Pete Codella: Building a Culture of Shared Prosperity in Utah Pt 1

As the Managing Director of Business Services in the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity, Pete Codella brings a wealth of experience in steering Utah through the pandemic and supporting its burgeoning business community.

We wrap up our talk by looking at the heart of Utah's success: its people. The "Utah Way" of warmth and industriousness isn't just a charm; it's a force that embraces diversity and fosters economic inclusion. Pete's enthusiasm for the shared success of women and Latina business owners resonates with the notion that when one rises, we all do. It's more than economics; it's about creating a community where everyone thrives.

 startup.utah.gov

www.wliut.com
@utwomenleaders

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:05

Welcome to Elevate a Women's Leadership Institute podcast, where we showcase stories, celebrate successes and shift culture. Hello and welcome to Elevate a Women's Leadership Institute podcast. I am happy and pleased to introduce you to my guest, pete Codella. He is with GoEO. I'm going to read straight from it because he has so many lovely things. He's a managing director of business services in the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity. He oversees a team of 25 state workers who administer federal and state programs supporting Utah entrepreneurs, and he serves on SOAS the Swaziland Business Center.

Speaker 1 0:48

Board. Thank you. So about a year and a half ago, about a year ago, pete and I met, and Pete is an amazing example of a leader who is also very collaborative, who owns his space and what he's doing, but is also so collaborative and thoughtful that I just appreciate him coming on. Thank you. So is there anything else you want to add to your introduction or bio?

Speaker 2 1:13

I'll just share. Before I was managing director of business services, I was the communications director in the office and I spent some time in higher ed doing marketing communications and had a consulting firm, digital public relations, for a while. I have an MBA from the? U and a communications degree from BYU.

Speaker 1 1:32

That's right, wonderful. So along with the professional introduction, we also like to give our listeners something personal about you, you or your family.

Speaker 2 1:42

I'll share something about my son. Right after graduating from Bingham High School last year, he entered the Marines. Two weeks later we took him to boot camp and it's been quite the experience. He's just finishing up his infantry training at Camp Pendleton and he'll be shipped out pretty soon to join the rest of the Marines, so we're super proud of what he's accomplished.

Speaker 1 2:03

Yeah, super proud and was that like? In my mind that seems like maybe a scary conversation at first, right.

Speaker 2 2:10

I think that my wife was not super happy with his choice. He has been a gamer and not super active. His junior year of high school he did join the mountain biking team, which was really fun. We got to participate in that for a year. But we've watched him go through this real physical transformation and he's lost a lot of weight and he's a man now. So that's cool to see, and he's still 18. So we're proud of him and wish him success.

Speaker 1 2:39

Thank you for sharing that and thank you for allowing your son to help our country. I appreciate that Absolutely. So you said that you have a background in communication and as a communicator, I wanted to start there. Perfect Messaging really matters and words matter. I believe that communication, on a very fundamental level, creates reality in so many forms. So I wanted to start with you've received the communicator of the year in both Las Vegas and Salt Lake Valleys and you were responsible for a six million in public outreach and education programs during COVID. Utah's COVID response yes. So let's talk about messaging communication, how messaging impacts behavior, especially in light of COVID and what happened there.

Speaker 2 3:28

I'll give a shout out first to Natalie Gochner. I worked with her when I was at the University of Utah.

Speaker 2 3:32

I was the marketing communications director for the David Eccles School of Business for a few years and you know she had her experience with Governor Mike Leavitt and even went to DC with him. But she said that communication often drives policy. And so it's a lot like what you've just said and it's so true. My experience with the state COVID response communications team. We met every morning at 9 am. Sometimes those calls would end by 10, sometimes 11. So this was on top of my regular job. Yeah, it was a whirlwind for sure. There were a dozen or more of us involved, from different agencies, different departments, who were talking about how do we message this, what's the proper response, how do we protect Utah's economy? All those things were going into those, into those conversations.

Speaker 1 4:20

It's like being a startup All the things all at once. Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:23

And you know the airplanes flying and we're putting things together.

Speaker 1 4:26

That whole analogy. It's like being a startup.

Speaker 2 4:27

All the things all at once angle is not only preserving health but preserving an economy, and as you look back, you know it was the Wall Street Journal, I believe, that said Utah came out of the pandemic with the best economy. Like they handled it the best. So communication can be challenging when it becomes politically charged and we experienced some of that. You know we we got some masks and distributed masks. We put the in Utah logo on the mask and some people loved it and some people hated it.

