Collaboration, Economy, and Utah’s Secret Sauce with Derek Miller

Derek Miller — President & CEO of the Utah Chamber and former Chief of Staff to Governor Gary Herbert — joins Back Channel to talk about what it takes to keep Utah strong as the state grows. The conversation covers the fundamentals that never go away, the “issue of the day” pressures like water and global uncertainty, and the deeper challenge underneath it all: protecting collaboration and trust statewide.

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Off Script. On Record.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You know, Utah's economy is one of the best in the country. We have low unemployment, we have strong GDP growth, and a tech sector that keeps attracting national attention and so much more. But managing that success is its own challenge. The Salt Lake Chamber, and now the Utah Chamber, has to represent everyone from the biggest bank in the state to a startup that didn't even exist five years ago. And it has to do that while the center of gravity in Utah business is expanding beyond the capital city. My guest today is the person at the center of that challenge. He's the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber, the head of the Downtown Alliance, and former CEO of the World Trade Center Utah. But before all of that, he was also Chief of Staff to Governor Gary R. Herbert, and for a few years that meant he was my boss. Coming up on Back Channel, we go off script and on record with Derek Miller.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

This is the Back Channel. Back channel.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

You didn't hear this from me. Back channel. Hey, you're not gonna quote me, are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:01

What channel is it on?

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Back channel. Off script on record. I do appreciate you being here. Uh uh this is uh on the show. I've talked to a lot of people who I've known for a long time, and I've talked to people who I haven't known until they actually came and sat down in the chair. I don't think I've ever had I know I've never had anyone on here who's hired me three times. So, first of all, thanks, Derek, for being here and uh for hiring me three times. And I want to talk to you about uh, you know, why you did that, why you why you were willing to roll the dice and do that a number of times. And and you do remember our deal, like there's no fourth time. Yeah, that's it. Three three stages. Like, you sure this is the last job you want here? Like, yeah, that's the one I wanted. Um, we've had a chance to work together for uh for a number of years for a long time, and so I'm I'm actually just interested to see if there's more I can learn about uh the man who is Derek Miller and uh the things you're working on. But I want to start with uh we we first met, I think, uh when I came on to do comms on Governor Herbert's 2012 campaign. So you were the chief of staff at that time, but before that, take me through like the Derek up to that point. Where were you born, grew up to this?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

No one wants to hear this. Are you just trying to tank your shit?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

We're gonna cut all of it. Don't worry. We're not gonna use it. We're not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

This is just I mean, because we could just be live streaming the the France uh Senegal game if you really wanted to get your own. Yeah, that's right. But we're not going to do that. We're just gonna talk about you instead. But we'll wrap up so we can go watch the soccer game if that's what we want to do. So you're a Utah guy, though, originally. So, well, I mean, I was born in California in the Bay Area when my dad was going to graduate school. Uh, but when he graduated um and I was four years old, he got a job at BYU teaching. So we made the the move from California to initially Oram and then to Provo. But yeah, Utah County. Uh I guess not born, but raised. Raised.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

So there long enough that that's where you consider home. That's what I consider home. Your dad was then a professor? He's a professor. And your mom was an engineer as well. My mom is an English professor. Okay. Both at BYU. What did your dad teach? Civil engineering. Civil engineering. So you had like a math guy at a language mom. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

And that's like a really good balance for you. Yeah. And um, so if I ever went to my dad with homework, math homework, he would say, and uh in typical engineer fashion, uh, there's a better way to do it. Let me teach you a shortcut. And I would say, no, dad, my teacher told me I have to do it this way. I want you to go to school tomorrow and sit tell your teacher he's wrong. Like that was gonna go over really well. Yeah. And then with my mom, if I ever dared to take her anything, you know, thing English, anything I'd written, a paper or something, I mean, it would come back just covered in red felt tip ink. Yeah. I mean, including like when I was little, like Love You notes, like you've misspelled love here.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

