-435-628-5514.

E-mail: [email protected]

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