[0:00] And
[0:01] I'll turn it over to our chair to begin
[0:03] the meeting. Great. Thanks for having
[0:05] Glad you could hear and not work around
[0:08] All right. I'm I'm Lisa Richards and
[0:10] chairperson of the Utah Geological
[0:12] Survey Board. Welcome everybody and
[0:14] anybody who's joining us online. I'd
[0:16] like to call this meeting of the Utah
[0:18] Geological Survey Board to order.
[0:20] And it is now 8:34 on April 15th, 2026.
[0:25] This meeting is being held in person and
[0:27] virtually with Google Meet. In
[0:29] compliance with Utah's open meeting
[0:30] laws, this meeting is being recorded in
[0:32] its entirety.
[0:33] This recording is classified as a public
[0:35] record and the following board members
[0:37] are in attendance.
[0:39] Myself, Ken Fleck, Becky Hammond, Dale
[0:42] Bert, Riley Brinkerhoff, Michael Hanson,
[0:44] Rich Borden, and Annie Biddulph from
[0:47] Sila is joining us online.
[0:49] And there are zero board members absent.
[0:53] All individuals representing the Utah
[0:55] Geological Survey and the Department of
[0:56] Natural Resources are in attendance.
[0:58] Starlin Betatain, Stephen Kirby is not
[1:00] here.
[1:01] Um
[1:02] When C Moore Uh
[1:06] It's good to be learning more about you.
[1:08] And Cheryl Ann Bendall.
[1:11] I think that covers it. Is that correct?
[1:13] I think so. Thanks everybody for being
[1:16] here. Um at present, we welcome all
[1:18] visitors and as a courtesy to everyone
[1:20] participating in this meeting, we ask
[1:22] that all telephone, pagers, and other
[1:23] electronic devices be turned off.
[1:25] And board motions and votes will be
[1:27] reflected in the minutes and recorded by
[1:28] individual
[1:30] board member and motion to accept the
[1:32] agenda.
[1:36] Okay, thank you very much. Go to the
[1:39] next slide here. Okay, so our agenda was
[1:42] published in the um meeting packet. So
[1:46] we'll begin with the approval of minutes
[1:50] followed by the approval of project
[1:52] proposals.
[1:55] All right, let's start with the minutes.
[1:56] May I get a motion to approve the
[1:59] minutes from the January 21st, 2016
[2:01] meeting? So moved.
[2:05] And a second? Second.
[2:09] All those who
[2:10] approve of the minutes from the the
[2:12] January 21st, 2016 meeting say I. I. Any
[2:16] opposed say no.
[2:19] The minutes from the
[2:21] January 21st UGS board meeting are
[2:25] And then the contract proposals, we
[2:28] really appreciate you getting those our
[2:29] way. Thank you.
[2:32] Um I'd like to have a motion to approve
[2:34] formally approve the contract proposals
[2:36] since our last meeting.
[2:38] I have a motion.
[2:41] Second.
[2:43] And this I believe this was updated, so
[2:46] all right.
[2:47] All of those who formally approve the
[2:50] contract proposals from between the last
[2:52] board meeting and today they say I. I.
[2:57] Any opposed say no.
[2:59] The uh
[3:01] all of the contract proposals since the
[3:02] last meeting in January 21st are
[3:05] formally approved. Thank you.
[3:10] Director's report.
[3:11] I'll start by just asking if this
[3:13] process of sending these out by email
[3:16] for you guys to look over and send back
[3:18] an email and stuff working for you guys.
[3:20] Yep. It's it keeps us on schedule and
[3:23] allows us to move forward and stuff.
[3:24] Thank you.
[3:26] Um okay, well I'll begin the director's
[3:29] report by introducing our new finance
[3:32] manager. We're so excited to welcome
[3:35] Gwen Seymour to the Utah Geological
[3:38] Survey. She was a clear choice in our
[3:40] interviews, super well prepared. Um
[3:43] great background. I'll let Gwen I'll let
[3:45] you tell um
[3:46] the board a little more about your
[3:48] background. Um and she has landed on her
[3:50] feet. She started with us March 31st and
[3:53] has already dug into our budget and
[3:55] financials and has prepared a financial
[3:57] report for you today, which is really
[4:01] awesome. So,
[4:03] and then let's go around and maybe I
[4:05] know you a few of you had a chance to
[4:07] meet her, but maybe if we just go around
[4:08] and introduce each other after we have a
[4:10] chance to tell you a little bit about
[4:12] her background.
[4:13] Absolutely. So, before joining the
[4:16] survey, I spent the last five years
[4:18] working in M&A or merger and acquisition
[4:21] integrations
[4:22] with a fintech company and a tech
[4:25] company. I also spent time in the
[4:27] nonprofit sector and investment banking
[4:30] before that coming here.
[4:32] Um,
[4:33] so
[4:34] you all probably been in a K-12 where
[4:36] they turn off the like the the cake
[4:39] light, right? And then they say,
[4:40] "Imagine." And so, in that moment I
[4:43] imagined,
[4:44] you know, uh
[4:46] what it would be like to be on the
[4:48] pictures of the elevator
[4:51] in the
[4:52] D&R.
[4:53] >> [laughter]
[4:53] >> So, that was up here.
[4:58] I think that if you can make that happen
[5:00] for me,
[5:01] I'd really appreciate it.
[5:04] Yeah.
[5:05] I'm happy to be here. It's so much fun.
[5:08] Everybody has been so welcoming and easy
[5:10] to work with.
[5:11] And I'm happy to share
[5:13] the analysis that we have been working
[5:15] on with this talk too, but together.
[5:18] Thank you. Awesome. Can I tell them
[5:20] about your side hustle? This is one of
[5:22] my favorite things about you.
[5:24] So, Wynn also does stand-up comedy.
[5:27] She does stand-up comedy at Wise Guys.
[5:29] Oh my god.
[5:30] I kind of
[5:32] Um, I've been doing that since
[5:35] I would say
[5:36] before the pandemic a little bit.
[5:39] I'm not doing it for money or anything,
[5:41] just
[5:42] for fun. You have to send that out to
[5:44] everybody.
[5:47] When do we when she is going to be here?
[5:50] This is not sponsored by one of
[5:52] >> [laughter]
[5:54] >> Oh, maybe Darlene, will you just let us
[5:55] know?
[5:57] Well, I think that she she's just going
[5:59] to begin getting to know all all of our
[6:02] geologists and the scientists and I kind
[6:04] of think she's going to get a lot of
[6:05] good material. She's going to survey.
[6:10] Can we just go around and do
[6:11] introductions and Michael, do you want
[6:12] to start? I'm Michael Hanson. I work in
[6:16] engineering geology. I'm with the
[6:17] engineering company in Provo.
[6:20] I do a lot of stuff with geotech, dams,
[6:22] and bridges.
[6:27] I'd like to so join Michael just joined
[6:28] our board within the last year, I think.
[6:31] Yes. So, yeah, we're really glad to have
[6:33] him. He's a long-time industry
[6:35] professional that I have worked with and
[6:37] known about and and extensively for a
[6:40] long time in the industry.
[6:43] Yeah, I'm Becky Hammond.
[6:45] Um, I've been on the board for
[6:48] I think 5 years now.
[6:51] Um, so it's my second term. And um, I
[6:55] come from actually the federal
[6:57] government.
[6:59] I worked for
[7:01] uh
[7:02] BLM and Forest Service, mostly.
[7:06] Yeah, and and I represent scientific
[7:10] interests on the board.
[7:14] I'm Ken Black. I'm a coal geologist. I'm
[7:16] retired from the coal industry.
[7:20] And uh I've been on the board for 11
[7:23] years.
[7:25] And
[7:26] I hope we can go on a field trip. I
[7:28] know. Take your elevator. Yeah, sure.
[7:33] » [laughter]
[7:34] >> Go trip in inside the coal mine like you
[7:36] find me in the mine in 1996.
[7:40] I'm just kidding.
[7:42] I'm working really hard to make sure
[7:43] that we have electricity.
[7:47] I'm writing the graph.
[7:49] The oldest yes.
[7:51] I'm not even a basin.
[7:53] I actually came on the board.
[7:57] Same time. Been five years now I guess
[7:58] so. Goes fast.
[8:00] Yep.
[8:03] I'm I'm Leslie Richards and I've been on
[8:04] the board five years.
[8:06] And
[8:07] I represent the public at large. I'm not
[8:09] a professional geologist.
[8:11] Um but I am the CEO of the National
[8:13] nonprofit and I work with utilities
[8:15] across the United States.
[8:19] Uh should I go or do I go? Oh, she
[8:20] already knows me.
[8:22] >> [laughter]
[8:26] » So my name is Neil Berg.
[8:28] I'm a hydrogeologist right now working
[8:30] in the groundwater industry.
[8:32] I've been on the board for
[8:34] two years or so.
[8:38] Uh Richard Borden. I'm a
[8:41] ore body and environmental geologist
[8:44] specializing in metals mining.
[8:46] Uh I've been on the board for only a
[8:48] year and my areas of expertise are
[8:51] mostly in copper
[8:52] and precious metals.
[8:55] Well, thank you all for your service.
[8:59] So.
[9:00] Well, welcome.
[9:02] And you'll hear more from Wynn later in
[9:04] the presentation. We have a um financial
[9:07] date for you.
[9:09] Um we love to celebrate our employees
[9:11] who for their tenure and Tyler Knudsen,
[9:15] um who you may know, he works out of our
[9:17] Cedar City office just reached his 20
[9:19] years of service earlier this year.
[9:22] Tyler does um a great deal of geologic
[9:24] mapping and geologic hazards work in
[9:27] southern Utah for us. He's great at
[9:29] external engagement as well. He's been a
[9:32] great mentor for mappers. Um he recently
[9:35] published uh well, you'll see in our
[9:37] publications a geologic map of Bryce
[9:39] Canyon um and a Cedar Valley um
[9:43] uh hazards map that showed extensive
[9:46] land subsidence that actually has
[9:48] already been used to
[9:50] um provide some additional um water
[9:53] resources for Uintah Valley, so for
[9:56] Uintah City. And then Claire Spangenberg
[9:58] is one of our um groundwater and
[10:00] wetlands professionals has reached 5
[10:03] years as well.
[10:06] We do have a lot of new publications.
[10:08] It's been a minute since we've shared
[10:10] these with you. Um so uh phragmites in
[10:13] Utah, this is a public information
[10:16] piece. It's just a four-page brochure.
[10:18] Um but again, just kind of talking about
[10:20] the phragmites problem in Utah and how
[10:22] we do um how the state is managing that.
[10:26] Uh critical minerals PI, so another
[10:29] four-pager. That's just a summary of
[10:31] critical minerals information that we
[10:33] can now use instead of sending around a 67-page report um to people who
[10:37] are interested in knowing more about
[10:39] critical minerals in Utah.
[10:41] Wetlands mapping and loss in Utah
[10:43] Valley, um Kip Goodwin, Rebecca
[10:45] Molinari, who you may remember went out
[10:47] to contract. Um she's she's just working
[10:52] um
[10:53] few hours for us while she
[10:55] takes care of some new kids. And
[10:57] Elizabeth Stimmel, a frac sand potential
[11:00] on civil lands. Riley, that's for you.
[11:03] Um
[11:04] Great Salt Lake lithium sourcing and
[11:06] groundwater flow investigations.
[11:08] Um this is becoming more and more you
[11:11] know, we're getting more and more
[11:12] questions about lithium around the Great
[11:14] Salt Lake. And then this groundwater
[11:16] flow investigation was also done um in
[11:20] tandem with Aaron Brinkman from our
[11:21] groundwater group as well. Um and again,
[11:24] we're going to be you know, you've seen
[11:25] some news lately about groundwater
[11:27] beneath the Great Salt Lake, so we'll be
[11:30] getting towards the end of some
[11:31] investigations about that and should be
[11:32] able to provide some additional
[11:33] information. And then Tyler's geologic
[11:35] hazards of Bryce Canyon National Park
[11:38] that has a really beautiful map as well.
[11:40] So, if you're looking for a map of Bryce
[11:42] Canyon, this is a great publication to
[11:45] go to and you can get the full-size map
[11:47] printed out at our bookstore if you want
[11:49] to hang it on your wall.
[11:52] Uh geochemical data, um
[11:55] this is kind of a data dump on
[11:58] geochemistry and then a second
[12:00] geochemical database for Sid Strata
[12:03] um for the Uinta Basin um by kind of
[12:07] Ryan Gall and others at the survey. And
[12:10] then an update to the Quaternary fault database. We
[12:14] continually update our database um Q faults as we map more active faults
[12:21] around the state. So, all of these have
[12:24] the DOI links um or you can just jump on
[12:28] our website and look for the new
[12:30] publications to find those.
[12:33] Wanted to give you an update on
[12:36] legislative
[12:38] um what happened. I think the last time
[12:39] we met was in January, I believe. So, we
[12:42] were just going into the legislative
[12:43] session.
[12:44] So, I don't know if if any of you had a
[12:46] chance to listen to the presentation
[12:49] that we gave to the legislature. Went
[12:51] really well. What we we were not asking
[12:54] the legislature for any additional funds
[12:56] this year. We didn't have any building
[12:57] blocks to put forward.
[12:59] Um we felt that our financial position
[13:02] was really secure, so we didn't need to
[13:04] ask for any supplemental funding or
[13:06] anything. And given the legislature's
[13:09] really tight budget this year, it wasn't
[13:10] a great year to put any large proposals
[13:13] in front of them anyways. So, what we
[13:15] focused on, I thought I had a slide on
[13:16] this.
[13:19] Um what we focused on was
[13:22] um
[13:24] the return on investment that the
[13:25] geological survey provides. We focused
[13:28] on the work that we do all around the
[13:30] state. You know, our committee, the
[13:31] natural resources
[13:34] environment and appropriations
[13:36] committee, is made up of legislators
[13:39] that represent people from all over the
[13:41] state, both urban Utah as well as rural
[13:43] Utah. And so what we wanted them to know
[13:45] was that our work is done all over the
[13:47] state. So we had a map that showed where
[13:50] all of the all of our recent projects
[13:51] were and let them know that, you know,
[13:53] we were working in their
[13:57] and to consider us a resource for them
[14:00] and to their communities. And that was
[14:03] actually really
[14:05] There's a couple slides missing. I
[14:08] wonder if we have the most recent
[14:09] version of this presentation
[14:12] that resulted in us being written into
[14:15] three different bills during the
[14:17] session. So we presented on February 6th
[14:20] and almost immediately we were written
[14:22] into a couple bills [clears throat] that
[14:25] were presented during the legislative
[14:26] session. This kept Ben Delin really
[14:29] busy. Ben is one of our legislative
[14:31] liaisons and our public information
[14:34] officer. And so he was fielding these
[14:37] bills out to our ground water and
[14:38] wetland specialists and our critical
[14:40] mineral specialists and to try to get
[14:42] information on you know, could we
[14:44] actually execute the work that we were
[14:46] being charged to do in these bills and
[14:49] was there a fiscal note that we need to
[14:51] ask for
[14:53] in return.
