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State leaders visit Carbon, Emery counties as part of effort to create 25,000 jobs in rural Utah

Posted at 8:46 PM, Aug 09, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-09 22:46:50-04

PRICE, Utah -- Last month, Gov. Gary Herbert announced a goal of creating 25,000 jobs in 25 rural counties in Utah.

As part of that effort, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox and other members of the Governor’s staff are touring rural Utah. Wednesday they made stops in Emery and Carbon Counties, where they met with local business and government leaders.

“We wanna find out from their local officials, elected officials, business leaders, what are their plans? What is their strategy? And how can we as business leaders support them?” said Derek Miller, Pesident and C.E.O. of World Trade Center Utah.

He is taking part in the tour to help connect small business owners with bigger resources they’d expect to have access to along the Wasatch Front.

At a meeting held in Price, Tammy Ursenbach, Economic Director for Carbon County, delivered some good news. Several companies are looking to start doing business, or expand existing businesses, in the area. Among them, a consortium who plan to take ownership of the old J.C. Penney Building on Main Street in Price.

At least one business plans to bring manufacturing jobs to the site, hiring between 25 to 50 people as soon as November.

On the outskirts of Price, Matt Blaser says he’ll be looking to expand in the near future as well.

“I found an opportunity here in Carbon County with a lot of great fabricators that were not working, so we've put them to work on projects going to the Wasatch Front,” said Blaser, the founder of Intermark Steel.

Intermark started in 2016 with four employees and only one work order for a $50,000 project. Today, Intermark has 13 employees and $5,000,000 in orders from construction projects around the western United States, including the Salt Lake International Airport. Blaser credits the work ethic of his employees for Intermark’s success.