"The Utah economy is probably as healthy as it's been for some years," said George Hofmann, executive vice president of business banking at Zions Bank. "Based on the executives' responses, we would anticipate that it would continue on a similar pace for the next year or two."

The Salt Lake City-based bank's first quarterly forecast based on confidence measures found 62 percent of the executives were optimistic about the financial future of their companies, producing a score of 7.87 on a scale of 1 to 10.

The study differs from other forecasts because it does not analyze past economic information to predict the future. Dan Jones and Associates, a research firm conducting the survey, recruited 1,169 executives for the survey - of which 387 took part. Results are accurate to within a 5 percent margin of error, according to the firm.

Economist Jeff Thredgold, who consults for Zions but was not involved in the survey, said the results do not reflect an "irresponsible optimism."

"If it were 9.5 out of 10, that would be too high because it would have reflected that they were not giving enough value or awareness to the risks on the horizon," he said.

The greatest exuberance came from companies with 26 to 250 full-time employees. Similarly, CEOs whose companies have been in business 10 years or less were more likely to believe their company will do better in the next three months.

Hoffman said the results underscore a truth about smaller and younger businesses.

"They feel like they have a niche, and they are willing to exploit that niche," Hoffman said. "Larger companies have a more commoditized product and need to compete more on service rather than the uniqueness of their product."

Three in 10 businesses said they were more likely to spend more on capital projects in the next three months, while slightly more than half - 51 percent - said they planned to hire more workers.

Again, Hoffman said, it was small and mid-size companies that most often said they would spend money to improve their businesses and increase payrolls.

"If you look at the respondents, a significant number are small to mid-size companies that are experiencing great growth," he said. "They, more than the larger companies, are expressing a desire to grow their capital expenditures."

Hoffman said big companies are less inclined to plan capital projects or hire more employees because they operate in business environments that have excess production capacity due to advances in technology.

Most executives reported they were concerned about rising energy and health care costs, according to the survey. Other worries included finding qualified employees, gasoline prices, and labor shortages in rural parts of the state.

pbeebe@sltrib.com