Speaker 1 5:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2 5:14

In Utah was a campaign we used to promote Utah's economy. You know, shop, dine, eat, play, stay in Utah. We couldn't jump on an airplane like we used to be able to, so we encouraged people when it was safe to engage in the community in Utah.

Speaker 1 5:31

Was In Utah already rolling, because that's a campaign I wanted to talk about as well.

Speaker 2 5:35

It is a result of the pandemic.

Speaker 1 5:38

Is it really?

Speaker 2 5:39

It happened because the legislature recognized and sent money to our office to do a public education and outreach about protecting the economy in conjunction with a health response to the pandemic. So again, I think that's a way that Utah was unique and had some foresight to look ahead Foresight, yeah, and to invest in itself.

Speaker 1 5:59

In response to this, yeah, because that's a campaign. You also won some awards, for A handful of awards, yeah, congratulations.

Speaker 2 6:06

Videos and things that we did within Utah and we tried to tell the story of Utah entrepreneurs and what was available in Utah and a lot of it was, you know, fast food or products, other services, and the site is still live in Utahorg and this, the most recent iteration of the campaign last year, was an Inspire in Utah campaign, where we focused exclusively on women entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1 6:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was going to ask you about that. If the focus of much of the thriving economy in Utah is bringing people from outside in or building up the people who are already here, like what, what's the balance there with that?

Speaker 2 6:53

I'm going to quote a former mentor, val Hale, who says economic development is a journey, not a destination, and that journey, to me, includes all of the above. All of the above, yeah, you have to focus on the local and also the international. Obviously, we have the Utah Office of Tourism and the Utah Film Commission in the governor's office of economic opportunity. They receive millions of dollars through hotel tax taxes to market the state outside of the state internationally.

Speaker 2 7:25

They've got a very sophisticated campaign and use a lot of good data to identify what are people searching for, what are they interested in, and they've done a lot to bring international people and tourists to Utah. In fact, a lot of people in Utah feel like the Mighty Five was too successful, like we're bringing too many people to the Mighty Five National Park.

Speaker 2 7:47

We're growing too fast, and so it is a balancing act and we recognize there are communities that approach that tourism piece differently. Moab, I think, has been strained a little bit by the interest and the popularity and there has to be investment in infrastructure and all those other things that go with tourism so that it can be a good, a win-win for the community and for those who come for the experience. So our office is focused on both. My team right now is the business services team. I have five different initiatives that look to support small business in Utah and it's a really fun space to play in. I'm a former entrepreneur myself. For a decade I had a PR marketing consulting firm.

Speaker 1 8:31

I didn't know that In.

Speaker 2 8:32

Las Vegas for a while, and then I moved to Utah where I had a large client and put us closer to my wife's parents as our kids were starting to grow up, that Utah tie, that Utah tie. I married a girl from Utah from holiday.

Speaker 1 8:47

So here we are.

Utah

Speaker 2 8:47

Yeah, that's awesome. So I understand, as an entrepreneur, what it's like to do the work, to do the books, to take out the trash, to do everything. At one point I had a handful of employees, you know, so I even dealt with disability and just all sorts of things. Once you start to build a team. Yeah, it's a lot to conquer, and they need so many resources, and the one thing I'd love to highlight when the time's right is our new Startup State Initiative and how the state is working to support Utah entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1 9:19

Yeah, let's do it, show your pin. For those who can't see? It's a triangle with different shades of green on it. Is this like the official logo of it?

Speaker 2 9:28

the official logo and it's intended as a pathway to get you to the right destination, to the right point, and also kind of, in our mind, shows that utah is the right place. Um, so it's pointing here, yeah okay. Ok, this is the place you know this is the right place.

Speaker 1 9:46

I think it's more like. This is the place Right.

Speaker 2 9:50

Wallet Hub has named Utah the number one state for startups, for entrepreneurs, for several years. Yeah, lots of accolades come our way about startups, best cities to start a business, things like that. Governor Cox a few years ago said. Talked to our office and said how do we support startups? How do we put all these resources in one place? How do we make it?

Speaker 1 10:10

easier for them and why startups in particular Like. Why that?

Speaker 2 10:14

The governor loves the concept of being a startup state and stake in the ground. Utah's the startup state. Okay so, startup entrepreneur, small business I'm using those terms interchangeably. Startup state has some nice alliteration from a branding perspective. And we did startuputahgov, so that's kind of the hallmark right now of our effort. It's a really robust website that we've worked on for a year, so the governor also talked Brad Bonham into being the state's first entrepreneur in residence.

