Start School with Ryan Wedig on May 6

In August 2012, Ryan Wedig and Jarrett Taylor sat down and wrote a business plan. That's it. That's how Vasion started. A business plan and two people who believed enterprise IT didn't have to be so complicated.

By the end of 2014, Ryan was CEO. He built out the team, took the product to market, and grew PrinterLogic into a cloud-native SaaS platform that enterprises across the world rely on. In 2021, the company rebranded to Vasion, reflecting a broader mission to simplify how enterprise IT is designed, implemented, and serviced.

Ryan brought over 20 years of experience in enterprise IT infrastructure to the table before he ever started the company. He did account development at Omniture before it was acquired by Adobe. He worked in systems engineering and account management at Cisco. He consulted independently. He holds engineering certifications from Cisco and VMware, a degree from BYU's Marriott School of Management, and an MBA from George Washington University.

He did the work before he started the company. Then he did the harder work of actually building one.

Ryan runs Vasion from St. George, Utah. Not San Francisco. Not New York. St. George. That matters. He's proof that you can build a serious enterprise software company from wherever you are if you know the problem you're solving and you're willing to grind.

Ryan is sitting down with Start School to talk about what it looks like to go from a business plan to a real company. How he and Jarrett went from writing a plan to building a team and getting to market. What he learned from years in enterprise IT before becoming a founder. How he thinks about simplifying complex problems and turning that into a product. What building a SaaS company actually requires on a daily basis. What it's like building a company outside the traditional tech hubs. And what he'd tell someone who has a business plan right now but hasn't taken the next step.

He'll take your questions. He'll give you real answers. No fluff.

If you're building something, thinking about building something, or trying to figure out what comes next, this is the room you want to be in.

Most startup events are built for the one percent. The venture-backed. The ones chasing a 10x return for someone else's fund. The ones who measure success by how much money they raised instead of how much they built.

StartFEST is for everyone else. The solo founder. The bootstrapper. The person who wants to build a profitable business that supports their family. The company that grows slowly, treats its people well, and is still standing in twenty years. The best businesses rarely make the headlines. Start School is built for founders who know the difference.

More than 400 companies are now part of Start School. No tuition. No equity. No hidden agenda.

It's a free entrepreneurship program from Silicon Slopes, built in partnership with Mountain America Credit Union. Every dollar from StartFEST goes back into it. When you buy a ticket, you are paying for the next founder who shows up wanting to build something real.

Start School takes self-leadership seriously because the founders who last almost always do. It's the track you won't find at any other startup event, and it's the reason Start School exists in the form it does.

Ernst & Young LLP recently announced the finalists for the Entrepreneur Of The Year^® 2026 Mountain West Award. Now in its 41st year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year^® program celebrates the bold leaders who disrupt markets through the world’s most ground-breaking companies, revolutionizing industries and uplifting communities. 

The program honors entrepreneurs whose innovations drive economic growth and help shape the future of business. The Mountain West program celebrates entrepreneurs from Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

An independent panel of judges selected 40 finalists based on their entrepreneurial spirit, purpose, company growth and lasting impact in building long-term value.

Here are the honored Utah entrepreneurs:

• Brian Beutler | Alianza | Pleasant Grove, UT

• Steve Richards | Becklar | Ogden, UT

• Allyse Jackson | Beehive Meals | Layton, UT

• Ryan Anderson | Filevine | Salt Lake City, UT

• Kyle Freebairn | Frazil | Salt Lake City, UT

• Hayden Wadsworth and Jake Wadsworth | HydroJug | Ogden, UT

• Parker Ence | Jump | Draper, UT

• Brett Hopkins | Ken Garff Automotive Group | Salt Lake City, UT

• Arian Lewis | Kiln. | Lehi, UT

• Clark T. Bell, Warren Bell and Mike Bullock | Nano-Yield | Sandy, UT

• Curtis Anderson | Nursa | Murray, UT

• Jeff Reynolds | Sensapure Flavors | Salt Lake City, UT

• Mike Linton | VLCM | Salt Lake City, UT

• Clint Reid | Zonos | St George, UT

Regional award winners will be announced on June 18 during a special celebration. The winners will then be considered by the national independent panel of judges for the Entrepreneur Of The Year^® National Awards, which will be presented in November at the annual Strategic Growth Forum®.

Learn more about the finalists at ey.com/us/eoymountainwest.

In this episode of the Go-To-Market Podcast, host Amy Osmond Cook sits down with Lincoln Haycock to discuss one of the most frustrating—and expensive—systems in the world: American healthcare.

The U.S. spends nearly 18% of GDP on healthcare yet outcomes remain inconsistent, and life expectancy hasn’t improved at the pace you’d expect.
Why?

Because data is siloed, pricing is opaque, incentives reward volume—not outcomes, and patients are left navigating complexity without visibility.

As Lincoln explains, we’re dealing with a system design problem. Together, he and Amy explore why a lack of coordination across providers, payers, and systems prevents patients from receiving true value—despite rising costs.

If you’ve ever wondered why healthcare feels so complex and what it will actually take to fix it, this episode delivers a fresh perspective.

The 2026 Sports Tourism Symposium will take place on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, from 9:00 am - 2:30 pm, hosted by Miller Sports + Entertainment at America First Field (9256 S State St, Sandy, UT 84070). Stick around after the Symposium for a special experience as we host an England vs. Croatia FIFA World Cup watch party to keep the energy going!