[14:55] So, sorry, I'm going to back a slide
[14:57] here.
[14:59] So, we also, if you recall, requested
[15:03] that we amend our statute because our
[15:07] statute, as we reviewed it over the past
[15:09] year during strategic planning, our
[15:11] statute really didn't address the
[15:13] considerable amount of ground water and
[15:15] wetlands work that we do. And so we
[15:17] wanted to write that into our statute.
[15:20] So, these lines were added to powers of
[15:24] the survey,
[15:26] and then there was
[15:29] at the same time a request to amend our
[15:31] board makeup. Cuz you do remember, our
[15:35] board doesn't actually include a
[15:37] specific um
[15:39] board seats allocated to the groundwater
[15:42] industry and groundwater resources.
[15:44] So, we requested to replace there are
[15:47] four mineral seats. So, we requested to
[15:50] replace one of the mineral seats with a
[15:53] groundwater resources representative.
[15:57] Um, one of the the executive director of
[16:00] the Utah Mining Association did not want
[16:03] to lose a seat on our board.
[16:05] So, we negotiated with them that instead
[16:08] of trading out a mineral seat um
[16:13] and swapping that for groundwater, that
[16:16] we would instead add a new seat to this
[16:19] board. So, instead of having seven
[16:22] members, we will have eight members.
[16:26] And um, one of the things I would like
[16:28] to do, so so Neil, I think we
[16:31] straightened out what this means about
[16:33] your seat. Um, they will the there's a
[16:37] board
[16:39] How do I say this? Utah has a
[16:43] um, office of boards and commissions.
[16:45] And so, Cheryl consulted with them about
[16:48] how to
[16:49] go through this change, and they're
[16:51] going to add a groundwater seat to our
[16:55] list of seats for our board, and you are
[16:59] welcome to apply for that seat. And
[17:01] then, we'll have an open seat for a
[17:04] mineral industry representative.
[17:06] So, in in discuss
[17:08] >> in mineral? What's that?
[17:10] >> That's not rich.
[17:12] For metals. There are So, there's four mineral seats. So, can you
[17:21] Rich and Neil is sitting right now in
[17:24] one of those mineral seats. Industrial
[17:26] minerals, right?
[17:27] I don't It's not specific in the
[17:29] statute. In fact, let's go to the
[17:31] statute. It's not specific in the
[17:34] statute.
[17:36] So, um we'll just
[17:38] create a new groundwater seat, and Neil
[17:41] will apply for that seat.
[17:42] And when you
[17:44] are
[17:45] um when the governor approves that,
[17:47] which could happen very soon, Cheryl
[17:49] will probably send you an email about
[17:50] this. I think it'll happen within the
[17:52] next couple weeks. I would like them to
[17:54] take it to the governor, so just watch
[17:56] for an email.
[17:57] Um that will leave that fourth mineral
[18:00] industry seat open. So, I wanted I did
[18:04] want to talk with you guys about how to
[18:06] fill that seat and with what type of
[18:09] expertise. And if industrial minerals is
[18:12] a gap that we have, we can look at that.
[18:15] would actually [clears throat] be
[18:16] great for the survey because we do do a
[18:18] lot of work in an industrial minerals.
[18:21] Um in fact, Graymont is helping us drill
[18:24] a deep well. They're looking for some
[18:26] puzzling resources. And so, um they're
[18:30] going to drill a well and allow us to
[18:32] use that as a geothermal um temperature
[18:34] gradient point. Um so, we have great
[18:37] relationships with our industrial
[18:38] minerals um
[18:40] companies here.
[18:42] I also thought that since the executive
[18:46] director of the Utah Mining Association
[18:48] was so interested in our board makeup,
[18:51] that we could also ask him if he'd like
[18:54] to help solicit a board member from
[18:57] their membership as well. We're actually
[18:59] meeting with him for lunch today to talk
[19:01] about um Steph's uh BHP project. So, but
[19:06] I wanted to kind of take you guys'
[19:07] temperature and get your thoughts about
[19:09] that.
[19:09] >> Who is the UMA director? His name is
[19:11] Bryan Somers.
[19:13] I don't know if any of your businesses
[19:15] are part of UMA or not.
[19:18] >> I know him.
[19:21] So, so yeah.
[19:22] Um but this is this will be an open
[19:25] seat. So, we'd love for your help to
[19:29] recruit a new board member.
[19:33] It would just be minerals. He's not
[19:35] being specified.
[19:37] So, this is how the new statute actually
[19:41] this is not correct. You know, Cheryl,
[19:43] we might have to pull up a different
[19:45] presentation.
[19:46] >> the one on the shared drive. That's
[19:48] what's on there.
[19:51] That's interesting.
[19:54] Um
[19:56] Does it have Does it have uh wind slides
[19:58] in it? Mhm. Okay.
[20:01] This is strange. So, it would be four
[20:03] members. Yeah, this is Yeah, this is not
[20:06] updated. This is not correct. I had
[20:08] updated this slide.
[20:10] Well, there's a lot missing here. I
[20:12] wonder if you updated while she was in
[20:13] it and then hers overrode what you did
[20:15] and you hadn't saved it yet.
[20:16] What's that?
[20:18] There may have been an issue when you
[20:19] both you both might have it open. I
[20:20] don't think so.
[20:22] I pulled it up from shared drive, so I'm
[20:24] not sure. Yeah, no, the version that I
[20:26] completed editing yesterday afternoon
[20:28] had wind slides in it. So, um
[20:32] this is actually four. And as you'll
[20:34] notice, we also added geothermal.
[20:37] So, this is another opportunity also was
[20:40] that we could recruit someone from the
[20:42] geothermal industry. I do want to talk
[20:46] to Brian Summers about this also.
[20:49] But what are your thoughts about this?
[20:53] I think if you looked at employment and
[20:55] revenue,
[20:56] oil and gas, metals, coal,
[20:59] industrial minerals is it missing?
[21:02] board Yeah.
[21:05] I agree. Who do you want? Who do you
[21:07] think makes the composition? Well, I
[21:09] wanted to make a comment back to Ken
[21:12] about the coal industry. Um
[21:15] I was just in Tucson last week for a
[21:17] meeting of the Intermountain West
[21:19] Coalition, which is a coalition of
[21:21] Western State Geological Surveys.
[21:24] And um DOE has kind of renewed their
[21:28] focus on coal. They're going to be
[21:30] putting a lot of attention on not just coal mine exploration and
[21:36] mining, but also on the processing and
[21:39] kind of the logistics about getting coal
[21:41] to market. Um so, I'm glad you're here
[21:45] and you may see some additional funding
[21:47] coming into the coal industry. I think
[21:49] we have Riley's been a you know, great
[21:52] representative of the oil and gas
[21:53] industry. We've had Richard on you know,
[21:56] precious metals. I think industrial
[21:58] minerals is a great objective for us.
[22:02] That touches a lot of counties in the
[22:04] state. [clears throat] Yeah. Uh
[22:05] thanks, too.
[22:06] >> That's a great point is that, you know,
[22:08] it's it's everywhere, right? It's a
[22:10] necessary resource. Um and I think
[22:16] in terms of economics, it's a especially
[22:19] on the aggregates, it is a big driver
[22:22] for Utah's economy. So, um so if that's
[22:26] what you guys are thinking, I'll talk to
[22:28] Brian about that and then if you have
[22:31] candidates that you think would be great
[22:33] for our board, please help us recruit a
[22:36] new board member for this seat.
[22:39] And then they all will just put you
[22:40] through a couple exercises to move you
[22:43] over to ground water.
[22:45] That will also be an open seat. So, it's
[22:48] possible other people would apply. Um I
[22:51] don't know that we'll widely distribute
[22:52] that, though. So.
[22:56] You know, geothermal's important, too.
[23:00] You know, with all that's that's going
[23:02] on There's definitely a lot more flux in
[23:05] geo jobs.
[23:07] And geothermal right now.
[23:09] I mean they're hiring a whole bunch of
[23:10] stuff. They are. There's a lot of
[23:12] companies coming into Utah.
[23:15] Yeah.
[23:18] Verb just had their water right
[23:20] application approved. Oh, they did?
[23:24] Oh, interesting.
[23:27] Oh, we'll have to talk about that.
[23:29] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, both Verb and
[23:32] Zanskar presented at the Northwest
[23:34] meeting. So.
[23:37] Um.
[23:39] In terms of like longevity and stability
[23:42] for our board, and I can also talk to
[23:44] our our program managers about this. But
[23:47] in terms of longevity and stability for
[23:49] our board, I'm thinking industrial
[23:51] minerals right now. So.
[23:55] Is there a demand from
[23:58] that industry for
[24:00] geologic
[24:02] products? Yes. Yes. Yeah, and in fact if
[24:05] you go back to some of the publications,
[24:09] um this
[24:11] silica sand potential on SITLA lands,
[24:14] and there was another I think possible
[24:18] lands on SITLA lands. SITLA SITLA is and
[24:21] Andy's on the call, maybe he wants to
[24:24] speak more to this. But SITLA does
[24:26] promote their lands for for mineral
[24:28] development. And because they're not
[24:30] federal lands, the permitting is quite a
[24:32] bit more straightforward.
[24:34] Andy, do you want to do you have any
[24:36] comments on this?
[24:38] Yeah, I mean we depend heavily on the
[24:40] survey to do to do work like this on our
[24:42] lands, cuz we have we have a lot of land
[24:44] and we don't know everything that's on
[24:46] it. So.
[24:47] Um we regularly hire the survey to do
[24:51] reports resource reports, maybe a
[24:53] specific area. Maybe it's more general
[24:55] like the frac sand
[24:58] where they're looking at that. So, um
[24:59] it's been a a great tool for us and and
[25:01] actually we probably have 30 to 50
[25:04] reports
[25:05] that have come over the last 20 years
[25:08] um that are similar to this fracsand
[25:09] report.
[25:12] Yeah.
[25:13] And so I guess the other part is that uh
[25:16] you mentioned that there's no NEPA on
[25:19] trust land. So, a lot of companies
[25:21] um like that Graymont Pozzolan for an
[25:23] example, that's going to be on trust
[25:25] lands because they can get stuff done on
[25:27] trust lands as opposed to federal lands.
[25:33] Thank you.
[25:37] Any comments or feedback on Becky's
[25:39] comment about geothermal representation?
[25:43] I think it's definitely something worth
[25:44] considering, I guess, the Okay. the how
[25:46] the Okay. market evolves.
[25:49] Yeah.
[25:51] Okay.
[25:52] Well, let me have lunch with Brian
[25:54] Summers today. I'll mention this
[25:57] um
[25:58] and see what if he has thoughts and then
[26:00] our energy and minerals program manager
[26:02] is out of the country right now. So,
[26:04] when Mike comes back
[26:06] um and so
[26:08] Do you guys want me to circle back with
[26:09] you? um for comments
[26:12] Let me send you something in email.
[26:15] Yeah, I mean and you know that
[26:17] geothermal is often helpful with the
[26:18] ground water.
[26:21] I'm curious how a lot of this Oh, sorry.
[26:24] Well, the industry geothermal industry I was under the impression a lot of it
[26:27] like uh like it permitting is under
[26:30] civil engineering
[26:32] um
[26:33] work.
[26:34] Um that will get the initial and maybe
[26:37] the final
[26:39] permits in.
[26:40] Have I I don't have a sense. How many
[26:42] geologists do you have at work?
[26:44] critical minerals and natural minerals.
[26:46] I'm sorry. Uh and natural minerals
[26:49] That is a good question and maybe that's
[26:52] Cheryl, will you make a note about that
[26:54] question in your minutes about how many
[26:57] geologists work in the industrial
[26:59] minerals field? I'm sure Andrew Rupke
[27:02] and have some information on that.
[27:05] So,
[27:05] I know that there were, you know, um
[27:09] the our energy lead, Mike Vandenberg and
[27:12] Andrew Rupke
[27:14] um write up a like minerals in Utah
[27:18] report every year. It's usually a year
[27:21] delayed. There's a lag time because they
[27:23] have to wait kind of for the end of the
[27:25] year. It takes some time to write it up.
[27:27] So, the most recent one was published
[27:30] for the 2024 year.
[27:32] Those reports have um
[27:35] production values and tonnages, I think,
[27:39] listed in the report. So, we can look at
[27:42] the, you know, kind of the economic
[27:44] driver aspect of the industrial
[27:46] minerals. But, I know that this is the
[27:48] focus of Andrew Rupke. So, we have a We
[27:51] have a manager of industrial minerals.
[27:54] Um and Taylor Boden works under under
[27:56] Andrew.
[27:57] So, I'll talk to our minerals team about
[27:59] this. This could be You know, the energy
[28:01] and minerals team is geothermal, oil and
[28:03] gas, you know, coal, and um you know,
[28:08] precious metals and industrial minerals.
[28:15] Yeah, this was an unexpected
[28:17] kind of last minute day before the vote
[28:20] sort of shift. So, I was just glad that
[28:22] we could negotiate something that works
[28:25] for our board.
[28:26] So.
[28:27] It's likely they'd be kind of a surface
[28:29] geology expert as well. A lot of us do a
[28:31] lot of subsurface work like that
[28:33] industry.
[28:35] Geomorphologist.
[28:36] >> Yeah, that's geomorphology, quaternary
[28:38] geology, and I bring that aspect
[28:44] Okay. We do a lot of studies for people
[28:48] in it so long and then it's going to be
[28:50] done.
[28:52] And they're not just looking for sand
[28:53] and gravel.
[28:54] Like films Yeah, aggregates.
[28:57] Right. Films, road base.
[28:58] >> They want to know what's there. If they
[29:00] want to eat their life or then purchase
[29:02] the land. Okay.
[29:04] All right. That's good to know. So we
[29:06] have some we have some connections to
[29:08] the industrial minerals and we have some
[29:11] connections to the geothermal.
[29:13] Yes.
[29:13] But with water resources.
[29:18] Okay. One thing I also thought that was
[29:19] missing from DOGAMI's they're they do
[29:22] not regulate sand and gravel operations.
[29:28] Is that in the county land?
[29:29] Yeah.
[29:30] I mean, yeah, so they don't permit sand
[29:32] and gravel. They don't require
[29:34] reclamation.
[29:36] Bonding.
