Coleman loves to ski, backpack and ride his mountain and road bikes - "anything where I'm outdoors, even if it's as simple as playing bocce ball on the front lawn," he says.
Jones is a skier, too. He rides horses and runs rivers. In November, he hiked in Peru to Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas.
Together, their incomes last year averaged $229,000, a tidy sum by most measures. But Coleman, a year-round ski lift mechanic at one of the resorts in the canyons, earned $23,000. Jones pulled in $435,000 as a commercial real estate agent.
Both men will appear in Sunday's Parade magazine as part of its annual "What People Earn" salary report. The magazine, distributed with The Salt Lake Tribune, talked to workers across the country and found most people didn't see the robust economic growth of 2006 reflected in their paychecks, despite increases in average wages.
Coleman, 26, keeps his expenses as low as possible. He lives with two roommates in Sugar House and said his priorities are a "roof over my head, a smile on my face and food in my belly."
By those yardsticks, Coleman is well off. A few years ago, his income was about $18,000, evidence it's conceivable to live happily with less than what he makes today.
"I've learned to be pretty thrifty, for the most part," he said. "You need to pay attention, more than anything. You need to find out what your priorities are."
Coleman isn't sure how long he will stick with his Spartan lifestyle. He loves to ski, but he doesn't ski to live. When the ski season ends, he will shift to warm-weather sports. When he's not working or playing, he's studying for a journeyman electrician's license at Salt Lake Community College.
The thought of revealing his income to millions of readers doesn't bother Coleman. He wishes he were paid more by his employer, but he says his paycheck - about $442 a week, before taxes and other deductions - is standard for the ski industry. The average weekly wage in Salt Lake City was $744 last year, according to the latest government figures.
"I could care less what anybody perceives of me," Coleman said. "And also, you never see my profession in that magazine. So I figured, why not let the world know? I'm not ashamed of it."
By no means is Coleman's income the smallest among the 134 people whose faces, names and annual earnings are printed in Parade. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 59, claimed his income was zero last year. Gary Fearn, 42, a Pueblo, Colo., minister, said he earned $9,000.
On the other hand, Jones is not the wealthiest person in the Parade story. A panoply of country singers, actresses, NASCAR drivers, baseball players, dead physicists, fictional characters and CEOs collectively raked in close to $2.5 billion.
Jones, 34, began his commercial real estate career seven years ago, when the Internet bubble was imploding and shortly before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that sent the stock market - and the confidence of Americans in the economy - into a tailspin.
While he learned the real estate business, Jones received a flat salary of about $22,000. When he joined a sales team at the Salt Lake office of CB Richard Ellis, the world's largest commercial real estate firm, his income exploded. Spurred by Utah's robust economy, Jones' compensation has been growing by 30 percent to 40 percent per year for several years. Four months into 2007, the outlook for this year is excellent, he said.
"It's directly tied to the team that I work for," said Jones. "It's not just me. It's our office as a whole. The last two years, consecutively, have been our best years ever, and that helps."
Both Jones and Coleman came to the notice of Parade by chance.
Coleman's brother once worked in New York with a woman who later went to work at the magazine. She asked if he knew someone out West. He gave her Coleman's name.
Jones was contacted after a local freelance movie producer got a call from a writer at the magazine who was looking for more names. She contacted Jones, who filled out a questionnaire, returned it, and moved on to other things. He was amazed to learn Parade selected him for its cover, next to Schwarzenegger and kitty-corner from bespectacled wizard Harry Potter.
"Oh, man. I don't want to look like, here's a guy who gets paid too much," Jones said.
pbeebe@sltrib.com
