Gateway to High - Tech Heaven? - Industry Trend or Event

Industry Standard, The, August 14, 2000 by Robert S. Boynton

The next morning, I have breakfast with Simmons, a blond, fresh-faced man who radiates Salt Lake's trademark synthesis of wholesomeness and affluence. Born and raised here, he went on a two-year mission to Italy before attending Brigham Young University, which he paid for by processing American Express traveler's check refunds in Italian. His wife's mission was to Argentina, so their four children speak a smattering of Italian and Spanish. "Because so many people in Salt Lake have been all over the world, we have a sense of world culture even though we are land-locked," he says.

Like many of his classmates, Simmons, 37, found there were no suitable jobs in Salt Lake when he finished college, so he went to Los Angeles for a stint in corporate banking before picking up an MBA at Northwestern University. He joined Oracle's corporate finance department in the late '80s and eventually left for Iomega. Much as he thrived in the hard-working environment of Silicon Valley (Oracle went from $200 million to $2 billion in revenues while he was there), Simmons says he is glad to be home. Although everyone works hard, Campus Pipeline is a more relaxed, informal company, he says. They have a staff magician (with stock options), every employee receives a golf putter when hired, and company policy mandates a ski day whenever 6 inches of powder falls at nearby Snowbird.

When asked what Salt Lake could learn from Silicon Valley, Simmons smiles broadly and turns the question on its head. "Actually, I think the Valley should look to Utah as more of a model for how to balance work and family. The reason I missed your call last night was that I was at my son's baseball game, which is something that most Silicon Valley executives would probably miss. Look, the entrepreneurial spirit is about working hard and being aggressive, but it's not about neglecting your family," he says.

That word. "Family." Spend any time in Salt Lake and you'll hear a lot about family. With population growth at twice the national average, families are obviously central to Utah's future. And because of the church's extensive Family Research Center, Salt Lake is the world center for all manner of genealogical research and business.

A 45-minute drive from downtown Salt Lake, in a Provo office complex that was once used by bestselling Mormon financial guru Steven Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People), is MyFamily.com. The company started out 17 years ago as a successful genealogical publisher of books and magazines, before it discovered CDs and, eventually, the Internet. The chairman of MyFamily is Curt Allen, whose brother (the CEO) brought him in when the company decided to expand its Net presence. A Provo native who previously worked at several nearby high-tech companies, he is a consummate salesman and has an unnerving habit of seldom blinking or modulating the fevered cadences of his power-of-positive-thinking pitch. He talks about "family" the way a widget maker might talk about "product."