[29:38] Um which kind of always bugged me being
[29:40] on the board DOGAMI.
[29:43] When you look at the scale of some of
[29:44] those things.
[29:47] » [clears throat]
[29:47] >> I couldn't agree more. It's the wild west sometimes with gravel.
[29:54] Well, and they often had a lot of
[29:56] accidents. And I do have some training
[29:58] every year and sand and gravel operators have a lot
[30:02] of
[30:02] incidents. Not that we're a regulator,
[30:05] but it's just something that's sort of
[30:06] missing.
[30:09] I don't know who's who's
[30:11] Well, it's So is how does that affect
[30:14] our board? So let's kind of follow that.
[30:17] I'm trying to outline our thinking for a
[30:19] minute. Is that you know, would it be
[30:22] helpful for them to have insight? Would
[30:24] it be helpful for that industry to have
[30:26] insights into what the geological survey
[30:28] is doing? And vice versa.
[30:39] Because this This also a part of helping
[30:41] industry see, you know, how we how we
[30:44] support that industry or finding out
[30:46] what their needs are so we can make sure
[30:48] that we're
[30:49] you know, providing that. Ideally, you
[30:51] find someone with a big network
[30:53] in the industry.
[30:56] Just outside of it, I don't know.
[31:02] We're going to take our time on this, so
[31:03] no decisions is to be made right now. We
[31:06] have a our next meeting is in August.
[31:09] So, maybe we'll just let the boards and
[31:11] commissions thing get stood up
[31:15] and be thoughtful about this. So, I'll
[31:18] talk to our E&M lead and maybe
[31:21] circulate some thoughts back for you
[31:22] guys and I'll talk to Brian Summers at
[31:25] Utah Mining also.
[31:28] I would think you could get a, you know,
[31:30] somebody from like Staker Parson or
[31:31] something like that. They they have like
[31:33] a bunch of hits. I don't One of the
[31:36] bigger
[31:37] players, yeah.
[31:38] >> Yeah, I got you. Yeah, the the the book
[31:39] is on pauses. You know, I I I keep
[31:41] pretty close tabs on a couple of the
[31:43] geology programs, BYU, University of
[31:45] Utah, the University of Utah.
[31:47] I don't know any grants that went to
[31:49] industry mirrors.
[31:51] Any geology grants.
[31:54] There could have been some. I just don't
[31:55] know any. I don't know if you guys have
[31:56] heard of any.
[31:58] Just know what that community looks like
[32:00] or if there isn't much.
[32:03] Okay, so a key question to answer is,
[32:06] you know, how many geologists work in
[32:10] the industrial minerals field.
[32:12] >> Where they come from, how they get
[32:13] there, and then what they need. Yeah.
[32:16] Right. You might find the only
[32:17] geologists you can find are looking for
[32:20] really good limestone deposits or
[32:21] something like that.
[32:22] >> Yeah.
[32:23] Well, I know I used to get calls about,
[32:25] you know, can you help us find ground
[32:27] new gravel pits, right? I mean, Sunroc,
[32:29] Granite, they're all looking for new
[32:32] resources all over the place and the
[32:34] closer to
[32:36] the development sites, the better.
[32:39] So, they're out there, and then it is
[32:40] also possible that once you get that
[32:43] job, that's just a job you stay in for
[32:46] a long time. So,
[32:48] like many of our industries, maybe that
[32:51] turnover just hasn't happened yet.
[32:53] They're all going to age out of being,
[32:55] you know, gravel geologists and then say
[32:58] goodbye or something, and then there
[32:59] won't be any new ones. So, don't forget
[33:01] to train people in doing industrial
[33:03] minerals.
[33:04] That's a good question for Mike and
[33:06] Andrew.
[33:06] >> It is a good question. Yeah.
[33:08] and Andrew. So.
[33:11] Well, there's also minerals like gypsum,
[33:14] um
[33:16] which is industrial, but it's also
[33:19] locatable.
[33:21] Um but it, you know, it's not a metal.
[33:24] Uh
[33:26] there's
[33:27] geologists that go into that sort of
[33:30] mining
[33:32] there.
[33:34] Well, it's I'm thinking of So, my
[33:35] brother-in-law works for the limited
[33:37] company plant as a geologist, but he's
[33:39] all permitting
[33:41] the people that actually do the mine
[33:43] control for the lifestyle, but
[33:44] geologists
[33:45] that they're all civil engineers.
[33:48] True. That's interesting.
[33:50] Sheryl, will you make another note, and
[33:52] that is to circulate the 2024 mining
[33:56] report to the board?
[33:58] Let's send you guys that report. Take a
[33:59] look at the report because it does go
[34:01] through um both, you know, metallic and
[34:05] industrial minerals and the values and,
[34:09] you know, like industry leaders in
[34:12] production and that kind of stuff. Mike
[34:14] Vandenburg keeps pretty close tabs on
[34:17] mining in general, and I think Andrew
[34:18] Rupke keeps pretty close tabs on
[34:21] um the aggregates and other industry. We
[34:24] had a whole workshop. Andrew stood up a
[34:26] whole workshop last year where he
[34:28] brought all of the industrial minerals
[34:31] um geologists in, and people flew in
[34:33] from across the country for this
[34:35] conference. So, there were probably
[34:37] 40 people in the room, which is more
[34:40] than you would think for something like
[34:41] that. It's very popular. There was good
[34:43] science that was presented. We can
[34:45] actually get a list of the names. Maybe
[34:47] this is another follow-up, Cheryl, is a
[34:49] list of the names from Andrews
[34:51] Industrial Minerals Conference.
[34:54] At your website, you are representing
[34:57] industrial minerals right now. Okay.
[35:02] » [laughter]
[35:02] >> Well, then.
[35:04] That may That precedent might be the
[35:06] tipping
[35:08] conversation.
[35:12] Okay.
[35:14] I'm sorry. We got a hand brace on them?
[35:16] Yeah.
[35:17] Uh, just just I went to that conference
[35:20] that Andrew put on. There was a lot of
[35:21] people. There was wholesome people.
[35:23] There was some ash grove people.
[35:26] Um, Great Mom Western people.
[35:28] So, I think that's a great idea.
[35:32] Thank you.
[35:33] Great input, you guys. I think we just
[35:35] got some important data points right at
[35:37] the tail end of this conversation. All
[35:40] right, shall we move on then?
[35:42] Okay.
[35:46] See, so we that is the changes to our
[35:49] board.
[35:51] And then with that, uh, we can turn it
[35:53] over to Wynn. Do you want to come sit
[35:55] here?
[35:56] Do you want to sit or do you want to
[35:59] stand?
[36:01] Yes.
[36:08] Do you have any accounting jokes?
[36:11] >> [laughter]
[36:14] » I need to do that next time, and I will.
[36:17] Okay. So, I'll take that as a challenge.
[36:22] Okay. So, uh, put together with the
[36:25] collaboration from staff, um, together a
[36:28] financial department update for the
[36:30] survey
[36:31] year-to-date. So this the data is
[36:33] up-to-date as of
[36:35] April 10th, which is last Friday.
[36:38] Um
[36:39] So
[36:44] Let's use the arrows.
[36:49] Okay.
[36:52] So on the
[36:54] right-hand side you see that's just
[36:56] total appropriation that we have
[36:57] year-to-date available funding. And all
[37:00] that data key point I'm going to go
[37:02] through in a minute. I want to have a
[37:04] sense of where we are.
[37:06] Um so I'm not going to go over this but
[37:08] this is just [snorts] kind of
[37:11] want to give you an idea of what we're
[37:12] going to be discussing today. So we're
[37:14] going to go over the overview, go over
[37:17] the appropriation year-to-date that we
[37:19] have, where are we in terms of
[37:21] collection for funding outside and
[37:23] expenditures, and how is the outlook for
[37:26] the end of the year.
[37:28] So I'm going to start off with the
[37:31] funding architectures for the survey. So
[37:33] as you can see
[37:35] the funding source that we get are the
[37:37] general fund, which is made up of the
[37:39] beginning non-lapse at the beginning of
[37:41] the year for the general fund and the
[37:43] general fund one-time that were given.
[37:46] All of that together for the survey for
[37:48] the fiscal year 2026, which start from
[37:52] July 1st until June 30th of this year is
[37:56] 8.9 million. And so that number alone as
[37:59] you can see is not going to be
[38:01] sufficient for the survey to operate and
[38:04] deliver missions critical plan. And so
[38:08] we have supplement of restricted
[38:10] account, which is coming from our
[38:12] restricted account
[38:14] 1137. We'll go over them in detail. And
[38:16] then land exchange distribution account,
[38:19] which is 1335.
[38:21] Um those restricted account
[38:24] uh uh um the risk associated with them
[38:27] is we need to monitor that so that we
[38:29] don't over draw because of revenue
[38:31] coming in and we have to make sure that
[38:33] is balanced. The outside funding that's
[38:36] supplementing the operating budget
[38:39] coming from the federal grant component,
[38:41] the dedicated credit expendable receipt,
[38:44] as well as a transfer. So, the maximum
[38:47] authority set by the appropriation
[38:49] allowance to to maximum captures of
[38:51] revenue, but our earning or our
[38:54] collections is determined by the actual
[38:57] project that we deliver from the survey.
[39:00] And so, all of that component making up
[39:02] the operating budget for the survey,
[39:05] which is
[39:06] a fixed funding
[39:08] from the general fund and the restricted
[39:10] account of 12.23 million and outside
[39:13] funding
[39:14] um which is 6.27 million.
[39:16] [clears throat]
[39:17] Uh we'll go over both of those
[39:19] components in detail in a minute.
[39:22] On the expenditure side of things, the
[39:24] personnel service uh accounted for
[39:26] majority of the expenditures, 76% of the
[39:31] total spent. And year-to-date, we have
[39:33] spent 8.2 million. So, if you look at
[39:36] that and look at the general fund,
[39:37] obviously we need to make sure that our
[39:41] effort and outside funding collections
[39:44] is up to date as well as restricted
[39:46] account uh a close monitor. And then the
[39:49] outside funding life cycle life cycle,
[39:51] as you can see, it started with the
[39:53] program manager and the staff putting
[39:55] together the grant proposal. They plan
[39:57] for the resource
[39:58] with their team and then they work
[40:00] through the scheduling.
[40:02] And then, based on whether it deliver on
[40:04] time or late delivery, then we'll have
[40:06] no cost extensions or the fund itself
[40:10] get elapsed. Then it get to billing, and
[40:13] then we'll make sure that it actually
[40:14] get collected so that we have available
[40:17] funding to spend.
[40:18] And though so with the outside funding,
[40:21] the key risk that the survey would face
[40:24] is obviously late delivery for a project
[40:27] so that the fund would elapse or we have
[40:30] resource capacity bandwidth issues that
[40:32] then make us not able to deliver and
[40:35] then we have a no cost extension which
[40:37] would bring it to the next year's budget
[40:39] and then any delayed billing that would
[40:41] then reduce our year end budget. So that
[40:44] is kind of
[40:46] overview of the funding architectures
[40:48] you probably all know, but as the
[40:50] newbie, I just want to give myself a
[40:53] refresher. So coming in
[40:56] the the visions that um
[40:58] the finance team want to take upon is
[41:01] number one take care of our people. We
[41:03] want to make sure that we have a
[41:05] long-term funded workforce plan and not
[41:08] just relying on one component of the
[41:10] grant and that mean that we have a clear
[41:13] funding
[41:14] source understanding for FTE at the time
[41:17] of hiring and whether they are tied to a
[41:20] state funding or a outside funding
[41:23] source.
[41:24] We want to monitor the all the funding
[41:27] component closely so that's coming from
[41:30] the restricted account as well as the
[41:32] outside funding billing and collections
[41:34] to make sure that is up to date. Um and
[41:37] the last component is the forecast. We
[41:40] want to make sure that we partner with
[41:41] team and stakeholders so that we have
[41:44] the most accurate forecast for the
[41:46] survey so that operation can be smoothed
[41:48] out and that we remove all the admin
[41:51] burden
[41:52] that staff has had to endure so that
[41:54] they can focus on missions critical
[41:57] work. Um and so with that, the key
[42:00] financials activity and you will see in
[42:02] the way that the thought process in the
[42:04] next few slides show that we want to
[42:06] make sure that the funding source
[42:07] mapping is clear. We want to make sure
[42:10] that we balancing between our
[42:11] collections and taking in our status of
[42:15] our restricted account. And then if any
[42:17] issue, we want to flag that early and
[42:19] then
[42:20] again, forecasting, forecasting, right? Can I ask about
[42:25] collections? Is the collection
[42:27] Is there much friction on collections?
[42:29] Do we have a hard time with that? Cuz it
[42:30] seems like it's mostly governmental
[42:32] agencies. We'll go over that in a
[42:34] minute. We have the answer for you on
[42:36] that. Um
[42:38] And Ben can give more color on that,
[42:39] too.
[42:40] But stay tuned.
[42:43] >> [laughter]
[42:47] » So, here's is year-to-date revised
[42:50] appropriations went up
[42:53] by 1.04 million compared to the
[42:56] beginning of the year. Majority of that
[42:58] is in outside funding appropriation.
[43:01] We'll go over that in detail.
[43:03] Year-to-date expenditures is 10.7
[43:06] million right now as of again April 10,
[43:09] 2026.
[43:10] That represents 72% of available
[43:13] funding. I'm going to pause that and
[43:15] just want to give kudos to everybody on
[43:17] the survey because at 75% of the year
[43:20] has gone past, they only at 72%. So,
[43:23] that's great work for everybody
[43:26] involved. Um
[43:28] The second thing that I want to
[43:29] highlight is year-to-date the survey has
[43:32] built outside funding 3.54 million.
[43:35] That's is incredible cuz that represents
[43:37] 79% of total from 2025
[43:41] alone. And that only accounted from July
[43:45] till February, which is only a 67% of
[43:48] the year. So, they have done a great job
[43:50] billing out. Um non-lapse
[43:54] that we have authority to carry forward
[43:57] to next year's was increased to 3.65
[43:59] million, which is kudos to Russ who was
[44:02] not here today as well as Ben and Roger
[44:06] and everybody else who have put together
[44:08] that and get that approved. Um
[44:11] We already talked about the funding
[44:13] utilizations that is at 71%
[44:17] um
[44:18] I think it's 71%. So, sorry about the
[44:21] mismatch between 71 and 72% of that.
[44:24] Um and then just a note that those 3.65
[44:28] million
[44:29] we have in 10 language so that with that
[44:33] uh at the bottom that you can see how it
[44:35] can be distributed across different
[44:37] project and expenditure category.