You're the one that just got your handprint and says mom on it. It's like the f the M should be capitalized, just so you know it's proper now. Uh so you grew up in a house. I'm I'm guessing that if you've got that kind of um uh professions for your parents, education was a big deal in the house you grew up in. Yeah. Were you a good student, naturally?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, so um I do remember coming home with my first report card, seventh grade, right? Because other than that, you just get stars and moons and things. Um and my parents sat down with me and they went through it, and it was all A's with one A minus and one B plus. And my dad said, Derek, just so you you know, an A in our family, an A minus is just like an A. So A A minus, it's the same, but you also need to know a B plus is not acceptable. It's just like an F, Derek. So there's only A or A minus.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Other than that, it's an F. So were you the kind of kid that rebelled? It doesn't seem like you're the kid that rebelled against that. You just said, okay, that's the standard, and that's what you met from there?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, and you know, I mean, sibling dynamic has something to do with it, and I had an older brother and an older sister, and they were star students, and so you just are trying to they'd kind of hosed you.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

You just that was the expectation, and you had to step up and get it. Okay. So uh you go to high school in the in Provo, uh you go on to BYU. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

What'd you study at BYU? Um I started in political science. You know, this was before when you had a year before your mission. So I did my freshman year at BYU. When I went to BYU, it was totally just an extension of high school. Like every kid I knew from high school also went to BYU. And one day I pulled out of my driveway and turned left and went to high school. The next day I turned right and went to BYU. Um and when I got home from my mission, a former companion of mine from my mission had told me that you could test out of your foreign language and get a whole semester's worth of credits if you were doing international relations instead of political science. So I did that and switched to uh international relations and then got done a year ago.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

And I'm gonna test my memory here. So you took a test to club out of Flemish, is that right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

How was the Flemish test? I mean, the thing that about Flemish, which nobody speaks except the tiny little population in northern Belgium, is not even the teacher knew what Flemish was. So how would he know if you were saying it right or not? So it was great.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

He's got to go test out of Flemish. When you got that mission call, I mean everyone loves their mission call and where you went and all that, but like from just the the practicality of the language at the time and then now, how do you feel about Flemish? Did you feel like I'm gonna go learn this language that nobody speaks? Yeah. And then have you was that proven to be right or wrong in the end?

SPEAKER_00 6:47

So Flemish is a duck uh dialect of Dutch, and Dutch is what they teach you in the MTC. And so you are learning that for two months, and then I got on an airplane and flew into Amsterdam, got in a van and drove to Antwerp, um, and then got on a train and went to Brussels. And Brussels is an interesting city because it's inside the Flemish-speaking part of the country, but it's a French-speaking city. So there are both French and Flemish-speaking missionaries there. I served in the suburbs, but they speak an even further dialect that's a mixture of French and Flemish. So I still remember vividly going to my first teaching appointment. I was like, I don't know what language they taught me in the MTC. Yeah. I don't recognize one word. I said the same, but it was Spanish.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

So it's not a unique experience. But so on your mission, you had some missionaries who were French speakers. Uh in the they were in the mission to the South. Oh, mission to the South. Okay. So it wasn't like not a mixed mission that way. Yeah. Um French is the language that's a Spanish-speaking mission for me, but looking back, I'm like, I really wish I spoke French. I wish I spoke Spanish.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Really?

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Just because of the practicality of it? Yeah. Yeah. And it's a beautiful language. I mean, you know, these romance languages, they're beautiful languages. These Germanic languages like Dutch and Flemish, I mean, it's sounds like you're coughing to death when you're speaking.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Are they are they systematic languages in like Spanish, French, the Romantic languages? You can conjugate verbs and draw a chart and say this is how all the words end. Is it the Spanish lesson?

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Dutch is that way. But part of I would I would describe it, we're we're getting way off script here, Marty, but I would describe it as a part of the slogan. It's off script and on record, so we're okay. The three viewers you had have already logged off. But uh the I would describe it this way: the Queen's English versus like speaking English in the deep south. So imagine the Queen of England having a conversation with Charles Barclay. Okay. This is they're speaking the same language technically. Yeah. But they may miss each other a little bit in transit.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

So that's the difference right there. Um okay. So before you became the chief of staff, you worked at uh and what do we even call it now? Goed. I think we're back to Goed. Yeah. Uh what was your role there? Uh and is that how you got into state government? Was that your first state government job?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

