Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity

5 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 – those who moved to the state and those who switched jobs but chose to remain in Utah, post- switch. For both those groups, access to outdoor recreation was the number one reason they decided to come to Utah and stay here. As for why businesses and GDP are growing so much, Hemmert explains, “We have a culture of hard work, as well as a very robust culture of entrepreneurship. We’ve seen a lot of that GDP growth in smaller companies that are getting larger. We have a very healthy tech sector with start-ups, such as software companies. Utah also has a healthy life sciences sector. They’re mostly early-stage businesses that have seen great success and are expanding in those industries.” As businesses grow, they’re quite happy to “The biggest reason is quality of life. Utah has a unique geographic situation with major metropolitan areas, such as Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front (a 65-mile corridor north and south of the city), where you have easy access to outdoor recreation. You’re 20 minutes from mountains, and if you want a different experience, you’re a three-hour drive from the red rocks in the National Parks. That unique balance between an environment where you can have a work experience with a high-paying job, but still have that accessibility to amazing outdoor recreation activities is a wonderful characteristic of the state of Utah. That’s something that you can’t replicate anywhere else to the same degree.” Go Utah conducted a survey of non-Utah natives