[44:40] And that 3.65 just want to call out that
[44:43] does not represent the actual
[44:45] year-to-date. The forecast will show you
[44:48] in a little bit. That's just a maximum
[44:49] income that we have. Can I just add something
[44:53] to the slide? At this time last year in
[44:57] April, we had identified that we were
[45:01] not on track. Actually, we identified
[45:03] this in January thanks to some work that
[45:05] Ben did, that we were way behind on our
[45:08] revenue collections, like hundreds and
[45:11] hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[45:13] Meaning that people weren't focused on
[45:16] executing their grant commitments. They
[45:19] were just working on whatever and not
[45:21] putting
[45:23] grant codes on their timesheets
[45:27] whether they were working on them or
[45:28] not. So, we weren't able to collect that
[45:30] revenue.
[45:32] And it was one of the reasons why we
[45:33] were running such a significant deficit
[45:35] last year. So, starting in February,
[45:39] early February, and remember that some
[45:41] of this was triggered triggered by
[45:42] digging into our financials because of
[45:44] the federal freeze, right? So, we were
[45:47] like, well,
[45:48] how far along are we on some of these
[45:50] grants? How much do we have at risk? And
[45:53] Ben identified that people actually
[45:56] there were a lot of people not charging
[45:57] to those grants. And so, we had a
[45:59] conversation with staff about setting
[46:02] aside other projects,
[46:04] focusing on their grant work, making
[46:06] sure those codes were on their
[46:08] timesheet. This is such a simple thing
[46:09] if you've been in consulting, you know,
[46:11] you live and die by this, right? Um and
[46:14] also for those supervisors that are
[46:15] signing those timesheets to make sure
[46:17] that their staff are actually putting
[46:19] those cons codes on there. That's their
[46:20] job. And so, I think part of this was
[46:23] having some newer supervisors, not
[46:25] really training. I think just a loss of
[46:26] focus in general at the survey, but it
[46:29] was really one conversation. And Ben
[46:32] also was able to go back and back charge
[46:35] some of our grants and recover some some
[46:37] of those um charges. So, by April, we
[46:42] were moving, you know, in the right
[46:45] direction. By the time we closed out in
[46:48] July, or you know, June 30th, we had
[46:51] basically um
[46:53] overcome that revenue loss. So, this is
[46:56] a big pivot and knowing that we're, you
[46:59] know, three-quarters of the way through
[47:01] the year, we're at 70-plus percent of
[47:04] our revenue capture,
[47:06] we're right on track and that is where
[47:09] we want to be. And so, yeah, our staff
[47:11] did a great job. Ben did a great job
[47:13] identifying this, Wednesday a great job
[47:15] actually tracking this. Um but this was
[47:18] a big turnaround for the survey and I
[47:21] think has put us on track for success,
[47:23] you know, now and going forward. So.
[47:27] Thank you for that. And then if I can
[47:29] just say one more thing about this carry
[47:30] forward. Our carry forward in the past
[47:32] was about 2.1 million. But because we
[47:35] have a multi-million dollar building
[47:37] block,
[47:39] with that, that's a three about a
[47:40] three-year building block, right? That
[47:42] 1.75 million. So, we need to be able to
[47:45] take that, you know, large amount of
[47:48] funds into subsequent years with us or
[47:52] we would we have a lapsing ceiling. It
[47:55] was 2.1 million. And so, if we had, you
[47:58] know, 3.2 million because we're carrying
[48:00] over additional building block funds,
[48:03] we would those funds would be swept and
[48:05] we would lose them. So, what Russ and
[48:07] Ben and our finance director at DNR,
[48:10] Roger Lewis, did was ask our legislative
[48:13] fiscal analyst to raise that
[48:15] appropriation ceiling so we can take
[48:17] more funds with us into subsequent
[48:19] years. So, we have a Ruby lapsing
[48:22] ceiling now of 3.65 million.
[48:26] That just kind of provides us with some
[48:27] additional background on how important
[48:29] those numbers are for us and the thought
[48:33] that forethought that it requires to
[48:35] kind of think through that and look
[48:36] ahead so that we protect those funds
[48:40] Thank you.
[48:41] Any other questions before I move on to
[48:43] the next?
[48:46] Okay, so here's our appropriations that
[48:48] after revisions, um so we have the fixed
[48:52] funding went down by 91
[48:55] what, 7K? Represent that about 0.7% as
[48:58] you can see, general fund one-time was
[49:00] cut by down by 115,700
[49:05] and then restricted account we have more
[49:08] authority to to draw from those. Uh on
[49:11] the outside funding
[49:13] the appropriation for federal fund
[49:15] one-time dedicated credit as well
[49:17] expendable uh receipt and transfer all
[49:20] went up and that work is critical
[49:23] because you'll see in a minute in our
[49:25] forecast that we needed that room so
[49:28] that we can collect more uh for this
[49:30] year.
[49:33] Okay, so here's the fixed fund um
[49:36] restricted
[49:38] fund 11137
[49:40] that we talked about. So, these the
[49:42] makeup of these require four different
[49:45] revenue lines as you can see here and
[49:47] we'll go over the that performing in
[49:50] detail in the next slide, but I just
[49:51] want to call out that of those makeup of
[49:55] those four revenue line um
[49:57] for
[49:59] First of all, the uh
[50:01] my occupation tax the mineral, we get a
[50:04] deposit of revenue on a quarterly basis,
[50:07] and the year-to-date revenue from that
[50:10] was 200 uh 13 230 13k, and in average uh
[50:16] each quarter about 71 um
[50:20] 71k. For the
[50:22] next one, uh oil and gas, um also on a
[50:26] quarterly basis, we get a deposit into
[50:29] the restricted account, and year-to-date
[50:33] we have collected 958k,
[50:36] and then in average each quarter the
[50:38] check is about 319k.
[50:41] So, for both of those, we have one more
[50:43] quarter that we will be able to collect
[50:45] from those two account, and then for
[50:48] that last uh section, that's the
[50:51] projections of how much we think that
[50:52] we'll be able to to bring in uh
[50:56] for last quarter, basically just using
[50:58] the average of the last three quarter,
[51:01] and then we also get interest income,
[51:03] and then the mineral lease that we have
[51:05] a 2.25%.
[51:08] So, that deposit on a monthly basis, and
[51:11] so far we have received all 9 month, and
[51:14] we have 3 month left. The projections
[51:16] showing the 752 showing the Q4 remaining
[51:20] revenue. And so, with that projections,
[51:23] we believe that at the end of the year
[51:25] um July at the end of um June 30th, the
[51:29] balance will be 633
[51:32] 273
[51:35] uh for that particular.
[51:38] Can I just ask for clarification on
[51:40] that? So, that's with those Q4
[51:43] withdrawals into our operating budget,
[51:45] we'll still have 633,000
[51:47] left in our restricted account.
[51:50] >> All right.
[51:51] We have a carryover in our restricted
[51:53] account. That's like having money in our
[51:55] savings account. So, that's
[51:59] Yeah, and and this the the significant
[52:01] of this number, so
[52:03] after projecting that we're going to
[52:05] take out
[52:07] our appropriation amount, which is
[52:08] 811,750
[52:11] for Q4, we projected to have this
[52:14] at the end of the fiscal year, which is
[52:16] July Sorry, June 30th. And then the next
[52:20] time we'll have to draw out will be
[52:22] October of 2026. And so, with that,
[52:26] we'll see 600k and another 600k, making
[52:30] that 1.2 million. So, the next one that
[52:33] we draw out, which will be in October,
[52:36] we'll have sufficient to draw. So,
[52:37] that's why we want to keep track closely
[52:40] track of that.
[52:42] I have a question. Yeah. So, is the tax
[52:44] rate on oil and gas significantly more
[52:46] than minerals? I'll show you that here
[52:48] in a minute.
[52:49] >> [laughter]
[52:50] >> I won't hold it against you, Rich, but
[52:53] That's that's We need to decide apples
[52:55] and oranges with the tax.
[52:58] Yeah, so to to answer your questions,
[53:00] uh oil and gas making up 45% of this
[53:04] particular account, and then the mineral
[53:07] 10%. So, yes, uh oil and gas tax is a
[53:10] lot more. That's helpful to see that, you know, on
[53:13] a monthly and quarterly basis to see it
[53:16] mapped out like that. That's income into
[53:18] the account, right?
[53:20] >> Yeah, so this is all incoming to the
[53:21] account. As I mentioned earlier, these
[53:24] are the restricted account that have
[53:26] four component making up. So, the four
[53:29] These first two, as you can see, they
[53:31] deposit on a quarterly basis, but the
[53:34] federal mineral lease and the interest
[53:36] income, that come in on a monthly basis.
[53:40] And then you can see, there's a dip, a
[53:41] big dip
[53:43] in October
[53:45] where it was a lot less. Yeah, we're
[53:48] still not sure why.
[53:51] So we're not really sure why that should
[53:52] that payment was under $7,000. Sometimes
[53:55] it's just really low and then they make
[53:57] it up. You can see the spike
[54:03] I we couldn't we couldn't figure that
[54:04] one out. But they made up for it in the
[54:07] next payment. If you see the payment
[54:09] after that spiked up to 227,000.
[54:12] Does that cause you having to be lumpy
[54:14] like that or No, because we would It
[54:16] averages out. Because appropriation we
[54:19] can draw up to the appropriation
[54:20] authority, but we still want to make
[54:21] sure that the balance is there for the
[54:23] next time
[54:24] Yeah, we don't want to get a bunch of
[54:25] deficits. And and that gets pushed into
[54:27] our
[54:28] funds into our operating budget get
[54:30] pushed in quarterly, not monthly. So the
[54:33] money goes into the restricted account
[54:36] quarterly or monthly depending on which
[54:37] fund it's coming from, but then into our
[54:40] operating budget it only happens once a
[54:42] quarter.
[54:43] >> So if there's a reporting lag
[54:45] before your
[54:46] >> It just washes out. It could it could
[54:47] yeah.
[54:50] What we are watching though is we're
[54:52] watching our lapsing ceiling. And so if we're close to that lapsing ceiling
[54:57] like subtracting all of our the stuff we
[55:00] have to carry over like building blocks
[55:01] and transfer funds and any dedicated
[55:03] credits and all that. If we're close to
[55:04] that lapsing ceiling, we can actually
[55:07] request to hold back funds for that last
[55:11] quarterly payment. And so we're watching
[55:13] this really carefully because instead of
[55:15] Do you want to go back a slide? Instead
[55:18] of taking um that 811 800 752,000 or Is
[55:24] it 811,000? Instead of taking that whole
[55:27] amount out, we can just request like
[55:29] 400,000 from it. And then we just save
[55:32] that extra, you know, three or four
[55:35] hundred thousand dollars in that
[55:36] restricted account doesn't go anywhere,
[55:38] that's our bank account, we can keep it
[55:40] there.
[55:41] So, and given some anticipated projects
[55:44] that are going to fund in July, like
[55:46] explore, we may want to just hold back
[55:49] on some funds. So, that's where we'll
[55:51] kind of do some work to talk about
[55:52] optimizing our restricted account to to
[55:55] really allow us to build up a reserve in
[55:57] that restricted account.
[56:01] Absolutely.
[56:04] So, here's outside funding year-by-year
[56:08] trend. As you can see, every year the
[56:11] survey managed to collect more than
[56:15] the prior year.
[56:16] Uh as of last year's, the total was 4.45
[56:20] million.
[56:21] Year-to-date in 2026, we have collected
[56:24] 2.93 million, and that on the right
[56:27] side, as you can see,
[56:29] uh where the fund outside funding coming
[56:32] from. So, energy mineral at 1.2 million
[56:36] from outside funding represent 43% of
[56:39] that 2.93
[56:41] million. And then the ground water, um
[56:44] the next, which is the represent 22%. I
[56:48] do want to call out that this does not
[56:50] This just represent the opportunity
[56:53] where the outside funding for this
[56:54] group. I do not want to say that someone
[56:57] is a leadership in like leader in any
[56:59] category.
[57:00] Uh so.
[57:02] You said transfers. What do transfers
[57:04] mean in this case? It's revenue from
[57:05] another state agency. So, either within
[57:08] the DNR
[57:09] >> transferring. Exactly.
[57:11] You know, we have really built up a lot
[57:14] of work with our
[57:17] um our sister agencies. So, you can see
[57:19] the increase in that
[57:21] um
[57:22] uh
[57:23] gray. Well, actually, it's not that big
[57:25] of an increase, but you know, it's
[57:27] SITLA, Forestry, Fire, and State Lands,
[57:30] which manages sovereign lands,
[57:32] particularly the Great Salt Lake
[57:34] um in the Great Salt Lake Commission's
[57:36] office. Um they have tech team grants
[57:39] that we are, you know, repeatedly
[57:41] awarded to do work on everything from
[57:42] Phragmites to wetlands work.
[57:45] Um so Forestry, Fire, and State Lands,
[57:46] Division of Water Rights request that we
[57:49] do groundwater basin studies and
[57:52] groundwater basin budgets. So, they pay
[57:54] us for those studies. So, we're really
[57:56] doing a lot of work, you know, in
[57:58] partnership with our sister agencies.
[58:00] And And that's That's a great
[58:02] um way for the survey to really help the
[58:05] state make great decisions about work is when our sister agencies request work
[58:10] from us. So, it's not all pursuing
[58:13] federal grants to do whatever. There A
[58:14] lot of it is internal work that we do on
[58:17] behalf of the state of Utah.
[58:18] Did you say that work's increasing or
[58:20] kind of stable? Definitely. It seems
[58:22] like it's increasing on the It's
[58:23] increasing.
[58:25] Yeah. Yeah, right? If you watch who
[58:26] we're doing proposals for.
[58:28] And you know, remember that the Great
[58:30] Salt Lake
[58:31] um Commission was given $50 million to
[58:33] do studies on how to, you know, address,
[58:36] you know, declines in habitat management
[58:38] of the Great Salt Lake. And And we've
[58:40] benefited from that large award.
[58:44] And you've been growing rapidly. Is that
[58:47] Like if you project out three or four
[58:50] years, you're going to
[58:52] target that level of growth or I I think
[58:54] that some of this growth is inflated by
[58:56] a couple of programs where we have large
[58:58] contracts with a service provider and we
[59:00] have a million dollars plus of services
[59:03] being paid to that contractor. So, it
[59:04] inflates the revenue
[59:06] a bit because we'll get reimbursed for
[59:08] it. We are seeing a
[59:10] pretty strong year-over-year
[59:12] increasing trend, but I don't think
[59:14] we're going to necessarily see it
[59:16] continue forever as we have some of
[59:17] these contracts kind of
[59:19] fall off and end. I think it'll
[59:20] stabilize.
[59:22] That said, I do think the next couple of
[59:24] years will be record revenue years for
[59:25] UGS.
