“This is actually the most exciting position I have ever had.” For Jody Engar, Arts Programming Coordinator for the City of South Salt Lake, her role with the South Salt Lake Arts Council combines everything she has learned in her professional life with her passion for community engagement.

“I ask myself this a thousand times a day - am I acting in good faith? Am I being honest, empathetic, forthright, grateful? That’s the rudder I steer my life with now, and it’s how we run our business too.” Jared Neiswender, owner of MOZZ, grew up in the suburbs outside Philadelphia. It is an area where New York commuters met hometown tradition, and where, at fourteen, he got his first job in a restaurant. “I’ve worked in restaurants my whole life,” he said, “but I never imagined they would become my path forward.”

“Once you are at Osher, age does not matter,” said Jill E. Meyer, Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Utah. “The joy of learning is what unites us. It is a place to rediscover passions, meet people who share your interests, and be part of something bigger than yourself.”

I always think of an art house as the new gathering place for stories and ideas. Film is such an accessible art form. You can have a film about anything. So, you can have a conversation about anything.” Tori A. Baker, CEO of Salt Lake Film Society,  has had her life shaped by that belief.

“You just have to keep showing up. For yourself, for your business, for your people. Even on the hard days - especially on the hard days.” At just twenty-three years old, Kaitlyn Maestas opened the doors to Raw Eddy’s, a bright and cheerful storefront tucked into a historic downtown Salt Lake City building. Inside, one will find vegan, gluten-free, plant-based superfood protein snacks that taste like joy in bite-size form.

“It was never in the cards for me. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be running a theater company - let alone Salt Lake Acting Company. Cynthia Fleming grew up in Bountiful, Utah, the daughter of a former Miss Utah and a charismatic father who managed a radio station and often emceed events around Salt Lake City. Tall, lanky, and pigeon-toed, she was steered toward ballet at the age of seven. Her teacher, a Utah Civic Ballet (now Ballet West) dancer, gave her strict classical training, and she quickly went from being one of the weakest in class to one of the best.

“When people walk through the doors of Sir Walter Candy Co., we want them to feel like they matter - like they are part of something warm, nostalgic, and joyful.” Alfonso Porras grew up in Mexico City, where a family connection unexpectedly changed the course of his life.

“People have wondered how we could work together for forty years. But since we kind of do different things - even though they overlap - I have mIne and he has his. Some days are easier than others, but we have found a way to make it work.” Kelly and Majid Omana have built a life together in every sense - married since 1983, partners in Evergreen Framing Co. & Gallery since 1985, and still going strong.

“I was born in Salt Lake City, but I moved every six months until I was sixteen. By then, I had lived in more than thirty cities. I tell people that it gave me a huge appreciation for the world, but what it really taught me was not to need anyone. I raised my siblings, mostly my sister, by the time I was five. I lost my childhood in order to protect her, but it gave me a sense of purpose.” Today, Celeste Edmunds leads The Christmas Box International, a nonprofit serving Utah’s most vulnerable children - an organization deeply tied to her own story of survival.

“I always thought it was strange that no one had taken 801 for a business name. I grew up between Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon, and when it came time to name my company, 801 Coffee Roasters felt right. Back in the day, that was all there was, 801. Now we have area codes 435 and 385, but the original people only knew 801. I figured the name had to be gone, but it wasn’t, so I trademarked it immediately and have been running with it ever since.”

“I didn’t just get into cooking, I chose it. And then, somehow, I feel like it chose me.” Kyle Williams’s journey to opening Marcato Kitchen has been anything but conventional. Raised in Southern California in a family that loved to cook, Kyle never felt drawn to the kitchen himself. “I liked to eat, that’s for sure, but cooking felt like work, and I didn’t want to work.”

“I grew up in a trailer without electricity or water, under a tarp roof. We did not have much, but I had loving parents who worked so hard, and we always sat down for dinner together. That meant everything to me.” Those humble beginnings shaped Andrew Corrao, chef and owner of Forty Three Bakery, a space he has built with equal parts grit and heart.