Speaker 2 10:50

I was going to say like recruited him or I think he's paying him a dollar a year Is he really Talked him into it.

Speaker 1 10:57

So he has a.

Speaker 2 10:58

Utahgov account. I think that's awesome, brad. You can correct that if you want. So, brad Bonham, along with Ryan Starks, my boss, and I have a part-time director of the Startup State Initiative, alicia Hart. All of us have been in the trenches this past year building out what this website can be. It has a journey map with 18 or 20 steps from I'm thinking of this idea I might start a business to how do I actually start a business in Utah? What kind of legal things do I need to think about? What licensing things do I need to think about? What licensing things do I need to think about? How do I grow my business, hire people, how do I maximize my profit to even hey, I'm going to sell or close my business. So this is the entire journey map, the lifespan, yeah of an entrepreneur and we know a lot of businesses start and stop and entrepreneurs successful entrepreneurs have lots of failures in their past, not successes. You become successful because you've failed enough that you learn how to be successful.

Speaker 2 12:03

I mean, that's the truth of being an entrepreneur.

Speaker 1 12:05

It's the problem solving? Yes, it is.

Speaker 2 12:07

And it takes a certain person who's able to persevere and do that. And the Startup State website provides resources for every one of those steps along the way. Hundreds of resources. We're trying to elevate and inform and serve as a convener for all that information.

Speaker 2 12:28

If you think about entrepreneurship in Utah, there are some really cool places and things happening at schools. I don't necessarily want to call any school out, but there are a lot of universities and colleges that have entrepreneur programs. There are community colleges, there are high school programs. So we want to just come up at a higher level and speak on behalf of the whole state and put just all those things together in one place. That's what startuputahgov is intended to do.

Speaker 2 12:58

It has a calendar of events where we plan to curate from all the other places and say if you're interested in entrepreneurship and startups and small business in Utah, here are some events and it's going to be pitch competitions and networking opportunities and all those conferences, all those things that are just occurring already. But we want to-.

Speaker 1 13:16

You want to be like that, great of it.

Speaker 2 13:18

Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 13:20

Because how does this work in tandem with, like the Women's Business Center right?

Speaker 2 13:24

Or.

Speaker 1 13:24

Chamber opportunities, that's right.

Speaker 2 13:27

So every Chamber, the Women's Business Center at Salt Lake Chamber. They are partners of ours, they are part of our resources. Like down the road, let's do events together. I see we have a limited budget, but I hope the legislature will come forward and give us more money in the future. But we're supporting startup pitches in the state to the tune of about $100,000 a year right now.

Speaker 1 13:50

Is that through the One Summit or is that in a different?

Speaker 2 13:53

So the One Utah Summit which we had earlier this month featured the Startup State Entrepreneur Challenge. Yeah, We've rebranded it to match Startup State Of course you did, because you're a communicator. And part of that prize purse. We had $115,000 in prizes and in-kind contributions. The in-kind portion came from scholarships 15,000 in scholarships to the Master of Business Creation at the Lissand Entrepreneur Institute at the David Eccles School of.

Speaker 2 14:18

Business University of Utah. Very cool that NBC program. Both our first and second place winner are very interested in that program and plan to cash in on those scholarships.

Speaker 1 14:28

I've heard really good things about that program.

Speaker 2 14:29

So we love that the cash came from the Startup State Initiative part of this pool of $100,000, $150,000 that we've got and also our Utah Innovation Center. So that's another one of my five. So Startup State's one Innovation Center is the second of my five programs that support Utah entrepreneurs and they're focused on research and development and getting non-dilutive funding for new technology in Utah. So that's what Innovation Center does and it's free consulting to help businesses apply for those federal grants and secure those grants and they're award-winning, by the way, for our state.

Speaker 2 15:09

They bring more grants here than larger states do, so it's pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 15:15

And how long have they been around?

Speaker 2 15:17

The Innovation Center is what's left of the former U-Star, so it's gone through several iterations and our current director has been involved with that kind of programming for a decade, a little over that. So it's very niche, it's R&D. It's usually health care, but can be other things. They've got some case studies on their website. One's called ISO Trust.

Speaker 1 15:45

I had their CEO on the. Business Elevated podcast.