[59:27] So, really pass through money. A A large
[59:29] portion of it is. This year, I think we
[59:31] >> example? Yeah, so we have a program this
[59:34] year funded by the Division of Forestry,
[59:36] Fire, and State Lands, where we're
[59:38] flying planes over the Great Salt Lake
[59:40] and using lidar to map the the lake bed.
[59:44] Uh for that contract, I believe 1.4
[59:47] million of the 1.8 million of the
[59:49] project is passed through to the
[59:52] aerospace company that's flying over the
[59:53] lake. So, 1.4 million of revenue split
[59:57] between this year and last year is is
[59:58] really just passed through to that that
[1:00:00] aerospace group.
[1:00:04] And then, you know, some of it's also
[1:00:06] affected by a match that this that we
[1:00:09] put in for like state match has a 50%
[1:00:11] match, right? Um other programs, Earth
[1:00:14] MRI has about a 20% match, right? So, these are the
[1:00:21] uh federal and, you know, state
[1:00:23] collections for those programs, but we
[1:00:25] have some skin in the game on some of
[1:00:27] those also. So, that's not total funding
[1:00:30] spent on grants because some of it comes
[1:00:31] from us.
[1:00:33] Yeah, and I think to answer Riley's
[1:00:35] question earlier about the friction
[1:00:37] between billed and collected, as you can
[1:00:39] see, year to date we billed 3.54
[1:00:41] million, we collect of that 3.54
[1:00:44] million, collect 2.93. So, that we all
[1:00:48] from our lands team will all making sure
[1:00:50] that that get
[1:00:51] collected and so that we never pay. I
[1:00:53] mean,
[1:00:54] It's that cheaper. There's really not
[1:00:55] too much friction with collections. The
[1:00:57] universities are often slow to pay us.
[1:00:59] Some of our sister agencies are a little
[1:01:00] bit slow to pay us, but they do pay.
[1:01:02] It's just whether it's in monthly
[1:01:04] request or 3 months later.
[1:01:06] >> living in the consulting world.
[1:01:08] >> [laughter]
[1:01:08] >> So,
[1:01:09] I like to bill on a big one.
[1:01:10] >> Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Is there
[1:01:13] any gaming by some of these other groups
[1:01:15] across our fiscal year?
[1:01:16] >> No.
[1:01:17] Okay. I think it's organizational
[1:01:20] uh inertia.
[1:01:21] >> [laughter]
[1:01:24] » That's what I like.
[1:01:26] It's fine.
[1:01:28] When we were in more financially dire
[1:01:29] straits, maybe it would be a concern,
[1:01:31] but we're not. So, you know, we're fine.
[1:01:33] We don't need to bark up anybody's tree.
[1:01:35] We'll get paid.
[1:01:37] Once we got through the whole federal
[1:01:38] hiccups, you know, from January through
[1:01:41] what, March of last year? That was I
[1:01:43] think the only time I felt like we were
[1:01:45] at risk of not getting paid. So, we're
[1:01:47] all back on track now.
[1:01:50] I think 720 might be a weird
[1:01:52] congressional year. I was going to say,
[1:01:53] do [clears throat] you foresee and
[1:01:54] project any marginality? I have a slide
[1:01:57] on that. If we have the right slide
[1:01:58] deck, if we don't have the right slide
[1:01:59] deck, I may just get out and pull up my
[1:02:02] slide deck, um, because I I do have some
[1:02:04] slide on
[1:02:10] All right. So, here's our forecast for
[1:02:13] Q4 in term of collections.
[1:02:16] Um,
[1:02:17] the method that we use is we take the
[1:02:21] average, which is the base of the last
[1:02:23] three quarter, and then we use that uh,
[1:02:26] for the base case scenario. And then for
[1:02:29] the low, we just take one standard
[1:02:30] deviation down. That would be our worst
[1:02:32] case scenario, and then the high we'll
[1:02:33] take one standard deviation up. And so,
[1:02:37] what we projected for Q4 would be 1.6
[1:02:40] million in term of collections, and that
[1:02:42] bring us to 4. 52 for the full years.
[1:02:46] Um, we believe that it's mostly going to
[1:02:48] be on the high and high plus, because
[1:02:52] typically Q4 is when we bill the most,
[1:02:54] and we have an extra
[1:02:55] um, fiscal month or fiscal fiscal period
[1:02:59] that we get to to bill. So, we we
[1:03:01] believe that that will be
[1:03:02] Yeah, we're a 13-month fiscal accounting
[1:03:05] calendar.
[1:03:06] Okay.
[1:03:07] >> Yeah, so we think it's going to be even
[1:03:09] higher than 4.
[1:03:10] 52. I think Ben said it may be 5 million
[1:03:13] shy of 5 million this year that we'll be
[1:03:15] able to collect. So, good thing for the
[1:03:18] survey.
[1:03:19] Um
[1:03:21] Here's our expenditures. We're touching
[1:03:23] on 10.7 million year-to-date that's been
[1:03:26] and personnel, as you can see, is the
[1:03:29] highest cost driver for the survey.
[1:03:32] Um
[1:03:33] and then we'll
[1:03:35] You see that um the same for forecast,
[1:03:38] we put the low would be the average of
[1:03:41] the last 9 months.
[1:03:43] For the base case scenario, we'll take
[1:03:45] average of the last quarter, so January,
[1:03:48] February, March. And then for the high
[1:03:50] case, we'll take the average of the last
[1:03:52] 3 months and one highest month. And so,
[1:03:54] with that in the
[1:03:57] uh expenditures for Q4, we'll see that
[1:03:59] ranging from 3.4 to 4.6 million and that
[1:04:04] will put the survey between um end of
[1:04:07] year for the full years, 3.9
[1:04:11] to uh 15 million on the high case. So,
[1:04:15] with that, we take the base um kind of
[1:04:17] the average of those
[1:04:19] all three to give us um oops, a forecast
[1:04:23] of uh where we're going to end for this
[1:04:25] year.
[1:04:27] Any questions before I move on to the
[1:04:28] next one? Okay.
[1:04:31] Um so, here's our workforce update. Um
[1:04:34] the current head count that we have is
[1:04:35] 87.
[1:04:36] 90 is budgeted, potentially could be 91.
[1:04:40] Um and then we'll compare to the same
[1:04:44] time last year's of 95, that's a change
[1:04:46] of
[1:04:47] uh five um head count.
[1:04:49] Personnel, we already mentioned that it
[1:04:52] represents 76% of the survey, so that is
[1:04:56] a very stable base that we can use to
[1:04:58] forecast.
[1:05:00] Not for not only for this year, but
[1:05:02] upcoming years. And then, as you can see
[1:05:04] right now, there are three positions
[1:05:06] that we are currently recruiting.
[1:05:07] Uh um
[1:05:11] You know, I predict that mapping
[1:05:13] position gets a record number of
[1:05:15] applicants. I think we're going to get
[1:05:16] some real Could you go back to that
[1:05:17] slide, please?
[1:05:18] >> be the sexiest job in America for
[1:05:20] geologists. It's going to be It's going
[1:05:22] to be pretty awesome. So, keep in mind
[1:05:24] that we're hiring. And so, if you know, people who are qualified,
[1:05:29] please direct them to the state's
[1:05:32] careers page, where they can find
[1:05:34] information about these um
[1:05:36] opportunities. These are great
[1:05:38] opportunities. The you know, the first
[1:05:41] two are at the project geologist, so
[1:05:43] that's a mid-level That's a mid-level of
[1:05:45] expertise.
[1:05:47] Um and then the wetlands ecologist is
[1:05:49] kind of a lower to mid-level um hire, as
[1:05:52] well.
[1:05:53] >> minerals one's been open for 3 weeks
[1:05:55] now, right?
[1:05:56] So, you got good applicants on it? Two
[1:05:58] weeks
[1:05:59] Yeah. How many applicants you got?
[1:06:01] I'm not sure. Mike is the only one who
[1:06:03] has visibility into that. Oh, okay. He's
[1:06:05] gallivanting internationally.
[1:06:09] Right?
[1:06:11] Emma, did you have a comment? I was just
[1:06:12] going to say when we hired for that
[1:06:14] wetlands position, we had 186
[1:06:16] applicants for that job.
[1:06:19] Well, in Eugene's position, we had like
[1:06:21] 120.
[1:06:24] So, you know, we could pick the the best
[1:06:26] PhD because we had so many options.
[1:06:29] This is a great survey to come and work
[1:06:32] for. So, I expect we'll have really
[1:06:34] awesome candidates. I'm excited. I'm
[1:06:37] excited for this. I'm also just excited
[1:06:40] and really happy that we had, you know,
[1:06:43] we lost, I think, nine people last year.
[1:06:46] Um you know, two people were riffed, and
[1:06:49] we had a bunch of people go to grad
[1:06:50] school. We really needed to get our head
[1:06:52] count down and stabilize our finances.
[1:06:55] And I'm really thoughtful and careful
[1:06:58] about hiring.
[1:06:59] It's being able to sit on in on these
[1:07:01] proposal kickoffs has really showed us
[1:07:04] where we have um longevity in funding
[1:07:08] and bandwidth issues with our people
[1:07:10] that are managing those programs and
[1:07:12] they need they need help, right? So,
[1:07:14] these are very selective hires. We've
[1:07:17] been really thoughtful about this, but
[1:07:19] it's great to be able to expand our
[1:07:21] team. These are also except for the
[1:07:22] mapper, I think these are term limited
[1:07:24] hires. So, you know, 1 to 2 years,
[1:07:27] assess our funding, assess their success
[1:07:30] working with us and decide whether we
[1:07:31] want to retain them or not. Um but it it
[1:07:35] feels great to be able to take those
[1:07:37] personnel savings and then go out and
[1:07:39] recruit three new scientists.
[1:07:44] Oh, we have been really thoughtful. We
[1:07:46] don't want to get ourselves back into
[1:07:47] the situation where we're ballooning up
[1:07:49] our, you know, our head count to try to
[1:07:52] address like short-term funding stuff.
[1:07:54] We're going to be continue to be really
[1:07:56] thoughtful about proposals. Is the
[1:07:58] groundwater one been open very long?
[1:08:00] Just about the same time as critical
[1:08:01] minerals, maybe a week shorter. Lot of
[1:08:04] interest in that. I'm not sure. I've
[1:08:05] been away, so I haven't checked in on
[1:08:08] how many applicants there are for these.
[1:08:10] So.
[1:08:14] Well, if I was younger, I would have
[1:08:16] applied for that.
[1:08:19] I'm going to apply for that, Matthew.
[1:08:20] [laughter]
[1:08:25] » [laughter]
[1:08:29] » I'm surprised Stephen doesn't reside in
[1:08:31] Flint.
[1:08:32] >> [laughter]
[1:08:37] » I shouldn't say that out loud.
[1:08:39] >> [laughter]
[1:08:43] » Okay, so I just want to recap. Here's
[1:08:45] our projected end of the year balance.
[1:08:48] Um
[1:08:49] So, we projected with our collections uh
[1:08:52] 4.5 million and our fixed funding 12.2,
[1:08:56] we'll have 16.76 million in our
[1:08:59] available funding. Which potentially
[1:09:01] could be higher, because outside
[1:09:03] collected could be up to 5 million,
[1:09:06] right? So, that could bring it up. And
[1:09:08] then projected in term of
[1:09:10] the expenditures,
[1:09:11] we'll look at 14.3, and so that will
[1:09:14] bring us to 2.4 million unexpended
[1:09:17] balance at the end of the year.
[1:09:19] Uh recap on the
[1:09:21] um
[1:09:23] fund restricted fund 1137 that we talked
[1:09:25] about, we projected that if we draw at
[1:09:28] the full amount, then we'll have 633K
[1:09:32] left in that restricted account. Um
[1:09:35] the more that we have in that account
[1:09:37] balance, the better. And then
[1:09:39] year-to-date, again, um
[1:09:42] as of April 10th, we have available
[1:09:44] funding of 15.1 million. 10.7 is our um
[1:09:49] year-to-date expenditures, and as of uh
[1:09:53] April 10th, we have 4.3 million in
[1:09:55] unexpended balance. And then right now,
[1:09:58] we have 692K in our restricted account.
[1:10:02] So,
[1:10:03] um
[1:10:04] all in all, we are doing great in term
[1:10:07] of overall. Um and there's some program
[1:10:10] that are underspending, overspending, so
[1:10:12] we are smoothing that out for the
[1:10:14] remaining of the year.
[1:10:16] Um
[1:10:18] and then to end, I just want to showcase
[1:10:20] some of the key risks and opportunities
[1:10:22] that we potentially see. Obviously, with
[1:10:23] the
[1:10:24] uh workforce capacity, you know, put
[1:10:26] that as a risk, but most likely we won't
[1:10:28] be able to hire that person soon,
[1:10:30] because we have a lot of
[1:10:31] uh
[1:10:32] applicant. Um
[1:10:34] I want to point out the the bookstore
[1:10:36] revenue uh had a strong total sale
[1:10:39] year-to-date. Um
[1:10:41] year-to-date, they had um growth 14%
[1:10:44] compared to last year in total sales.
[1:10:46] And then in term of their web traffic,
[1:10:48] they see uh 39% increase as well. And
[1:10:51] then one thing that I want to call out
[1:10:52] is that their mobile conversions also
[1:10:56] up. Um so, right now it's at 2.82% so
[1:10:59] they are a younger demographic
[1:11:02] engagement that interested in what the
[1:11:04] bookstore has to sell.
[1:11:06] Um we already touched on the strong
[1:11:08] fiscal positions that we're going to end
[1:11:10] up for fiscal year 2026
[1:11:13] and then um outside momentum um is a
[1:11:17] strength but as uh Darlene wanted to
[1:11:20] point out that that's also one is a risk
[1:11:22] that we want to monitor because as we
[1:11:24] scale up in outside funding source we
[1:11:27] want to make sure that we have a
[1:11:28] long-term plan for all of our staff so
[1:11:31] that we don't get caught up
[1:11:32] [clears throat] in um just the project
[1:11:35] itself, right? So that's they say fully
[1:11:37] funded How did you guys grow your
[1:11:39] bookstore? What's that? How did you grow
[1:11:41] your bookstore?
