The Utah Senate confirmed eight of Huntsman's appointees to the Utah Business and Economic Development board on Friday.
Meanwhile, Ladd ChristenÂsen, a major Huntsman campaign contributor who briefly served as a co-director of the Division of Business and Economic Development (DBED), has been reassigned.
Huntsman, who has made economic expansion his priority, fired the majority of the Community and Economic Development Department's leadership and has restructured the department, putting business recruiting under his direct control.
Chief economic adviser Chris Roybal said Christensen was given a new role because dual director of DBED was a temporary assignment. Martin Frey alone will run the department.
"The whole operation is a work in progress," Roybal said. "The new organization chart is being defined."
Christensen will be involved in international business recruiting and lead development of a Web-based system that will help Utah businesses to connect with local resources and vendors before they look out of state, Frey said.
The DBED board oversees the state's incentive programs to lure new business to Utah. The new board members are:
l Bill Boyle, publisher of the San Juan Record.
l Jack Brittain, dean of the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah.
l Mary D. Draper, an administrator at the Utah Museum of Natural History.
l Molonai Hola, president of Icon Corporation.
l Mel S. Lavitt, managing director of venture capital company C.E. Unterberg, Towbin.
l Richard R. Nelson, chief executive of the Utah Information Technology Association.
l Amy Rees Lewis, owner of Delhi, India-based Globerian, which provides offshore business services.
l Gerald R. Sherratt, mayor of Cedar City.
glenwarchol@sltrib.com