When I first graduated from BYU, I did a joint degree, JD MPA, moved to Washington, D.C. I was a management consultant, did that for several years, went and worked on Capitol Hill for several years. Um I was in the middle of a big uh transportation reauthorization, which was the committee that I worked for on the House side. It's a 2,500-page bill, it's $300 billion. Everybody's focused on it, everyone wants a piece of the pie. So I was so burned out after that. I mean, it was literally like 20 hours a day, seven days a week. And I got a call from our good friend Jason Perry. And I'd gone to school uh with Jason. He I don't know, you'll probably edit this part out, but he went to BYU. Um so we were at school at BYU at the end of the day. Displayed over and over again. Um and I knew his wife, Mary Catherine, before they got married. We we were also in school together. And anyway, Jason called me and said, Hey, we've got a young new governor um in Utah, just got elected. Uh his name's John Huntsman. Come back and work for him. And I said, Well, I know that name, John Huntsman, but I don't think he's a young guy. I know the older version, right? And it so this was John Jr. Yeah. And at first I said no, I wasn't interested. We loved living in DC. We loved our life there, we loved our neighbors, our neighborhood, our kids were in school. It was a happy time for our family. But you know, you have a change of heart and you go through a process, and um through that process we had a change of heart and felt like it was time to come back to Utah. And then I your to answer your question is I worked for a short period of time at the Department of Commerce. That was the job that uh Jason had had helped me get. Um, but then as soon as I got to Utah, Jason had left and was running Go Ed. So Jason had said to me, I kind of said, Hey, what gives? You hired me to come here, but then you're not even here anymore. And he said, Well, come work for me over at Go Ed.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

So I did. Okay. And then, you know, there's still more of a connection with Jason Perry because he goes to be Governor Herbert's chief of staff, first chief of staff after Governor Huntsman went off to be uh uh the ambassador to China was first, yeah. Uh and then uh uh he was the chief of staff, and then when he was done with his time as chief of staff, you took his place. Yeah. Have you just been following Jason around and went to the R. Until he moved to the U and they won't have me. Yeah, they want too many too much blue in your wardrobe. You can't make that, you can't make that work. Um what did you like about the job as chief of staff?

SPEAKER_00 11:55

So I I usually describe the chief of staff role as uh the rule of three. So about a third of it is managing the governor's office, as you know, because you were in the governor's office. Uh this we were there at the same time. It's it's a office of about 50, 60 people, and the your job as the chief of staff is to manage that office. Yeah. I mean, all the way from what's the budget to what are people making to time off and just things like that. The other third is overseeing the cabinet. So the 21 cabinet members, at least there were in our day, 21 cabinet members, they report to the governor through the chief of staff. And then the other third is which is sort of miscellaneous, but it's really the all the political stuff, which I had no experience in. Even my time working on Capitol Hill, I wasn't a political person. I was a professional staff. Um, you know, I was there because I had a law degree, I was there because I'd uh done government uh management consulting. I wasn't there because of politics, and but although some people are. So that was all brand new for me. That was a very um and so I, you know, to say that you enjoy politics is that seems obtuse, but you know, that was a part of it that was all new to me. Sadistic is the word I would have gone with.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, you know, you enjoy the politics.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

It was new because uh I enjoyed it because it was new.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah. Uh was there a part of the job that you just you're just so glad you don't do that part anymore?

SPEAKER_00 13:27

I was I would say it this way. Um you remember the feeling we were talking about missions earlier. You remember the feeling uh when you got home from your mission and whatever you were doing, you were walking down the mall, you were driving down the street, but there was like this feeling of freedom. Yeah. I mean, we loved our missions, but the you know, like you're on the job, yeah, right? And that's how it was being the chief of staff. You're on the job. And um being a chief of staff is sort of like being a parent of a teenager, which you can also relate to. There's no good phone calls after midnight. Yeah. I didn't say there were no phone calls after midnight, but there's no good phone calls. So people are not calling you to tell you how awesome it went that day. They're calling to tell you about a big problem. So it wasn't that I didn't enjoy a particular aspect of the job, but I remember when I was done and I went to work at the World Trade Center, which is part of the City Creek Center. And I remember that first day, my first lunch break, like walking across City Creek Center, I was like, I'm free. I'm free. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Because there aren't as many uh dangerous phone calls that can come in at the World Trade Center.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

You know, I mean, you know Governor Herbert well, who's one of the best, best men I've ever known. But you know, he was it never hesitated to pick up his phone and call you at any it when any thought came to his mind at any time of day or night. Yeah, that circle. He expected you to pick up.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yeah. So he could talk through a lot of different issues with them uh over time, but he liked to talk through uh a lot of those too.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