“I have felt it in my bones since I was very, very young. I was going to accomplish big things.” Vayanna Kruse, owner of Soleil Nail Studio, grew up in a small Iowa town. But even as a child, she sensed her life would lead her somewhere else.

“You can’t fully exhale in a place where you feel like you don’t belong. I wanted to create a space where people feel safe the moment they walk through the door.” Opened in 2023, Maven STAY is not your typical hotel. It is not marked by grand lobbies or sterile hallways. Instead, it feels like a quiet invitation to slow down, to settle in. It does not aim for flash. Rather, it welcomes guests with softness, warmth, and a deep sense of care.

“I was always drawing, always creating. My friends and I did it constantly. It was what we knew.” Brad Slaugh grew up in Salt Lake City, the son of parents who, as he puts it, “tolerated” his artistic obsession more than they encouraged it. Still, he carried that passion forward through his undergraduate years in Utah and graduate school at Boston University. After a brief time living elsewhere, including a year in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Salt Lake called him back. It was here that he eventually established Poor Yorick Studios, a creative home that would grow into one of the city’s most vibrant artistic communities.

“We never do the same event twice. That is what makes Cuisine Unlimited Catering & Special Events so exciting. Every client brings us a new vision to bring to life.” Sitting together, Director of Catering Abby Radtke, and Event Sales Manager Isabelle Caiozzo, share a partnership built on years of collaboration and friendship. Both women found their way to Cuisine Unlimited through different paths - Abby from Nebraska, Isabelle from Salt Lake City - but each carries a story that ties them to the company’s legacy of excellence.

“Crone’s Hollow is a place that came from love, and we welcome everyone.” TaMara Sorensen never planned to open a witchcraft store when she arrived in Salt Lake City as a twenty-year-old on vacation in 1979. She simply never left. The mountains and adventure called her, and she built a long career in customer service, working with the Sundance Catalog for over thirty years and teaching customer service courses at Salt Lake Community College. But alongside her day job, she was quietly finding her path in a different world.

“If you love what you do, it never feels like work.” Jason Algaze grew up surrounded by creativity. His mother was an interior decorator, and his grandfather, a civil engineer, built apartment buildings in Brooklyn and Queens. From a young age, Jason was drawn to both the artistry and structure of making things. “I was definitely a very creative kid,” he recalls. “I did a lot of art, but I was also always in that extra class during lunch building bridges or robots. I was obsessed with Legos.” Years later, that creative foundation would lead him - together with his business partner, Daniel Rudofsky - to form Abstract Group, the development company behind One Burton, a stunning new apartment building in South Salt Lake.

“We want the people who come in here to feel like family.” Todd Holsten grew up on the east side of Salt Lake City, spending much of his childhood in the mountains. Skiing, biking, climbing - if it was outdoors, he was in his element. After high school, he worked a string of odd jobs before finding his career home at Delta Air Lines in 1996. Nearly thirty years later, he is still there, now part of the aircraft movement team, enjoying the job’s stability and the flight benefits that have allowed him, his wife, and their family to travel the world. Together with his wife, Aranya, he now owns Aranya Thai Kitchen, a warmly inviting spot known for fresh, meticulously prepared Thai dishes that reflect her passion for getting everything just right.

“I have spent most of my life in and out of jail, and now I get to run a donut shop. I wake up and get to make people happy. I never thought that would be my life.” Nicholas Smith, General Manager of The Other Side Donuts, was born in San Diego, California, but moved to Vernal, Utah, before his second birthday. The second youngest of six boys, Nicholas grew up in a deeply troubled home. His father, a towering Polynesian man from Fiji, was abusive toward Nicholas’s mother. Nicholas still remembers hiding behind couches, calling 911, and watching the chaos unfold around him.