[1:11:42] >> We have a new manager and she is just on
[1:11:44] fire. She's really
[1:11:47] um she's just got great ideas about, you
[1:11:50] know, bringing in everything from new
[1:11:51] products to where she advertises. She's
[1:11:53] done the radio spots. She We gave her a
[1:11:57] green light to open a social media
[1:11:58] account for the bookstore. Um we
[1:12:01] continue to sell parks passes and state
[1:12:03] passes and we collect revenue on those
[1:12:06] passes as well. But I really have to
[1:12:08] give a lot of credit to Michelle
[1:12:09] Ricketts. She's our bookstore manager
[1:12:11] and she's done a great job. So and then
[1:12:14] we have if you remember we riffed the
[1:12:17] geologist position that was in the
[1:12:19] bookstore and hired a new bookstore
[1:12:21] clerk, Katrice Spencer. And Katrice is
[1:12:25] really the one who kind of drove the
[1:12:26] social media engagement and asked for
[1:12:28] social media account. So between the two
[1:12:30] of them, Michelle has I don't know if
[1:12:32] you've been in our bookstore recently. I
[1:12:34] really encourage you to go in. She's
[1:12:36] really cleaned it up. It's a very
[1:12:37] inviting space. She's put a little
[1:12:39] reading lounge in there now. She's just
[1:12:42] been a great asset for us and so that is
[1:12:45] really Michelle and Katrice's work
[1:12:47] reflected right there. Do you do a a
[1:12:50] tour, a tour sometime after the meeting.
[1:12:52] You know, that would be a great idea,
[1:12:55] actually. And the other cool thing we
[1:12:57] did when you walk over there is the
[1:12:59] Diablo ceratops skull that used to be
[1:13:02] here. We built an exhibit for it and
[1:13:04] moved it to the DNR lobby. So, it just
[1:13:07] looks really great over there. So,
[1:13:10] I'll just say I believe board members
[1:13:12] get a 20% discount at the bookstore.
[1:13:15] I bought a lot of books and you guys
[1:13:17] have never mentioned that.
[1:13:18] >> [laughter]
[1:13:26] » That's right. They're like, you know,
[1:13:28] oil and gas. Oil and gas, that guy.
[1:13:33] I I'm sure they don't.
[1:13:36] I can't answer that, but go ahead and
[1:13:38] shop there a minute. So, she's really
[1:13:39] brought in a lot of new titles. There's
[1:13:41] like staff picks over there. You guys
[1:13:43] could You guys can ask her for a card
[1:13:45] and put like a UGS board member pick for
[1:13:47] a book that you like. I have a book
[1:13:49] Geology of Utah Parks. That is a
[1:13:51] fabulous
[1:13:52] >> That's a really beautiful
[1:13:53] publication. That's a UGS publication.
[1:13:56] It's hard bound and it has full page
[1:14:00] reproductions of maps. It's really
[1:14:02] beautiful publication. So, it's also
[1:14:04] $52, so 20% off of that book is a
[1:14:08] chocolate chip cookie.
[1:14:10] You can spend it on buying some other
[1:14:11] books. I can confirm I got the discount
[1:14:14] after last time. Oh, good.
[1:14:20] Michelle I can treat you a little bit
[1:14:21] more sexy.
[1:14:28] I think I've only gotten a 10% discount.
[1:14:30] So,
[1:14:38] Maybe I had the number wrong then.
[1:14:41] That might be 10%.
[1:14:44] But whatever Michelle wants to give you.
[1:14:47] It's kind of loosey-goosey with
[1:14:49] discounts. can tell. And then you I was
[1:14:51] going to say we do have cards
[1:14:53] for the bookstore and they have little
[1:14:54] QR codes so that you you'll get a 10%
[1:14:56] discount at least if you take one of
[1:14:58] those cards.
[1:14:59] >> Do you have them here? Yeah, they're
[1:15:00] just out here on the Yeah, will you grab
[1:15:01] a stack? We're going to take a break and
[1:15:02] I'll go get them. Let's see if we can
[1:15:03] pass them out in a break. You know, and
[1:15:05] every time we do a like a course shop or
[1:15:07] something like that, um and we we always
[1:15:09] tell everybody and Evan's good to hand
[1:15:11] out the cards. People go and they spend.
[1:15:14] It's hard not to love the bookstore.
[1:15:15] It's hard not to walk in there and find
[1:15:17] something.
[1:15:18] Um and then Michelle and Ketry have also
[1:15:21] been going out to conferences and stuff
[1:15:23] like that. Like I think Ketry will be at
[1:15:26] Geology Rocks this weekend in Green
[1:15:28] River. Yeah, that was a table and yeah,
[1:15:30] I believe yeah, Green River Rocks. Yeah.
[1:15:32] And it sounds like it was a very
[1:15:33] successful event for them.
[1:15:34] >> Yeah. So, they're they're out and about
[1:15:37] more with a U with a Utah Geological
[1:15:40] Survey table and, you know,
[1:15:43] just doing great, yeah. So. Yeah, and um
[1:15:46] if you look up our Google review, 4.9.
[1:15:49] Wow. Yeah, that's a really
[1:15:52] A lot higher than the liquor store down
[1:15:54] there.
[1:15:56] But she has a Thank you. Did you really
[1:15:58] get all of those?
[1:16:00] There's an online store now. Yes,
[1:16:01] there's been an online store for the
[1:16:03] last few years. Um but we have a
[1:16:05] shocking number of in-person sales.
[1:16:08] They say brick and mortar retail's dead.
[1:16:10] I think the bookstore is a pretty good
[1:16:11] counterpoint to that.
[1:16:14] Let's tell you how the It's a great
[1:16:15] bookstore to browse in. So, we really
[1:16:17] should just take a tour of that one time
[1:16:20] and so we can meet. So, should we meet
[1:16:21] Michelle and Ketry?
[1:16:22] >> great idea. Yeah, so Cheryl, if you're
[1:16:24] taking notes, a bookstore tour for next
[1:16:26] time. Okay.
[1:16:28] Is the bookstore a profit center?
[1:16:31] It's close. So, it's probably close. I
[1:16:34] think last year we were running about a
[1:16:37] $80,000
[1:16:39] deficit and I'm guessing this year we're
[1:16:40] closer to 10. I think 20. 20? 20,000
[1:16:44] probably. Historically, it's run between
[1:16:46] 80 and 120,000 dollar deficit. 4 years
[1:16:48] ago, we were 100. We were 100. Yeah,
[1:16:50] there was serious discussions like, can
[1:16:52] we do this long-term? Yeah.
[1:16:54] So, good job. We were getting questions
[1:16:56] from DNR leadership about whether we
[1:16:58] wanted to consider closing the
[1:17:00] bookstore. Um, so we just needed to make
[1:17:02] some really necessary changes. So, and
[1:17:05] then just got really lucky with
[1:17:07] Michelle. She's been a great driver.
[1:17:10] And actually, we ran out of calendars
[1:17:12] this year. We scaled back on our
[1:17:13] calendar printing
[1:17:17] And then this year, we like totally ran
[1:17:19] out. So, we'll kind of split the
[1:17:21] difference next year. Um, because
[1:17:23] Michelle's like, we could have sold
[1:17:25] another 300 calendars. So,
[1:17:28] There's people in my office that jealous
[1:17:30] because I Because you have one?
[1:17:33] I wish we had more to give you. So, that
[1:17:35] was on me cuz I was like, let's just
[1:17:37] make a thousand less. And then maybe
[1:17:39] that was too much of a step back. And we
[1:17:42] even raised the price a dollar. So, I
[1:17:43] think we're going to raise the price
[1:17:44] again and print another 500. We'll see.
[1:17:47] Like 10 dollars minimum. I think like
[1:17:48] 9.95. Yeah, they're very very cheap.
[1:17:50] That's what I'm talking about.
[1:17:51] And if you buy them in bulk, we give a
[1:17:53] discount on that. So, um, there are
[1:17:56] companies that buy them in bulk to give
[1:17:58] to employees. And we give a bunch away.
[1:18:00] Like we mail a bunch out. Well, I think
[1:18:03] 3 years ago, you invited the board
[1:18:04] members to submit pictures. And I just
[1:18:06] want to be Becky.
[1:18:08] That's my goal.
[1:18:10] >> [laughter]
[1:18:10] >> Did you Did you submit any photos when
[1:18:12] they did 3 years ago? No. No, I haven't
[1:18:15] yet, but I'm going to this year. Well,
[1:18:17] >> [laughter]
[1:18:18] >> they didn't invite us last year to
[1:18:20] submit, so
[1:18:21] It is a high bar. I just wanted you to
[1:18:24] know.
[1:18:25] It's a pretty high bar.
[1:18:26] So, do your best.
[1:18:29] No promises and no special favors
[1:18:30] because you're my friend.
[1:18:32] Well, so far, no board members got one
[1:18:34] in, so Evan Kirby's like, I haven't had
[1:18:36] a picture in that current calendar for
[1:18:38] ages, Kevin. I was going to say there
[1:18:39] are a couple back here on the giveaway
[1:18:42] for like some of the students and stuff.
[1:18:45] You want one, there's There's a couple
[1:18:47] >> Those might disappear.
[1:18:49] I thought those were older ones, like
[1:18:52] There's a couple of the old last year's,
[1:18:54] but there's a couple of the 25. Oh, the
[1:18:57] First first service.
[1:19:00] Okay, back to win. I I'm so sorry.
[1:19:03] That's English [laughter] class.
[1:19:04] All I have to present. So, I just want
[1:19:07] to sum it up. Year to date, 72, 71%
[1:19:11] actually at 75% elapse, so we are on
[1:19:14] track. And then we are projected to end
[1:19:17] the year at 2.4 million in term of end
[1:19:20] of the year balance.
[1:19:22] Um, and then our outside funding
[1:19:25] is on target, so we are doing great.
[1:19:31] Are any of your outside funding projects
[1:19:34] multi-year? Yes. Do you ever have a a
[1:19:37] projection where you can project like
[1:19:39] three years out, one year out? We're very much starting to try and put
[1:19:43] that long sightedness into financial
[1:19:45] planning. Russ added this last year for
[1:19:47] the first time in as far as we can tell
[1:19:49] the survey's history. And now we have a
[1:19:51] really motivated younger uh group of
[1:19:54] staff that are starting to apply out for
[1:19:55] grants. We're submitting some
[1:19:57] applications tomorrow for grants that go
[1:19:58] through 2031, which doesn't even feel
[1:20:00] like it's a real date. But there's very
[1:20:02] much a a long sided look of how we can
[1:20:05] ensure sustainable funding for the
[1:20:07] survey and the future. I think that's
[1:20:08] really and it's nice it was nice to see
[1:20:11] too is a forecasted multi multi-year um
[1:20:15] contracts where you're getting to add in
[1:20:17] what your projected revenue would be. We
[1:20:19] can't. Right, we can start and and
[1:20:21] that's a really key thing about
[1:20:23] capacity, right? And so as we started to
[1:20:26] do as we started to request that our
[1:20:28] teams bring us proposals, they're doing
[1:20:31] that mapping out exercises starting to
[1:20:33] realize what their capacity is or isn't.
[1:20:36] Um
[1:20:37] and that's allowed again as we pointed
[1:20:39] out that's allowed us to make the
[1:20:41] decision to recruit some additional
[1:20:43] help. I've also asked them to just slow
[1:20:46] down grants and be really thoughtful.
[1:20:50] Too much? Yeah. And and what we're
[1:20:52] hearing what I the feedback I get is
[1:20:55] that I'm really the first director that
[1:20:57] hasn't been like go get all the money
[1:20:58] you can. Right? I'm like we
[1:21:02] you know, what did Steve Jobs say about
[1:21:04] Apple? We say no to good ideas every
[1:21:07] day. Right? We want to be strategic. We
[1:21:09] want to be thoughtful about the work we
[1:21:11] do. We'll be building these into our
[1:21:13] strategic plan as we ask our teams to
[1:21:16] really look at their goals and what they
[1:21:18] want to accomplish and what are the
[1:21:19] critical questions that we need to
[1:21:20] answer for the state. Right? Those are
[1:21:23] the types of grants that we want to go
[1:21:27] We've gotten a lot better at chasing
[1:21:28] smart money, money that doesn't cost as
[1:21:30] much and that last for a couple of
[1:21:33] years. So, I don't think we're in a very strong position at this point. That
[1:21:36] will help you with your long-term
[1:21:38] staffing plan.
[1:21:38] >> It will help us with our long-term
[1:21:40] staffing plan. Yeah, and continuity
[1:21:42] because I love that when built this into
[1:21:44] her presentation it was one of her first
[1:21:46] things. We want to take care of the
[1:21:48] people that we have here. Yeah.
[1:21:49] >> Yeah.
[1:21:50] Make sure that they're not over
[1:21:51] committed. Um make sure that they have
[1:21:53] the support they need and that you know,
[1:21:55] their positions have longevity also.
[1:21:57] That's just gives everybody job
[1:21:59] security. It's better for everybody.
[1:22:02] So.
[1:22:03] Who does our gorgeous slides? Those are
[1:22:04] big slides. Thank you. We appreciate
[1:22:06] that.
[1:22:07] It's a lot of work to get slides that
[1:22:09] Is the funding around the Great Salt
[1:22:11] Lake is that stable for several years in the
[1:22:15] future?
[1:22:16] >> I'm sure it will be with the commitment
[1:22:18] to have the lake restored by 2034.
[1:22:21] I believe that that financial backup
[1:22:25] will be there. I mean Trump has even
[1:22:27] written a billion dollars for the Great
[1:22:29] Salt Lake into his budget that he gave
[1:22:31] to Congress. We'll see whether that
[1:22:33] actually gets funded or not. That would
[1:22:36] likely go through Bureau of Rec, EPA,
[1:22:40] and one other
[1:22:43] um
[1:22:43] maybe USGS, you know, federal agencies,
[1:22:46] but we'll see. I'm sure there's a lot to
[1:22:48] talk about there. So, I do think that
[1:22:50] there's a lot to
[1:22:52] So.
[1:22:53] I'm wondering how open-ended the
[1:22:55] restoration by 2034 is.
[1:22:59] We need restoration within the next
[1:23:01] year. But, I mean, these are really
[1:23:02] difficult challenges.
[1:23:03] >> What did restoration mean in when you
[1:23:05] define it like that?
[1:23:06] Well, there's there's a critical
[1:23:08] threshold level for the lake, and we're
[1:23:09] below that critical threshold right now.
[1:23:12] There is a really great conference in
[1:23:14] southern Utah. It was last month called
[1:23:16] water users. We always down there.
[1:23:19] Um and there were really um
[1:23:22] interesting
[1:23:24] report outs on where we are with water
[1:23:26] situations in the Great Salt Lake basin,
[1:23:28] as well as the Colorado River basin.
[1:23:31] These are really stressful times for
[1:23:33] water in Utah.
[1:23:35] Um and our role in providing, you know,
[1:23:38] good scientific data to help make
[1:23:41] decisions really can't be understated.