He's a guy who thought he he thought by talking. Yeah. He thinks talks things through, and that's what gets him to think it through. What made you two a good match? Um That's a good question. I you'd probably want to ask him. I do remember you know, Governor Herbert had and has an insatiable appetite for details. And he just wanted to know everything about everything, including those three things I mentioned before, like running the governor's office, what's happening with every cabinet member, and what's you know, all the political stuff. And I remember saying to him once, do you want to be chief of staff? We could trade places, I'll be the governor, and you could be chief of staff. Totally fine. And he gave me, you know, a funny look and I said, What I'm trying to say, governor, is like you have me and everyone else so that we can do more for you, but you can't know everything we know. You can't. So it's our job to make sure that we're telling you the things you need to know. And if we fail at that, then you need to fire us.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

And it's our job to handle a lot of problems before they become the tough ones, get to you. Everything else we should be able to handle. When I uh what I just thinking along those lines and maybe taking a second to answer my own question, I always loved the fact that I could say Governor Herbert was a very principled man in how he made decisions. So for my role in dealing with the media, yeah, I never felt backed into like I I never got myself painted into a corner because I could always say, I you know, I don't have specifics on that, but I know in principle here's what the governor thinks. Yeah. And I knew that like if I understood the principles of the way he thought, which I did and picked up on pretty quickly, we had that. I would also say we were a good match because I had watched all the episodes of Andy Griffith from every black and white TV show from the 50s and 60s, so we could talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah. And you know, he was a big fan of Monk. Um what were the other shows? So we had fun in the governor's office, didn't we? It was a good time. We had a good time and we worked hard and there were serious issues, but I think we had a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

So you shift to the World Trade Center and you've expressed that that was a relief. But also it's kind of an interesting, uh interesting path to take. Like what made what led you to say, all right, it's time to leave the governor's office, first of all, and then second, this is the opportunity I want to go take? Because that's the kind of job you leave, and you can kind of, if not pick exactly where you want to go, you certainly have a lot of options.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Um someone had said to me, like, Oh, did you ever think about having another job in state government? And this was someone not in state government, but you see, your that your reaction was the same as mine. I was like, What? Why would I want that? How would you say that? And it just doesn't make any sense, right? Like you don't get to be, I mean, for all intents and purposes, the in the private sector, the COO of the organization. Yeah. The governor's the CEO, you're the COO. You don't then go manage a division. Yeah. But the answer to your question is when Governor Huntsman created Goed at the same time, he called the for the private sector to create the World Trade Center, Utah. He was really the force behind that, of course. The inaugural CEO, our good friend Lou Kramer, John Huntsman recruited him from Washington, D.C. They'd been friends back there, recruited him to come and built this great thing. So at the same time I was at Goed, they were co-located with us. The World Trade Center was. And I worked with Lou very, very closely. So I knew the organization well. So that would be the first part of it, why just why I was interested in it. But the second part of it was this Lou had said to me, um, because in my portfolio at GoEd was the international work, Lou had said, I don't want to manage any people. I've spent my whole career in Washington, D.C. managing people, hundreds of people. I don't want to do that anymore. So World Trade Center for him was it was a one-man shop. Yeah. I mean, it was a one-man band. The brand, Lou Kramer and World Trade Center, Utah, were inseparable. Right. And what I saw there was an opportunity to grow the organization into something different from that. When I started at the World Trade Center, it was me, it was a part-time person who shared time at the chamber and an intern, two interns. And I just thought this is a cool opportunity to like build something. I'd never done anything kind of entrepreneurial that way.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

