UTAH

"Chris is a true walk-on. In a month of March Madness, here is a guy who came from 65th seed and won."
Culp’s road to victory began Feb. 8, when executives from Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.’s administration and the private sector announced that a funding competition for entrepreneurs would be part of the summit.

Keynotes. Breakouts. Panels. And $100,000 for some entrepreneurs.

All ads will display the "Utah: Life Elevated" brand.

Combined with new funding for higher education, the Legislature would add nearly half a billion dollars to education coffers, they said.

State officials are trying to make sure that the high-paying jobs created by companies receiving economic development incentives are, indeed, high-paying.

The state has awarded $67 million in tax rebates over the past 1 1/2 years to entice 28 companies to relocate to Utah, creating 8,000 new jobs, officials in the Governor’s Office of Economic Development reported Friday.

The summit is expected to draw as many as 1,500 business people from across the state. The agenda of the daylong meeting includes sessions on business innovation, law, entrepreneurship, economic development, transportation, energy, real estate and other topics.

"We’re developing ‘industry clusters’ where we can compete with anyone in the world, and the outdoor industry is one of those areas," said Jason Perry, director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED).

Utah has received a second financial boost for a program designed to pump new talent into the state’s biotechnology and biomanufacturing industries.

"The question is not can we and have we done a good job of recruiting businesses to Utah — because we certainly have — but have we done too much? Is the engine heating up too fast?"