“We all came together and made a good investment in a homegrown company that not only employs people and pays taxes, but is also focused on building our workforce here,” said Stuart Clason, director of the Utah Regional Growth Association. “That’s how I think economic development should work.”

Clason, along with Carbon County Commissioner Larry Jensen and Intermountain Electronics (IE) owner John Houston and CEO Bobby Houston, attended the Carbon School Board meeting on Wednesday, August 14, to discuss extending a tax credit agreement reached in 2019.

In 2019, IE received a tax incentive from the State of Utah, Carbon County, Price River Water Improvement District and Carbon School Board to encourage IE’s expansion in its hometown of Price rather than Denver. IE successfully began this expansion in November 2019, but was unable to fully complete the planned buildout due to restrictions on neighboring properties.

IE presented to the school board on Wednesday evening to discuss moving forward with full expansion plans after the issue with the neighboring property was resolved. They asked the council to commit to honoring the original tax abatement agreement for the remainder of the expansion.

Bobby Houston presented the Board with an update on IE production since its last meeting in 2019.

Over the past five years, IE has invested $36 million in its Utah facility, including a 2019 expansion that added 40,000 square feet to accommodate additional employees and equipment the company needs to grow.

Over the next three years, IE expects to invest $40 million in community growth. This investment will fund the remainder of the expansion, adding more square footage to the facility, and creating new testing and deployment sites to better handle increasing volumes.

“This is where we want to be. It is very important to us,” said Bobby Houston.

As part of the current tax incentives, IE promised to create 286 new jobs over 15 years starting in 2019. So far, the company has already created more than 200 new jobs at the Price Facility, which generates 50% of IE’s annual revenue, although the company also has locations in Colorado, Illinois and Ohio.

IE also donates millions of dollars to many local businesses and organizations in Carbon and Emery Counties, helping to spread the economic benefits more widely.

“We’re pretty proud that we were able to give this amount back to the community and still operate our business successfully,” said Bobby Houston. “We couldn’t have done it without these people.”

IE owner John Houston then addressed the board about the company’s significant efforts to improve and advance education in Carbon County with the goal of encouraging students to stay in the area. This year, Utah State University Eastern (USUE) partnered with IE to offer an internship program. USUE provided students with dormitory housing, including cafeteria credit, and awarded academic credit toward their college degree for their internship work at IE.

This summer, 31 interns participated in the program, 17 of whom came from outside Carbon County.

“We need people to support our group,” Houston told the board, urging them to work together to give students the opportunity to stay in their hometown. “I don’t want to send my kids away. You don’t want to send your kids away either. Let’s find a way to work together.”

School board member Wayne Woodward echoed Houston’s sentiments and encouraged him to continue having conversations with colleges. The Carbon School District encourages its students to start earning college credits early, but fitting those credits into the school’s schedule has proven challenging.

While this was not an action item on the school board’s agenda, the council will revisit the issue in future meetings. They plan to update IE on the incentive decision after further consideration to determine if there is interest in moving forward. So far, Carbon County has agreed to move forward with the original tax incentive plan.