[1:23:45] We are They are looking to the survey
[1:23:46] for for information and data on some of
[1:23:49] this. And our teams are developing some
[1:23:52] really amazing remote sensing methods to
[1:23:55] be able to get at these numbers. Snow
[1:23:58] pack equivalent, soil saturation levels.
[1:24:01] We're using We're deploying and building
[1:24:04] remote sensing tools to be able to get
[1:24:06] at statewide information on this that
[1:24:08] we've never really had before. And so,
[1:24:10] when I talk about this demographic shift
[1:24:12] of like we had a lot of senior people
[1:24:14] re- re- retire out of the survey, we
[1:24:18] have this younger cadre of people coming
[1:24:20] in. They are coming in with a really
[1:24:22] incredible analytical toolkit. And they
[1:24:24] can build models, and they know where to
[1:24:26] go get um, you know, validated data to
[1:24:30] put into these models. And so, they're
[1:24:32] building a whole new toolkit that we
[1:24:34] really haven't had to be able to
[1:24:36] estimate, you know, snow water
[1:24:38] equivalents, um, snowpack depth, um,
[1:24:42] evapotranspiration
[1:24:43] >> evapotranspiration.
[1:24:45] It's just really impressive. And when I
[1:24:48] see their proposals and I see their
[1:24:50] work. We just had a talk yesterday at
[1:24:52] our staff meeting. I even forgot to send
[1:24:54] it to you. When I see the work that
[1:24:55] they're doing and the new toolkit that
[1:24:57] they're building so we can get at these
[1:24:59] really important answers about water
[1:25:01] resources across the state in almost
[1:25:04] real time, it is really impressive.
[1:25:07] Is that something you could do
[1:25:08] regularly? Like the the talks that you
[1:25:11] have at your staff meetings and like
[1:25:12] that? They they just pass through to the
[1:25:14] board? Yeah, I'd love to see them.
[1:25:16] There actually are so our geo committee
[1:25:19] is actually working on putting together
[1:25:21] like a UGS lecture and social series.
[1:25:24] >> we we've recognized that our outreach to
[1:25:26] the public is not necessarily lacking,
[1:25:28] but could be expanded pretty greatly.
[1:25:30] So, we're hoping to launch a quarterly
[1:25:31] series of public engagement talks where
[1:25:33] we go out to local library, natural
[1:25:35] history other venues around the greater
[1:25:38] Wasatch Front and give talks to the
[1:25:40] public on these sort of issues. What
[1:25:42] work are we doing? What new tools and
[1:25:43] technology are we deploying? So, the
[1:25:44] first one we're hoping is going to be in
[1:25:46] August at the Natural History Museum or
[1:25:50] one of the libraries, hopefully. Um, but
[1:25:52] we can make sure to send you the staff
[1:25:53] meeting talks as well because they're so
[1:25:55] interesting.
[1:25:56] >> are the slide decks available as They're
[1:25:58] recorded. We have them recorded. So, you
[1:26:00] can actually listen to the presentation.
[1:26:02] It goes back to the point I believe you
[1:26:04] made earlier that
[1:26:06] questions of geology in Utah are just so
[1:26:07] incredible to answer and the science is
[1:26:10] so great. People really want to come
[1:26:11] here and they want to work and they're
[1:26:13] passionate about the work. So, it gives
[1:26:15] us an incredible applicant pool for all
[1:26:16] the jobs that we're listing but once
[1:26:18] folks get in, they're really on the
[1:26:20] cutting edge of innovation with new
[1:26:21] methods and method method methodology
[1:26:24] push forward some of these studies. It's
[1:26:27] rigorous and exciting anyway.
[1:26:28] Can we bring them into a board meeting?
[1:26:31] We've those back in. Let's bring those
[1:26:33] back in.
[1:26:34] At the end when we have a discussion, I
[1:26:35] have some proposals for you guys about
[1:26:38] how to supplement our board meetings
[1:26:40] with some opportunities. Not only
[1:26:42] engagement with our staff but maybe to
[1:26:43] bring in Utah Mining Association or Utah
[1:26:45] Petroleum Association and talk to them
[1:26:47] about their industry needs from us, too.
[1:26:49] Maybe you want to bring in people from
[1:26:50] your industry. So, I think we have a
[1:26:52] great chance to
[1:26:54] now that we're sort of through
[1:26:56] my my you know, sort of transition into
[1:26:59] this role and the budget stress, you
[1:27:03] know, that we experienced last year and
[1:27:05] our our strategic planning and sort of
[1:27:07] refocusing of the organization. Now that
[1:27:09] we're through all of that, what can we
[1:27:11] do next to help engage you as board
[1:27:15] members, also. So, I think it's time to
[1:27:17] revisit that. I just suggest we take a
[1:27:19] break and I may log out of the meeting,
[1:27:22] see if I can log into my computer, pull
[1:27:24] up the slide deck. I think we're missing
[1:27:26] a couple slides. Those will help me
[1:27:27] finish up our board meeting here today.
[1:27:29] So, Will you let us Will you send us
[1:27:31] announcements about those
[1:27:33] community engagements?
[1:27:35] >> Yes, absolutely. And we have a lot of
[1:27:36] citizen scientists, too, around the
[1:27:40] Our our
[1:27:43] outreach on popular geology is is
[1:27:45] already strong. These are some new
[1:27:47] approaches. We've kind of challenged our
[1:27:49] communications team and our GIO, our
[1:27:51] geological information outreach team, to
[1:27:54] just pull back from what they're doing
[1:27:55] and think really differently about how
[1:27:57] we're reaching people and with what
[1:27:59] information and they're doing a really
[1:28:01] good job in that space.
[1:28:03] Thank you.
[1:28:05] Madam Chair. Yes,
[1:28:07] it is
[1:28:09] 10:02.
[1:28:10] You want 10:15?
[1:28:12] Uh
[1:28:13] just tell me. 10:15
[1:32:04] » Mhm.
[1:44:58] » to order.
[1:45:07] Madam Chair, I move Okay, here we go.
[1:45:09] We're back. It is now 10:19. We're
[1:45:15] Okay. Hopefully our online guests are
[1:45:17] still with us.
[1:45:19] Um so, I did add um I'm sorry, I
[1:45:22] apparently the slides that I had um
[1:45:24] added in yesterday are not saving to
[1:45:26] this so I apologize. Um but I have added
[1:45:29] in a slide I did want to talk to you
[1:45:30] guys about one of the
[1:45:32] initiatives that I would like to do for
[1:45:34] our geologic survey and that is some
[1:45:36] space planning
[1:45:38] and maybe when we walk through the what
[1:45:42] when I'm sharing when I'm sharing
[1:45:45] Oh my goodness.
[1:45:49] Are you talking about up in that large
[1:45:51] joint room or
[1:45:53] just generally across all of our
[1:45:55] offices?
[1:45:55] >> in a second sorry. I can't do two things
[1:45:57] at once so one second.
[1:46:01] I can't lose my microscope up there. That's
[1:46:05] I'm sure we'll keep that.
[1:46:07] » [laughter]
[1:46:09] >> We're in the wrong meeting. I don't have
[1:46:10] it just
[1:46:12] we should be in the wrong meeting
[1:46:13] because do you show any guests in your
[1:46:15] meeting? Yeah.
[1:46:18] The calendar one doesn't work. Let me
[1:46:20] send it to you really quick.
[1:46:22] photo micrographs The calendar one
[1:46:23] doesn't work. The one I don't know how
[1:46:25] that I think I don't know how that
[1:46:26] calendar one got sent. I really don't
[1:46:28] know because this is the one that I get
[1:46:29] from EDNR so I'm forwarding it to you
[1:46:31] right now. Okay.
[1:46:35] in her email
[1:46:37] in your email. Are you are you signed on
[1:46:39] your email? Yeah.
[1:46:41] All right, I just forwarded it.
[1:46:47] » [laughter]
[1:46:51] » But you got a good window.
[1:46:53] I do have a
[1:46:58] Okay, thanks Gerald.
[1:46:59] geologist
[1:47:05] I want to physics not
[1:47:13] Okay, we got people in the call. Okay.
[1:47:21] Um sent.
[1:47:27] I think that's right.
[1:47:28] So, where
[1:47:30] is
[1:47:33] I'm weird. I had a knee replacement like
[1:47:35] 2 years ago. Yeah, prosthetic The
[1:47:37] prosthetic is Is it triggering or what?
[1:47:39] Yeah, it's part of his leg.
[1:47:41] It looks good. Yep.
[1:47:43] Okay.
[1:47:47] Yeah, they have that. If you guys
[1:47:49] haven't met Ben Sears, he's actually in
[1:47:51] our paleo group and does quite a bit of
[1:47:54] database and GIS work and he's also
[1:47:57] stepped up as our AV help and he's been
[1:47:59] saving my life and everyone else's
[1:48:02] trying to figure out how to do all this.
[1:48:04] So, thank you.
[1:48:05] >> What do you do for the paleo group?
[1:48:07] Uh, uh, managing the paleo database and
[1:48:10] archives.
[1:48:13] And
[1:48:14] public outreach and just helps out at UGS all around and
[1:48:20] is really accommodating and a great
[1:48:23] go-to person and you can tell I've been
[1:48:25] relying on him a lot.
[1:48:27] And it's his birthday.
[1:48:34] Oh, nice.
[1:48:36] Happy birthday, Ben.
[1:48:37] Thank you very much.
[1:48:39] All right. So, I did want to um, give
[1:48:41] you guys a heads-up. Um, we do have a
[1:48:43] little extra money. I don't want to go
[1:48:44] nuts, especially because there's a very
[1:48:47] high There is a very high likelihood
[1:48:51] that this building is not long for DNR.
[1:48:54] Um, given what's happening across the
[1:48:56] street with the ballpark, our building
[1:48:58] is aging out, possibly even without the
[1:49:01] ballpark redevelopment, we might be
[1:49:03] considering our options. You know, DNR
[1:49:06] either needs to invest quite a bit of
[1:49:08] money in updating our building or look
[1:49:10] for a new location for DNR.
[1:49:12] >> or the DNR? The whole entire campus.
[1:49:15] The entire campus. It's all one parcel.
[1:49:20] Which I have encouraged them to consider
[1:49:22] splitting the parcel where it narrows
[1:49:24] down behind the apartment building, but
[1:49:28] I don't think that's going to happen.
[1:49:29] So, um as we look at building
[1:49:32] modifications, we do need to be mindful
[1:49:35] about whatever we invest. For one thing,
[1:49:37] any investments I make in UGS space
[1:49:40] comes out of UGS's budget. There is no
[1:49:42] magic pot of money for building upgrades
[1:49:46] um that DNR has. So, um
[1:49:50] and
[1:49:51] uh there I think we'll have
[1:49:53] more information within within a month
[1:49:55] or two about
[1:49:57] timelines and where.
[1:50:00] Uh but right now, I don't have anything
[1:50:02] that I can share about that, but I know
[1:50:04] when I've gone to DFCM and to our
[1:50:06] building manager for costs, they've been
[1:50:08] like, "Just really think about how much
[1:50:09] you want to invest right now." So, I am
[1:50:11] being mindful about that. Also, you
[1:50:14] know, while we have some money to put
[1:50:16] into our, you know, culture and the
[1:50:18] environment, you know, we don't want to
[1:50:20] go crazy, right? Um I'd rather put that
[1:50:23] money into hiring science people and
[1:50:25] making sure we can take care of the
[1:50:26] people we have with promotions and ASIs.
[1:50:29] But, I think there are a few things we
[1:50:30] need to do. For one thing, we have four
[1:50:33] new people starting really soon, and
[1:50:35] we're already out of space. We had a
[1:50:38] statewide return to work um policy
[1:50:41] enacted last year, so everybody needs to
[1:50:44] be in office at least 2 days a week if
[1:50:46] not three if they're supervisors. So,
[1:50:49] that brought at least nine to maybe 15
[1:50:52] people back in the office.
[1:50:54] Um and so, as I walk around,
[1:50:57] well, for one thing, we have a lot of
[1:50:59] old clutter in our office, and so we
[1:51:02] I've been on kind of a housekeeping
[1:51:03] initiative, and we've actually
[1:51:05] accomplished one big sweep of, you know,
[1:51:08] disposing of a lot of materials and
[1:51:11] surplussing a bunch of cabinets,
[1:51:13] especially and old stuff sitting around.
[1:51:16] So, kudos to our team for taking the
[1:51:18] time to do that. We're going to go on
[1:51:20] another pass-through
[1:51:22] of, you know, disposal and surplus.
[1:51:25] But, our break room is super shabby. The
[1:51:27] countertop has like mold that you can't
[1:51:30] remove on it. The floors are really
[1:51:32] gross. It's not a very hospitable break
[1:51:35] room, and with 90 people, 85 people just
[1:51:38] in our group, this is the third third
[1:51:40] floor break room. So, with, you know, 80
[1:51:43] plus going on 90 people in our group,
[1:51:45] and the other folks that use it, I
[1:51:48] people don't stay long in there. And so,
[1:51:52] I think we can upgrade our break room a
[1:51:54] little bit. I have a proposal from DFCM
[1:51:57] to replace the countertop, replace the
[1:52:00] flooring, and paint.
[1:52:02] DFCM's expensive, so I get sticker
[1:52:04] shock. It's $15,000 to do that, but I
[1:52:07] think that's money that I would like to
[1:52:09] invest into giving our employees a nicer
[1:52:12] space to make their lunch in. There's
[1:52:14] also vending machines in there, and the
[1:52:16] team that runs the vending has agreed to
[1:52:18] remove one of the vending machines. It's
[1:52:20] super noisy and takes up a lot of space.
[1:52:22] So, that'll give us some additional room
[1:52:23] there, too. So, I think I'm ready to
[1:52:26] move forward with the break room
[1:52:27] renovation. The other thing I'm looking
[1:52:29] at is um well, there's three things. The
[1:52:32] break room renovation, we have four new
[1:52:34] people coming now, and we need a second
[1:52:37] conference room. Our conference room
[1:52:39] where we meet every Monday morning, and
[1:52:41] you know, all our meetings are held
[1:52:43] throughout the week, is in a really, small space.
[1:52:46] Really big chairs.
[1:52:48] Um and it's super claustrophobic in
[1:52:51] there, and it only seats about nine
[1:52:53] people comfortably at the most. And our
[1:52:56] programs each have about 15 people in
[1:52:59] them.
[1:52:59] So, I'm looking to create a second
[1:53:02] conference room. We also have a lot of
[1:53:03] overlapping conflicts when this
[1:53:05] conference room isn't available.
[1:53:07] And we host we we host more meetings
[1:53:12] that are you know bringing in other
[1:53:14] agencies from DNR in our conference
[1:53:16] space. I think that's a little new for
[1:53:18] UGS.
