The Most Inspiring Stories in Utah

The heart of our mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our communities. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some incredible artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with the incredible group below. Check out our favorite stories from across the Voyage family.

Candice Furubayashi

I specialize in holistic mental health and wellness, integrating Eastern and Western approaches to provide personalized care for both mind and body. My exclusive wellness plans address the root causes of imbalance rather than just managing symptoms. After facing significant challenges, including a traumatic brain injury while surfing, I turned to holistic practices for healing when conventional treatments failed to offer lasting results. Read more>>

Heather Cornia

I started out as an Office Manager for a small business in Kaysville, Utah. That’s where I started to learn about bookkeeping. After I had our son, I decided I needed more flexibility, so I got a job doing front desk in healthcare. I have been doing that for the past eight years. Read more>>

Chanoknun Xayvong

I started Taekwondo when I was 12 years old. My sister wanted to do gymnastics, and next door, was a newly opened Taekwondo school. My mom asked me if I wanted to do that while my sister did gymnastics, and I said yes. Growing up, my heroes were Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan. Read more>>

Ty Sorensen

I didn’t grow up feeling like I belonged. My parents divorced when I was young, and from there it felt like I was always drifting between worlds. My mom’s boyfriends weren’t the kind of men you could lean on, many were emotionally unavailable, some abusive. Read more>>

Drew Smith

My wife and I are both former Army bomb technicians (EOD – Explosive Ordnance Disposal). I spent some time after the Army trying to figure out what to do with life as there wasn’t a lot of call for explosive experts, unless it was overseas. Read more>>

Andrey Olinov

I’ve been an entrepreneur for more than 20 years, and when I moved to Utah I met my now business partner Moe, who had the idea for a Hop On Hop Off tour in Salt Lake City. He asked me to help, and I loved the concept immediately. Read more>>

Cheryl Conner

From Survivor to Founder: Lessons From a Female CEO Nearing My Final Chapter By Cheryl Conner, SnappConner PR I began my career in public relations not as a strategist, but as a mother of three boys under the age of four, trying to figure out how to support my family. Read more>>

Marc Morris

I started my career across nonprofit, education, and corporate settings, where I learned how ideas move from a whiteboard to the real world. I kept seeing the same problem. Smart people had valuable insights, but their work got lost in jargon, long reports, or inside baseball. I realized my best contribution was helping bridge that gap. I shifted into consulting to do precisely that. Read more>>

Taylie Hartline

I got married right out of high school (I know, I’m crazy, but going on 5 years now!) and fully imagined my life taking a completely different path. I had been accepted to a musical theater school in Los Angeles, and so that’s where my husband and I went. Growing up, I was always career-focused. Read more>>

Marc Nelson

There are three things in life that are most important faith, family, and your health. Your health can be a complicated matter, navigating the current medical systems can be scary, made worse by the skyrocketing health care costs. Dr. Read more>>

Mikayla Batschi

My love for music started early – when I was eight years old, I saw Phantom of the Opera in theaters and immediately begged for voice lessons. From that moment on, I was hooked. All through high school I trained, sang in choirs, performed in theater -anything that let me grow as a singer. Read more>>

Janalee Stinger

For as long as I can remember, I have always had a desire to help people to feel better. I graduated as an RN in 1984. Settled in the NICU where I spent the next 17 years of my life caring for premature babies. Read more>>

SHAWN E ELLINGSON

Aikido Mountain West came together about 10 years ago, as a collaboration of seven Aikido instructors looking for a new home in the Salt Lake Valley. Our old Dojo had closed down and we were looking for a space and a new way of teaching and learning our Art. We set ourselves up as a Board of Trustees, with a President, V.P. Read more>>

Maylee Alba

Hawaii Fluid Art got its start on the big island of Hawaii by Maya Ratcliff while searching for a creative outlet. She found the wonders of fluid art, a technique where you skillfully layer acrylic paint into a cup and pour it over a canvas. Read more>>

Lizzy Mildenhall

I started making jewelry when I was six months pregnant with my first child. I had just graduated with my bachelor’s degree, but I was planning to be a stay-at-home mom for a few years. At the time, I was working at Michael’s, and I was intrigued by all the pretty beads in the bead aisle. Read more>>