I know when I started at the chamber, it was three people. I don't know if they were both full-time, and they were sort of in it was bigger than a closet, but it was certainly like a World Trade Center. I would refer to it as his closet. As a closet, yeah. Um so this is where things in my head, this is why uh um this is such a fun conversation for me, because we worked together for the governor, but then you went to the World Trade Center, which was sort of an offshoot of the chamber when I was there. And now you run the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, which is where I worked before I came to the governor's office to work with you. So I feel like we've basically had different versions of the same locations uh for our career. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And we still like each other. That's right. Go figure. Um we'll see. We got 20 minutes left, we'll see how this goes. Uh what what went in? I mean, I I think it's a silly question to say why would you go from the World Trade Center to the Chamber? Because the Chamber's uh My wife asked me that.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Did she? Yeah. Yeah. What was your answer? Well she she said it like this. Derek, why would you want to go from the World Trade Center to the Salt Lake Chamber? The world And it's so you can understand it from that perspective, right? Yeah. Um but you know this because you've been at the Chamber. Um first of all, uh the Salt Lake Chamber has been around since before Utah was a state. 1887. 1887. Um before there was the state of Utah, as as the business community has grown, the Salt Lake Chamber has grown. So it really has functioned for a long, long time, long before me, as a statewide chamber. And um, the influence of the Salt Lake Chamber, I think particularly under my predecessor and your former boss, Lane Beatty, former Senate president, just grew exponentially on Capitol Hill and the governor's office, everywhere else where it matters. So anyone who would know would know. Anyone who knew, I mean, the World Trade Center is a wonderful organization. When I left there, they had 10 employees. I don't know how many they have now. Um, but the Salt Lake Chamber has 60 employees. I mean, it's quadruple the size, quadruple the reach, quadruple the influence.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah. And it it serves as the statewide business association. I do want to talk to you about um uh a number of things at the Chamber. Um maybe we start here. Uh that that's your reason to transition to the job. Uh what do you love about the chamber? And has anything surprised you about going to the chamber and saying, Oh, I hadn't expected that to be a part of the job.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Every job that I had had before then, the reason I had been hired, as I was told, was that there was something in my sphere of influence within my portfolio of responsibility that needed to be fixed. That was not the case with the chamber. So it was really, I'm gonna say, hard for me. It was an adjustment for me. Because things that the chamber, I mean, you know the team, it's an amazing team. Our COO, Heidi Walker, amazing. And I will have to confess now in hindsight, I just remember thinking, why am I even here? Like, there's nothing about this organization that needs to be fixed. Um, what's my purpose here? Yeah. So that was the probably the most surprising. I didn't anticipate. That feels like a trauma response.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Hey, wait, so nothing's wrong. I just get to be here and keep us going in this direction.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Yeah, and not only that, but our old office space, which you know very well, I like to call it an homage to 1980s corporate culture. You know, it's like the CEO's office is the corner office way in the back. Like no one's allowed to go there. It was a lot like the governor of the chief of staff's office, actually. It was like separate from everybody, separate from everyone else. There's like three reception desks before you can even get layered security. So I remember like sitting in that office, and I still refer to it as Lane's office. I remember sitting in Lane's office that first day. I'm like, hello. Is anybody here? What?

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Did you feel a little bit like Milton on office space that they just had moved you to the basement and not? But in the opposite direction. It's like they give you the best office. But nobody wants to come talk to me.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Nobody Yeah. I mean, it was very it was a very strange feeling for sure. Trevor Burrus, Jr. You like to be more around the people then. I like to be around the people. Our setup now, of course, at 201 Main, we got the whole floor there. It's awesome. A little more accessible.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Yeah. Um, so you're enjoying the job. I love the job. Tell me what uh you look at right now for the business community and say, these are the biggest things that we've got to work on as a business community. Again, it goes to a little bit of what you were talking about that there's not a whole lot that's broken, right, as far as the Utah economy, but you got a bunch of plates you got to keep spinning. So what do you look at and say, man, this is where the business community has to be focused right now?

SPEAKER_00 24:42

I I always look at it uh in three layers. And the first layer is just, you know, block and tackle. Like what do we do all the day, every day, is and that is we focus on taxation, regulation, um, education, and transportation. I mean, these are just the four fundamental building blocks of any economy, uh city, region, state, country, world. Um and so we just never can take our eye off that. Then you've got a second layer, which is and I'm gonna say issue of the day, but I don't want that to sound pejorative or like it's minimizing it. These are big issues. But they're not but they come and go, hopefully. We if we address them, they come and go. They come for sure. Do they go?