[1:53:19] So we're bringing in you know our sister
[1:53:21] agencies to meet with us more often now.
[1:53:23] And so we just have a lot of conference
[1:53:26] conflicts. So I'm looking to convert a
[1:53:29] big room that we call Kangia into a
[1:53:32] conference room. It's quite roomy. It's
[1:53:35] maybe like if you went from the columns
[1:53:40] Well actually it's bigger than that.
[1:53:42] It's probably half again as deep as this
[1:53:45] space. So it's quite roomy and it's
[1:53:48] actually has a really great
[1:53:49] configuration where we can get tables on
[1:53:51] rollers and then move them around into a
[1:53:53] U shape or you know combine them all
[1:53:55] together.
[1:53:57] There are right now it's a really
[1:54:00] inefficient and weird setup where we
[1:54:02] have these two huge tables that two
[1:54:06] people use when they're in office as
[1:54:08] work space and then some cubicles like
[1:54:11] put in there also. It just is kind of
[1:54:14] weird. And so
[1:54:16] we would
[1:54:17] create some new modular work stations
[1:54:20] for those people as well as the people
[1:54:22] that are coming to work with us our new
[1:54:25] people and then
[1:54:27] um
[1:54:28] convert the conference room space with
[1:54:30] the purchase of some tables and chairs
[1:54:32] into a conference second conference room
[1:54:34] in Kangia. So I've had some space
[1:54:36] planners come and walk around that are
[1:54:40] vendors that DFC and works with. So
[1:54:42] we've had three of them come in and walk
[1:54:44] around with us. I'm starting to get
[1:54:45] proposals in right now
[1:54:48] for the conference room conversion
[1:54:50] furniture. It's really just furniture
[1:54:53] and additional monitor and one new
[1:54:56] modular work station for four to five
[1:54:58] people that we primarily are I'm looking
[1:55:01] at is a kind of central open area in the
[1:55:03] energy and minerals group. So, um
[1:55:07] I will get
[1:55:08] prices for those. This is kind of one of
[1:55:11] my one of my priorities. We have a lot
[1:55:13] of storage right now in open spaces that
[1:55:17] have natural light, and then people are
[1:55:19] crammed into these kind of interior, you
[1:55:21] know, dark spaces. So, I just want to
[1:55:23] move people into areas where there's
[1:55:25] natural light. And then, you know,
[1:55:28] corral We have like eight supply
[1:55:30] cabinets, you know, spread out through
[1:55:32] the survey. We can move those into a
[1:55:34] room where we have a plotter. There's We
[1:55:37] have another very large room that really
[1:55:38] has like a plotter and a copy machine in
[1:55:40] it. So, not very well utilized space as
[1:55:42] well. So, let's consolidate our supply
[1:55:44] cabinets, put them all in there. That'll
[1:55:46] free up a ton of space. We have a lot of
[1:55:48] filing cabinets. We have some closets
[1:55:50] where we have stuff stored that we can
[1:55:52] consolidate. And just use our space
[1:55:54] better, declutter it a little bit, have
[1:55:56] a little more light that comes through.
[1:55:59] Hazards has actually a big bullpen area
[1:56:02] of workstations, but it's almost
[1:56:04] completely full of data preservation
[1:56:06] files. That work needs to be completed,
[1:56:09] and those files need to get archived and
[1:56:10] shipped out of there. So, I've asked
[1:56:13] them to respect the timeline because we
[1:56:15] need those workstation spaces for
[1:56:17] people, and there's literally just like
[1:56:19] boxes of massive files dashed in there.
[1:56:22] So, I think we can do a little bit
[1:56:24] better.
[1:56:25] Um I'm going to get some costs for this.
[1:56:27] Uh
[1:56:27] I haven't opened those emails yet, so I
[1:56:30] can't
[1:56:31] tell you what they are. I'm not sure I
[1:56:32] really want to see those. And again,
[1:56:34] this is, you know, this is something I'd
[1:56:36] like to do if the costs are reasonable.
[1:56:40] Any thoughts about
[1:56:43] that? Do you guys want to see the
[1:56:44] numbers before I move ahead or
[1:56:48] just trust me on this one?
[1:56:49] >> What's your budget goal? Under 100 grand
[1:56:53] or 200 grand or I don't really have a
[1:56:55] budget. I would I would
[1:56:57] I don't know how much these workstations
[1:56:59] cost right now. That's that's a wild
[1:57:01] card. I think the conference room will
[1:57:02] be pretty reasonable with, you know,
[1:57:04] movable tables and chairs. And I think
[1:57:07] that's well worth the investment. We
[1:57:09] need the workstations, but, you know,
[1:57:12] the sky's the limit on workstations.
[1:57:14] There's a lot of different uh price
[1:57:16] points out there for furniture
[1:57:18] providers. The great thing is that with
[1:57:21] DFCM's vendors, um Midwestern Interiors
[1:57:25] and HP Workplaces, they have a whole
[1:57:27] suite of product price points that we
[1:57:30] can use for those workstations. So, we
[1:57:32] want to find something that gives our
[1:57:34] team, you know, a a nice work space, but
[1:57:37] it is
[1:57:39] of on the geological survey budget.
[1:57:44] Oh, good. Okay. All right. Yeah, we're
[1:57:47] we are looking for room for
[1:57:50] uh people.
[1:57:51] So,
[1:57:52] just wanted to put that out there. Oh,
[1:57:54] yeah. And then, since I know you didn't
[1:57:56] you were purposely vague, could the
[1:57:59] could a move be uh uh uh
[1:58:02] Two to four years, probably, I think.
[1:58:06] So, the biggest issue for us is this
[1:58:09] building
[1:58:11] So, and they know about that. DNR is
[1:58:14] very aware that if this portion of the
[1:58:17] parcel is involved in, you know, uh real
[1:58:21] estate transfer, the core center needs
[1:58:23] to be moved. Now, that could be a great
[1:58:26] opportunity for us,
[1:58:28] right? Because we could look for a new
[1:58:31] space for the core center, for the big
[1:58:33] warehouse that maybe has a nicer
[1:58:35] educational center, has more core layout
[1:58:38] and viewing areas for us, maybe has
[1:58:41] additional space for our paleo and, you
[1:58:44] know, uh
[1:58:46] K through 12 teacher kit supplies that
[1:58:49] they have.
[1:58:50] So, and it also is something where we
[1:58:53] might want to solicit funds to help
[1:58:55] build out a new core center, too. I
[1:58:57] think that's something we could probably
[1:58:59] put on our August agenda or talk about
[1:59:01] it while we're on our board field trip.
[1:59:03] It's not an emergency, but I think we
[1:59:05] should I think we should
[1:59:06] >> And I think we got to get out in front
[1:59:07] of it. So, DNR previously pitched us
[1:59:10] that, "Hey, why don't we just digitize
[1:59:12] the core center and then keep six all
[1:59:14] the core cuz they're expensive."
[1:59:16] Which of course would destroy the value
[1:59:17] of core. And they're they're thinking
[1:59:18] more digital, which I I get it if you're
[1:59:20] not a geologist, you know, why store all
[1:59:22] this expensive core.
[1:59:24] That might be something that I think
[1:59:25] we've convinced them I think we've
[1:59:27] convinced them that this is a physical
[1:59:30] resource. I I haven't heard that brought
[1:59:32] up lately. I think I got them over that.
[1:59:35] So, um there is also
[1:59:38] there is a proposal, one of the bills
[1:59:40] that was passed was
[1:59:42] um a resolution
[1:59:44] to create a mines center in Utah, um
[1:59:48] either with federal funding or state
[1:59:49] funding. And this would be um a facility
[1:59:52] that was centered you know
[1:59:55] that is centered on supporting the
[1:59:57] mining industry. And that could be a
[1:59:59] lab. They're looking at like the
[2:00:01] national lab model where, you know,
[2:00:04] mining companies or, you know, minerals
[2:00:06] processing um people, engineers could
[2:00:09] come in and, you know, demonstrate a
[2:00:11] technology for minerals processing and
[2:00:13] recovery. Um is a
[2:00:17] you know, potential core center or at
[2:00:19] least a core education center part of
[2:00:22] that. Would that help support the
[2:00:23] minerals industry? So, we've been asked
[2:00:26] to kind of think and envision what UGS
[2:00:30] could um provide in a potential mines
[2:00:32] center. Um so, we'll just kind of
[2:00:35] continue on that. So, I think for for
[2:00:39] all of us, let's continue the
[2:00:41] conversation about a potential future
[2:00:43] core center and what that might look
[2:00:45] like. Um but we're not moving in the
[2:00:48] next
[2:00:51] And I'm just guessing on the 2 5 years.
[2:00:53] So, we just got to build that whole new
[2:00:55] facility by the prison.
[2:00:58] » [clears throat]
[2:00:59] >> Do you do you know about the prison?
[2:01:00] The
[2:01:01] new prison or the old prison?
[2:01:05] The state got a lot of land out there.
[2:01:07] >> [laughter]
[2:01:08] >> I don't think they're going to be
[2:01:10] building it in jail.
[2:01:12] But, if they are,
[2:01:14] I have thoughts.
[2:01:15] >> [laughter]
[2:01:17] » Yeah, there could be like hot bunk
[2:01:19] housing there.
[2:01:20] >> That's right.
[2:01:26] They'll make big promises about the
[2:01:28] mosquito abatement first.
[2:01:30] Yeah, right. Mosquito abatement.
[2:01:34] Okay.
[2:01:35] Um, yeah, just want to be really
[2:01:36] transparent about, you know, things that
[2:01:38] might be bigger ticket capital expenses
[2:01:41] than you've seen in the past, so I just
[2:01:43] feel like that's something we should
[2:01:44] share.
[2:01:46] Okay, and I think that just kind of
[2:01:47] brings us to our closing discussion
[2:01:49] items.
[2:01:50] Um, I don't think I have any upcoming
[2:01:52] announcement. Our next board meeting is
[2:01:55] August 10th.
[2:01:57] So, check your calendars. What's that?
[2:02:00] The 12th. 12th. Okay, thank you.
[2:02:03] Check your calendars, um, to see if that
[2:02:06] works for you. There's a possibility
[2:02:08] that I may or may not be at that
[2:02:11] meeting, so if I'm not available,
[2:02:13] Stephen Curry will, um,
[2:02:16] be our be our, you know,
[2:02:19] acting director for that. I have to have
[2:02:21] my knee replaced, and I'm thinking about
[2:02:22] doing it in mid-July, and so I just may
[2:02:25] not be back on board by August 12th.
[2:02:29] So, I'll just Stephen Curry will be
[2:02:32] acting director while I'm on medical
[2:02:33] leave.
[2:02:35] He'll do a great job.
[2:02:37] If we have the Crawford award between
[2:02:39] now and June, and remember we're going
[2:02:41] to talk about a process. That is right.
[2:02:44] Okay.
[2:02:46] So, let's add we may want to amend our
[2:02:49] agenda
[2:02:50] for today just to indicate that let's do
[2:02:53] talk about the Crawford Award. Thank you
[2:02:54] for remembering that because by June, by
[2:02:57] the time we meet in August, it'll be
[2:03:00] past. Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll we'll
[2:03:02] visit that. Um let's just talk real
[2:03:05] quick about our board field trip. So,
[2:03:07] October 7th through 9th.
[2:03:10] Um Sheryl sent out a draft itinerary,
[2:03:13] and again, we'll talk about this in
[2:03:14] August as well. So, any last-minute
[2:03:16] changes to this, we'll let you guys
[2:03:18] know, but right now these are the dates
[2:03:20] for that. Um we'll fly you guys down to
[2:03:22] State Plane. It's about an hour and 20
[2:03:24] minutes, I think. So, we'll meet here.
[2:03:28] We'll go over to aviation, get a safety
[2:03:31] briefing, load up. Please, as you think
[2:03:34] about what you're going to pack, just
[2:03:35] pack super light. We We can also put
[2:03:38] stuff in the vans, but you would need to
[2:03:40] have it here the day before cuz the vans
[2:03:42] are going to go down the day in advance.
[2:03:45] Um but otherwise, just pack light. It's
[2:03:47] a couple days in October. Weather should
[2:03:49] be great.
[2:03:51] Be a really great field tour down there.
[2:03:54] Excited about it, and then we'll be
[2:03:56] field tripping our way back in the vans.
[2:04:01] Um and then again, before we talk about
[2:04:04] the Crawford Award, let's just talk
[2:04:05] about our future board meetings, and
[2:04:08] um do we want to do presentations from
[2:04:10] programs? Would you be interested in
[2:04:12] having Utah Mining Association's
[2:04:15] director come in just to kind of meet,
[2:04:17] and maybe you do that same with UPA as
[2:04:20] well.
[2:04:21] Um what are you guys interested in
[2:04:24] hearing more from about the survey?
[2:04:28] You know, if we got Mike in here once in
[2:04:30] a while,
[2:04:32] uh you know, see what they're doing,
[2:04:33] safety pool, water meat.
[2:04:37] You know, once a year or every 2 years,
[2:04:39] you just kind of go through there.
[2:04:41] Do a 20-minute presentation and answer
[2:04:43] any questions or
[2:04:45] support they'd like from the board.
[2:04:46] Okay, so maybe program by program.
[2:04:48] That's you know, one per one per
[2:04:50] meeting, program by program. Do you want
[2:04:52] the staff to come in as well? So you can
[2:04:54] meet the staff.
[2:04:56] Okay.
[2:04:57] Yeah.
[2:04:58] Well, I think you'd be surprised by how
[2:05:00] much bigger some of our groups are.
[2:05:02] Like do you have the picnic already
[2:05:03] planned this year?
[2:05:05] Yes, we do.
[2:05:08] Some of that, you know, we also get at
[2:05:09] the picnics, but it's it's just in a
[2:05:10] different setting. Oh, yeah.
[2:05:13] We love having you guys at the picnics
[2:05:15] and our holiday party.
[2:05:20] I think it's June
[2:05:32] Well, where do you guys get your dessert
[2:05:34] places? Ordered that I'll buy
[2:05:36] them they're so stinking good.
[2:05:39] June 18th.
[2:05:45] Yes, June 18th.
[2:05:47] Uh 11:30 to 5:00, but everybody leaves
[2:05:51] by like 4:00. So 11:30
[2:05:53] and at the same place, Big Cottonwood
[2:05:56] Regional Park.
[2:05:59] In the pavilions.
[2:06:04] Oh, wait. That was 2025.
[2:06:10] It's the 25th. It's the 25th.
[2:06:13] My calendar doesn't do a good enough
[2:06:15] searching. Yeah, the 25th.
[2:06:23] Okay, but same place?