Gabby Grubaugh
0

I actually used to certify crane operators right before I decided to start hair school! I was tired of not liking my job and feeling like I hit a dead end. I got the inclination to read my grandmother’s obituary and found out she was a hairdresser which jumpstarted me into looking at schools. Read more>>

Stoyan Katinov

My passion for photography started early, growing up in Bulgaria with a simple film camera in hand. I took my first photography courses in those years, fascinated by the art of capturing real, everyday moments. Although my academic path led me to the U.S. to study International Business at BYU, I never lost my love for photography. Read more>>

iuri melo

The Genesis of SchoolPulse really began in 2017 when our community experienced seven student suicides. Justin Keate, the principal at Desert Hills high school experienced two of those at his school and he reached out to me in an effort to be more proactive and preventative in his approach. Read more>>

Jennifer Randall

When I was in 6th grade, my mom wanted a mother/daughter activity for us to do together. She signed us up for a sewing class, along with my best friend and her mom. That class taught a very simple clothing technique that allowed me to go home after each class wth wearable clothing. I was hooked. Read more>>

Karl Beckstrand

I was raised in paradise (San Jose, California)—it’s very much like Viña del Mar, Chile, where I served a two-year church mission. I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism (never planned to be a reporter) and a master’s in international relations. I taught media at a Utah college, and I speak on traditional vs. digital/self-publishing. Read more>>

Chelsie Durden

I struggled with mental health and co-dependency throughout high school, which ultimately led me to drop out. In 2007, I made the decision to go back and earn my GED so that I could pursue college and eventually become licensed as a substance abuse counselor. Read more>>

Mike Mylroie

We got started by helping out another nonprofit that lost their property, the plan was we wanted to team up, then they decided to just get out altogether and left us with their 14 horses. So a few friends and I decided to start are own and figure it out. Read more>>

Shalise Roberts

In June 2020, the world at pretty much shut down. My brother had a friend who was moving to Alaska and had done a handful of catering events, but was shutting down due to the move. My brother mentioned how he might want to take over, but was weighing the risks (as no one knew if large, in-person groups would be allowed soon- if ever. Read more>>

Rob Phillips

RoHa Brewing Project was founded in 2017 in the heart of the Ballpark area in Salt Lake City. A partnership based on the love of craft beer, and the desire to offer the community a place to convene, and grow friendships. We have grown our taproom, and distribution, and the grown a following of friends, we call family. Read more>>

Ralston Garrett

My journey as a photographer started not too long ago. I was a police officer, but after an injury, I wasn’t able to return to service. I felt lost, frustrated, and uncertain about what came next. I’ve always loved the outdoors and staying active, but being bedridden forced me to slow down. Read more>>

Chase D’Ambrosio

I was born in Price, Utah in 1988 to my parents Bonnie and Terry D’Ambrosio with 4 older siblings. My father was a mechanic in the coal mines and my mother was a lunch lady at our local catholic school, in addition to them helping run the family farm. Read more>>

Dean Wiltse

I was recruited by a Private Equity firm to move to Utah to become the CEO of one of their investments, a software business. The goal was to help it grow and sell it. My first day on the job as CEO was March 1, 2020, the beginning of COVID. Read more>>

Ryan Spelts

Sales came first for me. I’ve been studying and practicing sales and marketing for my entire career, and that background makes me different from most marketers. Where some focus on design or tech, I focus on helping my clients sell—creating strategy first and then building the design and tech around it. Ryan Spelts Marketing officially launched in February 2022 as a standalone digital agency. Read more>>

David York

I earned my B.S. in Accounting from the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business and my law degree from the S.J. Quinney College of Law. As both an attorney and a CPA, I was drawn early to estate planning because it combined technical complexity with deeply personal impact. Read more>>

chef Doug James

Was on my own at a very young age at 16 so I needed to learn how to cook. The older I got the more detailed and interested I got into the details, the technique of cooking. Eventually starting getting into my own proprietary way of cooking. Read more>>