SPEAKER_01 25:32

That's the question.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Right now, um, energy, uh, water, for sure. I mean, the the reason I say they come and go, hopefully, is because I really do believe the Great Salt Lake issue is an existential issue. Um and uh then we think about what's happening on an international front, tariffs, no tariffs, we're doing this, we're doing that, we're at war, who are we fighting now? It's hard to keep track of it all, and it just creates turmoil in the business marketplace, especially for Utah businesses, especially for small businesses, that 99% of Utah businesses are, and they just need certainty to be successful. And we are a high exporting state, top 10, which surprises most people. But um we make a lot of cool things here and we sell them around the world, and that's getting harder and harder to do every day for these Utah businesses. And then I would put sort of as the third layer on top of that, these thematic challenges. And I would say right now the thematic challenge that really keeps me up at night is that what we all say is our secret sauce and why we're so successful in Utah, why our economy has been so strong, is strong today, uh, great prospects for the future. That collaboration, I think, is at risk. It's at risk naturally as we grow, because when you grow, it gets harder to stay together. Yeah. And then I think it's at risk just because of the the um the polit political commotion of the day. And it's I don't just mean Republican Democrat. Uh I mean just people view so much of their world through a political lens, it's not healthy and it it divides us and it makes it so that we're we feel we're at odds with each other. And so that it hurts, that damages the trust that we have, and the trust that is required to maintain a collaborative spirit.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

It's interesting the point you mentioned about how difficult it is to collaborate as things kind of grow. And I think you've seen that in Utah, in that it used to kind of be Salt Lake was the epicenter of all business, and and still I think you would say is. But there's been a lot of growth in Utah County, and there's been a lot of growth down in St. George, different kind of growth than what you have in Utah County. What's the what's your uh philosophy and how you how you bring those together? Because you know, you could say, like, well, there's old money in Salt Lake, and now there's new money in Utah County. How do you make sure everyone there says, hey, what got us to this position is that the business community worked together and had real influence on how this state moved forward and and that's worth not only protecting but growing.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yeah. That question, well articulated, is probably the most important question we can be answering today, tomorrow, for the next year, uh for the next several years. So when I say that when we grow, we naturally tend to grow apart. The answer to that is more intentionality to stay together. What we've decided to do at the chamber is really one of the fundamental building blocks of why we created the Utah Chamber. Um we could see that the Salt Lake Chamber for a lot of, in a lot of ways, was already functioning as a statewide chamber, but we also knew that we couldn't claim under the name of the Utah Chamber to represent all areas of the state under that name. It just created market confusion. And not only that, but we had a number in inside the Salt Lake Chamber, we had a number of statewide organizations like the Women's Business Center of Utah, like our community foundation, the Utah Community Builders, like the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. So that was creating confusion in the marketplace. Like, wait, why is Women's Business Center of Utah in the Salt Lake Chamber? So for a lot of those reasons and others, um, we our board of directors voted to create the Utah Chamber as the umbrella organization for EDC Utah, Women's Business Center of Utah, uh Utah Community Builders, and the Salt Lake Chamber. So when I first talked to Mayor Mendenhall, Mayor of Salt Lake City, and Mayor Wilson, the mayor of Salt Lake County, about this, I said the good news for you is you're finally going to have a chamber that focuses on you because the Salt Lake Chamber has been focusing on all these statewide issues, but you deserve to have a chamber that's focused on the Salt Lake metropolitan region. And so that's that's the plan, and we're moving, we're marching towards accomplishing that vision.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

So does the Utah Chamber is does it serve sort of as a uh chamber of chambers, or is it more like you're looking for statewide membership that goes into the Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 30:43

So um nobody outside of Chamber World would care about this, but for people inside Chamber World, this is a really big deal, which is uh, for example, let's just say the Millard County Chamber, which I don't think there is one, but you know, the Millard County Chamber says, oh great, so now you're the Utah Chamber and you're gonna come to Millard County and take all my members away. So we were very cautious of that. When we created the Utah Chamber, is that it's not a membership organization like a traditional chamber. The membership still resides with the Salt Lake Chamber. Um but what the Utah Chamber does is it creates a coalition of chambers uh on policy issues. And this past session it worked better than I've seen before in the last 21 years, where we were able to go with a united front and say this is something that the Utah Chamber cares about, i.e., the Salt Lake Chamber, the Box Elder Chamber, the South Valley Chamber, and you might as well throw in the Miller Chamber because they don't know if it's there or but you know, to speak with that voice. Uh tomorrow morning we're having the um legislator awards breakfast. Um we renamed it the Free Enterprise Champion Award. And uh we will, for example, recognize Senate President Stuart Adams. And because this is his district, we'll we will have there with us the Box Elder Chamber to co-present him with that award. So that may sound like a small thing, but it's illustrative of the bigger uh message, which is we are speaking with one unified voice.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

And you've had positive reception from the chambers throughout the state, then it sounds like. Yeah. Um we're uh running a little bit short on time, but I want to end with a lightning round. Okay. Just a couple of quick quick fire things for you. Good. You ready for that? Uh all right. Uh Derek, what's your favorite food? The one you can eat when nobody's watching. Wide when no one's watching.

unknown 32:49

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

What's your favorite food?