Speaker 2 15:49

Nathan, and how cool. I mean they've got a I'm going to describe it poorly a telephone pole made out of carbon fiber that's lighter and doesn't disintegrate and is more environmentally friendly and can be set up and last forever, like we had a really cool conversation about that technology and how awesome that would be if we switched out wooden or cement light poles. So, just ideas like that and he got some of that non-diluted funding through a federal grant.

Speaker 1 16:18

Okay, so he was just on your podcast. You have a podcast, you do? Yeah, let's give a shout out to that. Tell us a little bit about that and then we'll talk about who you have on and some of the themes.

Speaker 2 16:29

It is the Business Elevated podcast. My former boss, Val Hale, when I started in 2018, said I think we should start a podcast and we should interview Utah CEOs, and so early in 2019, we started it and we do. We feature Utah business leaders, sometimes government leaders, and we talk about challenges, opportunities in Utah and we always ask our guests why do you choose to do business in Utah? Or?

Speaker 2 16:56

what makes Utah a great place to do business. This year we're saying why is Utah the startup capital of the world, like why is it great to start up in Utah? And I hear pretty awesome responses from people who've lived in lots of other places, who love Utah's quality of life, love how the government, as former Governor Herbert used to say, stays off your backs and out of your wallets. That's a big thing. A light touch right. Low business regulation, low business taxes, and often Utah's great outdoors come up.

Speaker 2 17:32

And again this ties into that Utah Office of Tourism and touting those benefits of. If you think about Utah's diverse geography, it's pretty unique, like it doesn't exist in a lot of places and the Red Rock we have and the arches and the mountains and the fishing, and like you can just go on and on every season of the year. They're pretty cool things to do in Utah. So the Business Elevated podcast has, I think, about 170 episodes and you can hear stories of people who choose to live and work and do business in the state of Utah.

Speaker 1 18:08

Live and work and do business in the state of Utah. Yeah, so, besides the lifestyle, what as far as startups or people who've come here to do their business? What are common themes for them, Like is there more talent here? The resources, funding is easier. What does that look like?

Speaker 2 18:25

One conversation is coming to mind that happened shortly after the pandemic. It was a family that moved from California Jill Kozoyle, I believe, is oh with.

Economic Opportunity and Inclusion in Utah

Speaker 2 18:34

Motherly. Thank you, yeah, moved from California to get their kids into school that fall, so we're talking August of 20. And they couldn't. They didn't see a path forward for school and work in California at that time for their family. They found a home in Park City and she said there was no looking back, like just the ability for the kids to make friends and to be engaged in activities and to actually go to school and for her and her husband to do their work for the community, for the support that she felt, you know, even as a transplant. So often businesses now require the Internet and a phone. I mean honestly so, and the pandemic certainly accelerated that trend. But those were some of the things that she highlighted. Right, people say it's a great place to raise a family, it's a safe place. Often other family is something that's cited Like I said, I married a girl from Utah. I have in-laws here, brother-in-law.

Speaker 1 19:42

My brother also moved here, so they come for the family and the outdoors, and then they plant their business here, so they come for the family and the outdoors and then they plant their business here Exactly.

Speaker 2 19:50

Yeah, and they find that Utah is, like I said, a great place to start a business. And there is something about Utah and, I think, the Intermountain West and our roots, our history in making a place home that's not super hospitable. It was not easy for these. I went to high school in upstate New York. Upstate New York is beautiful and green and so full of trees and rolling hills. It is humid and there are bugs, but you come here and it's a desert. My wife and I lived for eight and a half years in the Las Vegas Valley.

Speaker 1 20:27

Yeah, desert, desert yeah.

Speaker 2 20:29

And we came back to Utah and I'm like Utah is so green. But when I came from New York to go to college, I'm like Utah is such a desert, it's relative. What I'm saying is that people who came to this area had to be self-sufficient. They had to work hard, they had to be industrious. They had to work hard, they had to be industrious. They had, and they're innovative and they just are willing to try it and keep trying.

Speaker 1 21:20

Yeah, I've heard of that as referred to. Like the Utah way, right. Our work ethic, our positive spin on many things. I don't know if you've seen that meme, but like hiking in Utah and then they have to say hello to everyone on the path. Hello, hello Two times recently on the Business Elevated podcast.

Speaker 2 21:36

I've had guests who have they lived in Minnesota and they're like there's a thing, minnesota nice, and they're like but there's a new thing, utah, nice, people in Utah are so nice.