Amanda Hartman

My path to Refresh began with a simple idea: offer excellent, responsible aesthetic care in my community. Early on I trained extensively in injectables and advanced skin modalities and saw firsthand how transformative education, technique, and the right technology can be. I opened Refresh Aesthetics to bring those resources to Roosevelt and the surrounding area so patients wouldn’t have to travel to get high-quality care. Read more>>

Karissa Jackson & Apolonia Silva

We both worked together at a hormone clinic in the valley for several years, and during that time we realized we shared the same vision—not only in how we wanted to treat patients’ hormones, but also in the level of care and quality of service we believed people deserve. Read more>>

Philip Cochrane

I started my career in financial services. After the 2008 financial meltdown transitioned my career to assisting companies with their incentive travel, meetings, conferences and events working for a few location companies, When covid hit I was furloughed so I started iCentiviz Meetings & Events. We are now 5 years with an experiences team servicing numerous Fortune 500 company clients globally. Read more>>

Ashley Bienvenu

For nearly two decades, my career was in the fast-paced world of corporate technology. The majority of my time was spent in a company who aimed to create products and services that passed the ‘toothbrush test” – things people would use at least twice daily. This goal of making an impact on people’s everyday lives deeply resonated with me. Read more>>

Spencer Macdonald

I am an attorney in Utah. A few years back I started reading articles about the impact Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) is or will be having on the legal industry, and on other industries and on society in general. Read more>>

Shalae Tippetts

My husband and I have been looking for opportunities to invest or business opportunities to start. Our close friends Rachel and Spencer were on a double date with us, and telling us that they had been looking in to purchasing an RV Park, as a way for him to eventually retire. Read more>>

Cody Sims

I’m originally from North Georgia I moved to Utah in 2017 I started a home restoration and tile business worked for myself for a few years. Until eventually deciding to go to school and get my barber license. Before then cutting hair was just something I did for myself or a family members. Read more>>

Beau Tippetts

I am a computer engineer by profession that grew up in a small community in Wyoming that has come to love the beauty and nature of Utah. I have now lived here longer than where I grew up but the diversity across the state amazes me almost daily! Read more>>

Mitch Moncur

Denny, my grandfather, started the shop in 1963 in Kearns. He moved that shop to our Riverton location in 1983. My dad, Darrin, started working at the Riverton shop in 1987 and became Denny’s partner in 1993. I started working at the shop in 2010. I became the shop’s first master technician, since Denny, in 2015. Read more>>

McKenzie Keene

Highland Peaks Dance Studio started in 2012, when my husband and I moved to Centerville. The idea of creating a Scottish Dance Studio started when I was very young. I began learning Scottish highland dancing when I was about 3 years old. My great grandpa had immigrated to Utah from Scotland and brought with him the love for Scottish Arts. Read more>>

Rachel Macdonald

My husband Spencer is a self employed real estate attorney and he had a client who owned an RV park. The more Spencer learned about running an RV park from this man, the more interested and excited he got. Read more>>

Jaycie Voorhees

I started Harmony Music Therapy out of a deep belief in the power of music to transform lives. I wanted to provide music therapy services to people and programs in our community who could not access it, and I wanted the freedom to create programs and services that were uniquely suited to our community. Read more>>

Damian Dayton

I always wanted to make fun and funny TV. I looked up the Jim Henson and the Muppets. But along the way, in the grind to make your first film, first documentary, first children’s show, I lost a little piece of me. Even though I had been nominated for major awards, like Emmy’s and Cine Gold eagles, the prizes didn’t materialize into business success, nor more film projects. When I realized that a career in Television wouldn’t work out for me, I had no idea that I could use my same sense of fun and whimsy like I had seen Jim Henson use, and turn it into profitable campaigns for products that I truly believed in. Read more>>

Cutler And Julie Johnson

He helped us get started and we were able to hit the ground running. Our first year we started was right when covid hit, so we weren’t able to start out like we wanted to as covid had students moving a lot earlier than we anticipated. But every year since then, we have continued to grow! Most of our business comes from word of mouth, we love when the students we help recommend us to other students! We love working with all the college students! Read more>>