SPEAKER_00 32:51

What do you eat when when calories don't count? Let's put it that way. Uh uh Ben and Jerry's pint of ice cream. Do you have a flavor? Um, my top three, this one's hard to find. You do a lot of things in threes. I can only remember three things. Yeah. Uh everything but the kitchen sink is it's hard to find. So that's number one. I just had it this past weekend. Okay. Number two, half baked. Uh, and number three, fish food. Okay. Uh favorite uh sport or hobby? What are you doing in your free time? Um this Saturday I'm running a triathlon uh with my son, Max. Uh, he wanted to do this. I swore I'd never do another one, but he wanted to do it. But I love riding bikes, I love trail running, I hate swimming. So later this evening, I'll be in the pool getting ready. Do you hate that it's open water swimming or do you hate all swimming? I hate that you can't breathe whenever you want. There's something my mind cannot wrap itself around that I can't just take a breath right now when I need one.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Well, if there's something you should be adamant about, it's breathing when you want to breathe. Yeah. Um It's a big deal for me. If you weren't running uh the Salt Lake Chamber or the Utah Chamber, uh what profession would you most like to try?

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Oh, that's interesting. That's a good question. What profession would I most? I would not like being a surgeon or a doctor. It feels like the margin of error is way too small. But I like doing things with my hand. I think I'd like to be a handyman. A handyman. Yeah. Okay. Just a general handyman. Aaron Ross Powell, What profession other than your own would you not like to try? Well, the that's the one. I don't want to be a doctor. I don't want to be a surgeon. My daughter's in medical school right now. I don't know where she gets this from. I just think like to have someone's life in your hands way too much.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

It's the risk level, though. It's not the blood or the other. No, I don't mind blood. I get blood a lot. That's the headline for the next for the episode. Derek Miller, I like blood. Uh all right. Give us a recommendation. A book, a podcast, a TV show, a movie, something you're consuming that you say, other people should know about this.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Can I give my favorite can I do this in two questions? Can I give my favorite TV show of all time? And then I'll give a favorite TV show of all time. The X-Files. Really? I love, love, love the X-Files. Okay. I think it's the greatest TV show ever made.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

What makes it the greatest TV show? Well, first of all, there was you know, think about at the time when Fox was like doing, you know, like only The Simpsons and the Tracy Ullman show. And then they come up with the X-Files, like nothing like this had ever existed before. So cool. And then I, you know, I'd I don't get so much into the conspiracy part of it, but I really dig the Monster of the Week episodes. Very clever. Can you watch it over and over again?

SPEAKER_01 35:35

So it holds up like through multiple viewings? Can and do. Okay. Everybody's got that show. Everybody's got that show. I would not have that would not have been my guess if you had said that. So that's something you say people should go back and check on that. That's your favorite TV show. What's something that you would make a recommendation?

SPEAKER_00 35:51

The recommendation, we were talking about it before we started, the book that I gave you when I was the chief of staff and you were the communication company.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Endurance. I can't do it. Yeah, it's the black one right over the side. I know that you've got the book that I gave you.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Yeah. It's been there for multiple episodes. We didn't just bring it for this. It's the best book I've ever read. And any I'm sure 99% of the people who watch or listen to this have read The Endurance. But for the one person who hasn't, that's that's my favorite book behind the Book of Mormon.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Last one, uh what's the best piece of advice that uh current Derek Miller would go back and give teenage Derek Miller?