Speaker 1 21:48

We laugh about that sometimes because it is true, yeah, but it also makes us a little passive, aggressive sometimes in our communication.

Speaker 2 21:56

It can be yeah.

Speaker 1 21:57

So taking both of those. So I want to touch on this because I really do believe that so many of the people here are creative and innovative and gatherers who are? Creative and innovative and gatherers, but there's also this underbelly of especially the work that we do with diversity and women-owned businesses. You know they're only 16% in the state from research. They are growing.

Speaker 2 22:21

Especially Latina women-owned businesses.

Speaker 1 22:24

Yeah, most of them have a lower threshold in what they make and most of them have one to five employees. So how do we get that diversity piece centered in a comfortable conversation where everyone can thrive right?

Speaker 2 22:42

A lot of people in Utah are afraid to say DEI.

Speaker 1 22:44

Yeah, Sorry if that was a bad word. Diversity I'm not sure what we're calling it right now.

Speaker 2 22:48

We're calling it inclusion.

Speaker 1 22:49

Inclusion yes, yes.

Speaker 2 22:51

And we have to be purposeful about it. Of course, I mentioned that before we started recording. We have to provide opportunities for everyone, so I'm going to step back to you know, governor Cox renamed our office, the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity instead of Economic Development. I think every other office in the country is GO-ED Economic Development. Now we're GOEO. I like GOEO.

Speaker 1 23:17

It sounds like I don't know.

Speaker 2 23:18

It's like a song from Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 1 23:20

Oh, e-o, but let's not go down that path. Okay, stay on topic. Yeah.

Speaker 2 23:27

Economic opportunity throughout the state for people at different phases of life and different needs. So a man, a woman, a young person, an older person yeah, economic opportunity is important and that's the thing that I think we need to focus on and and can be inclusive should be inclusive of everyone. Now there are studies and things that show the more diversity you have on a board in a meeting at a company, the stronger the output right. Sure, and Utah is more diverse. If I remember correctly, kim C Gardner said we're more diverse now than Ohio. I think we're like in the middle. I think we're moving up in the middle.

Speaker 1 24:13

People don't see that necessarily yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2 24:17

And I think it's over 15 percent Latino and maybe four or five percent Black and Asian, and I mean we are becoming more diverse.

Speaker 2 24:26

And a lot of what we did through COVID with communications and things, included a Spanish translation, our new startup website. You can translate into whatever language you'd like. So that's, I think, being more baked in at the beginning than an afterthought, and I think that's very important. So we have to support those who struggle to find the opportunity right. How do we find those opportunities and create ways and pathways for people to?

Speaker 1 25:01

get them. Pathways is a big word.

Speaker 2 25:03

I've been hearing a lot and not to preserve, for whatever reason, barriers that exist. They do exist. I have a wife, I have a daughter. I want them both to have opportunities, just like I want my son and I to have opportunities.

Speaker 1 25:18

Yeah, I love that because it really is about elevating all of us.

Speaker 2 25:22

It's not like we can only elevate half of us, or and it has to be when I mean it has to be. It cannot be. You win, I lose Absolutely. That's the wrong approach, Right.

Speaker 1 25:34

Right, because then it'll become divisive. Yeah yeah, I love that Joe Bernard of Ken Garf. He often says so. He took to elevate her challenge Right For the six principles.

Speaker 2 25:44

I love the story of his daughter and the lawnmower. Yes absolutely.

Equal Parental Leave Importance

Speaker 1 25:49

But what he also says that I love is when they worked on family-friendly policies, they not only elevated women in their company, but it ended up elevating the men as well, and I love that. The tide rises all boats. So that's kind of what you're talking about here, right? It?

Speaker 2 26:05

is. In my recent conversation on the Business Elevated podcast with Allie Isom Applied Companies, she started talking about maternity leave and I said so what is your paternity leave like? She's like Pete, it's the same.

Speaker 1 26:17

Yeah, perfect, there you go.

Speaker 2 26:24

There you go, the partners, not just a single person. Hopefully there's a family involved and those partners together should be there for that start of life and bonding and all those things. So we have a member of our Innovation Center team who had a baby. His wife had a baby on the evening of our summit a couple of weeks ago and he's been. He's been with the family, which is awesome.

Speaker 1 26:47

Yes, yes, hey, commercial break. Sorry to jump in here, but we enjoyed our conversation with Pete so much we decided to make this our first two-parter. There's so much good information still to come. This was our first part, and join us next week for part two.