America First Field is home to Real Salt Lake (MLS) and Utah Royals FC (NWSL). The venue has become iconic, hosting major events like U.S. national team games, World Cup qualifiers, the 2009 MLS All-Star Game, the 2013 Gold Cup, and even the 2025 Pacific Nations Cup.

The Sports Tourism Symposium brings together municipalities, event organizers, and hospitality partners from across the industry to share ideas, explore trends, and collaborate on strategies that make our communities stronger through sports.

Recorded live on World Quantum Day (April 14) at Silicon Slopes HQ in Lehi, this landmark event marks the official launch of the Silicon Slopes Quantum (SSQ) chapter.

Led by SSQ Chair and BODEX CEO Sumit Parashar and Co-hosted by Russ Simon, this session moves beyond the hype to define Quantonomy: a mission of radical inclusion designed to demystify quantum technology for every founder, engineer, and student in Utah.

In this video:

The Keynote: The Mayor of Lehi, Paul Binns, our Chief Guest, officially launches SSQ and recognizes the city’s role in the future of global tech.
Special Guest of Honor: Margaret Busse, Executive Director of the Utah Department of Commerce, draws powerful parallels between the Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy (OAIP) and the path forward for Quantum. She provides a motivating call to action for Utah to lead in quantum governance and innovation.

The Transistor Moment: Why the arrival of commercially available, error-corrected machines makes this the most critical talent race of our generation.

Radical Inclusion: Why you don't need a physics or advanced math degree to participate in and profit from the next great wave of enterprise technology.
Utah’s Roadmap: How we are building a "Quantum-Ready" ecosystem in the heart of the Silicon Slopes.

In this episode of Mental Health Momentum, Dr. David Morgan, a licensed psychologist and host, sits down with Celeste Merrill, a human-centered strategist and mental health advocate, to talk about her own journey through crisis and recovery in her 30s.

Celeste opens up about growing up in a family and era that didn't talk about mental health, missing the signs in herself for years, and the pivotal moment a trained-therapist friend intervened. From there, the conversation expands into something bigger: why our culture still treats mental health like a problem to fix rather than a foundation to build and what it would look like to change that.

Dr. Morgan shares his own reflections as a psychologist trained in the "deficit model," and together they explore the gap between crisis intervention and genuine mental wellness and the peer-to-peer support systems that might help bridge it.

Join Utah’s Top Builders at the AI Hackathon May 8–9 at JobNimbus!

We’re bringing together builders, founders, and AI enthusiasts for a high-energy, 24-hour hackathon packed with learning, collaboration, and real-world challenges.

Kick things off Friday morning with inspiring talks from leaders like Tyler Folkman (JobNimbus), Chris Crittenden (Sandbox), Brant Choate (Remi), and more—plus hands-on tutorials to get you ready to build.

Then Friday afternoon, the real fun begins: the 24-hour hackathon. Choose from 5 bounties totaling $35,000+ in prizes, presented by top partners, and start building alongside some of Utah’s best.

Saturday afternoon wraps with judging and an awards ceremony, where top teams will showcase what they built overnight.

Event hosted at JobNimbus Headquarters.

All skill levels welcome!

Whether you're here to learn, build, or win—this is where Utah’s AI community shows up.

Spots are limited—sign up now!

https://luma.com/aibuilderday

Join BioHive at Silicon Slopes on May 14th for the HealthTech Hub Collider, an event where ideas crash together to spark breakthroughs.

Register here: https://www.siliconslopes.com/c/events/healthtech-hub-collider

Silicon Slopes Dinner Club gathers Utah's founders, builders, and creators for authentic conversations over dinner.

These aren't networking events — they're real connections. The kind where ideas spark, partnerships form, and you leave with genuine relationships, not just business cards. No pitches. No agendas. Just founders breaking bread, sharing wisdom, and embodying what makes our community special: we give more than we take, and we rise together.

Because the best connections happen when you put down your phone and lean in.

The next dinner is Wednesday, May 20!

Utah's technology community has needed this for a while. On September 11, 2026, it arrives.

STACKED Summit is Utah's premier event on AI, cybersecurity, SaaS, and data analytics. The inaugural summit takes place at Salt Lake Community College, and we built it for the people closest to the work: the builders, operators, engineers, and executives who are navigating the most consequential shifts in the industry right now.

Not networking for the sake of it. Not panels that go nowhere. Real sessions, real practitioners, and real conversations about the problems worth solving.

Six tracks. One room. Everything that matters in Utah tech right now: AI, Cybersecurity, Data, Systems, Builders, and SaaS.

Hundreds of founders, engineers, operators, and executives will be there. The first STACKED Summit is the one people will say they didn't want to miss. We'd like to make sure they don't.

Tickets are now available. Sponsorship opportunities are open. We are accepting speaker proposals.

Be part of the first one.

September 11, 2026. Salt Lake Community College.

Partner with Silicon Slopes, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and amplify your impact across Utah's most dynamic tech ecosystem. Here, tax-deductible giving meets tangible ROI, innovation meets influence, and your brand connects with the builders shaping tomorrow.

Shape the Future of Silicon Slopes!