SPEAKER_00 36:32

See, the thing is that um this was supposed to be under the category of keep it light. Yeah. But this is actually a pretty deep question. Yeah. Uh I would say when I got out of junior high and moved into high school, like I felt like the rules of the game had changed and no one had told me. And like everybody that was friends before, like suddenly they weren't all friends anymore. And my analytical brain like couldn't wrap itself around this, like, wait, what happened? And if I and so I think probably at the end of my sophomore year and the beginning of my junior year, I kind of checked out. Not out of like school, but like out of the social scene. The social scene. Oh. And I would go back to my uh my uh self now would go back to my past self and say, don't check out. Yeah. Well, that's good advice.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Don't check out's a good one to go. One thing we didn't cover that I that I've um always admired about uh you is your ability to remember like everything you hear.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

It's is that a thing, like an audio because you know you have like you you could anything you read, you hear that about people.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

But I've often wondered or if they see it on TV or something. But you know, audiographic. I really feel like I have an audiographic memory.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

I I know this from uh some uh of those late-night Herbert administration type phone calls of like, well, hey, we're doing this and doing this, and I'm tired, and I'm at the end of the day, and I get to deal with a bunch of reporters, and you get to deal with just me, among with you know, 300 other people across the state government. But and you could pick out a detail and say, well, it's not what we said earlier. We said this. I'm like, well, okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

I'm only laughing because I'm not gonna let my wife watch this. Yeah. She does she won't send it directly to her. So No, because I'm pretty sure, like two years ago when we had this conversation, I no, this does not play well in a marriage. But you you I only use that skill now at work. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Remember a lot of things. I also would say um I love the story you told about telling Governor Herbert, do you want to be the chief of staff? Um, because I had not that that seems like one where you have to just sort of draw a little bit of a line in the sand and say, this just can't work this way. And I had one of those probably about a I'd say three to five weeks into working in the governor's office. And that was the governor would at about five o'clock start looking at his iPad and he'd see a headline or something in a story, or heaven forbid, a comment somewhere. And then he would call and say, We gotta change this. That's not right, this isn't true. And I for the first little bit, I think for maybe like the first week or two, I tried and I would call and I'd argue with the reporter and I'd get sent to an editor and argue with an editor. And sometimes I had success and would change them, and sometimes I didn't. And it just got really quickly like that. I've only got so many bullets in the chamber. I can't fire this every time. So I had to have that conversation and say, a couple things. Please don't read comments. Yeah. Those aren't people we're worried about right now. Um, and uh secondly, we just got to pick and choose our spots and had to kind of say their threshold is is it inaccurate to say this? Yeah. Not is it exactly how you would write it? And we came to a better understanding, and then I like the job a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

My my my version of that was the next morning after he'd had that conversation with you, he'd come in and hand the paper to me and say, uh, this person who said that they disagreed with me here. I want you to call them. I want to meet with that person. I'm sure I could convince them that I had enough time. I'm sure I could convince them.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

And you had to say, I'm sure you can, but we've got to work at scale. It's a whole state. We can't do it one by one.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

And we're not talking about like the Senate president said, we're talking about like Joe Sixpack said he didn't agree with this guy. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

We've got to go change that. You can't do that. You can't do it, you've got to work at scale. And so uh he was so much fun to work with, but there were a few of those where he had to go. And as I like to tell him a lot along the way a number of times, uh not just him, but other people in the administration, look, we're in the middle of a term. We're gonna find a hundred more ways to make people mad. They're not even gonna remember this one. So let's just move on. We can make people a lot more mad. We just missed. We just gotta time it so they love us at the right time. That's what we're shooting for. Derek, thanks so much for the conversation. Appreciate it. Thanks, Marty. Back Channel is a northbound strategy production, and as a reminder, you can subscribe to the audio version of our show wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. We're everywhere as at Back Channel Utah. You can find us online at BackchannelUtah.com. And now we have video on our Apple Podcast as well, so go check that out. Uh, special thanks to Derek Miller. What a great conversation. I really had an enjoyable time talking to him about some of the times when we work together, maybe commiserating a little bit about uh what it's like to work in the governor's office, though it was an awesome opportunity for me, and certainly one you can tell from the conversation that he really enjoyed as well. And it's really interesting to see Derek now running the Salt Lake Chamber, the Utah Chamber, uh, as president and CEO there because I had worked there for a while. And I just know how important and how uh influential the business community can be when they come together and figure out the issues that are important to our economy. And actually how helpful that is, uh, I can attest to that from time uh in the governor's office, how helpful it is to have a business community that's engaged on big issues and will come together and uh speak clearly about what's important to them as business owners and what's important then to the state as an economy at large. Really great conversation. Uh grateful that Derek would stop by and do that with us. Uh we'll be back next week with another episode of Back Channel.