[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?

UGS Board Meeting 4/15/2026 (technical issues)

Transcript