The West Mixing Business And Faith

By SALLY B. DONNELLY/SALT LAKE CITY

If religion, as Karl Marx once wrote, is "the opium of the people," in Utah it is the amphetamine. Thanks largely to the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- the Mormons -- Utah has become the envy of its neighbors. Other states are bogged down in recession, but Utah's economy is racing. Other states around the country are raising taxes and cutting services to balance their budgets, but Utah is enjoying a third straight budget surplus. Other states are having trouble attracting job- creating businesses, but in Utah they are flocking in from all over. What Utah proves is that church and government can work together to usher in good times.

That the rest of the country has cause to be jealous of Utah is an oddity. Established by the Mormons as a religious refuge in 1847, Utah applied for statehood six times before it was accepted into the Union. The locals even went so far as to name a county (Millard) and a town (Fillmore) after the 13th President in an unsuccessful attempt to get him on the side of Utah statehood. Not until 1896, when the Mormons formally abandoned polygamy, did Utah finally make it.

Even after that, most Americans tended to regard the state as a remote and mysterious place notable only for the Great Salt Lake, striking desert landscapes and the multiple marriages of some of its inhabitants. But while outsiders snickered, Utah was working a quiet revolution. It now boasts the nation's youngest, best-educated and most productive work force. It has launched an aggressive economic development program to create new jobs at a rate of 30,000 a year. About 80% of these positions were started by local entrepreneurs. But Utah has also lured such companies as Delta Air Lines, Fidelity Investments and Sears' Discover Card.

The Mormons deserve much of the credit for Utah's economic vibrancy. Two- thirds of the population of 1.7 million belongs to the church, which has helped to shape the boom in both direct and indirect ways. In business terms, the church is an $8 billion-a-year conglomerate that employs about 10,000 people. Bankrolled in large measure by tithes from its members, the church has vast holdings in real estate, financial services, broadcasting, publishing and insurance. The church's strict morality (it forbids premarital sex, gambling and the use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs) reinforces the hardworking nature of Utah's people. A Wall Street bond trader puts it succinctly: "All they do there is breed, pray and make money."

The Mormons' proselytizing tradition has made Utah attractive to companies in the U.S. and abroad. Each year the church sends out thousands of young men (and some women) to live abroad and preach the Mormon word -- in the local language. As a result, Utah has a disproportionately high number of people who are fluent in foreign languages, a prime selling point in the global marketplace. Compeq, a Taiwan-based computer-board maker, decided to open its first overseas plant in Utah in part because its managers knew Utah has hundreds of Mormon missionaries familiar with their country's culture and language. For similar reasons, American Express chose West Valley City as the location for the telephone service of its traveler's-check operation, which handles customer inquiries from around the world.

Still, the current boom owes at least as much to shrewd timing as to divine providence. The state slumped into a deep recession in the early 1980s when the mining and steel industries collapsed. With remarkable foresight, government and business leaders began a restructuring of the economic base that is now paying off. In place of declining heavy industries, home-grown computer firms like WordPerfect and Novell stepped in. "That earlier downturn helped us root out our problems," says Kelly Matthews, chief economist at First Security Bank. "We haven't exactly earned our current good fortune, but in a sense we've already paid our dues."

The corporate recruits are drawn not only by a low-cost (average monthly wage: $1,585, vs. the average wage nationally of $1,850), well-trained work force that is 8% unionized, but also by the hospitality offered by an unusually cooperative state administration. When Al Egbert, general manager of the McDonnell Douglas operation in Salt Lake City, recently got word that an oversize truckload would arrive on a Friday evening, he called the necessary state officials at home, and a highway escort was arranged. The delivery finally came at 9 p.m. "Utah is a unique place, where you can actually get things done," says Egbert. "The cultural norm is to work together and make a profit."

However, not everyone thinks Utah is heaven on earth. Some residents are uneasy about what they regard as putting the profit motive above all else. "There are core aspects of Utah's development -- the 'human infrastructure' side of things -- like education costs, health care and wage rates -- that are not being adequately addressed," says Bill Walsh, head of Utah Issues, an advocacy group for low-income people. Despite the stress on education, Utah is last in the nation in per capita spending on schooling.

For women in particular, life in Utah can be hard. Though no longer legal, polygamy persists in rural areas. There are more females than males in the work force, but they earn only 54 cents for every $1 a man earns, vs. the national ratio of 72 cents. A woman who wants an abortion may not be able to get one in Utah much longer. Last January the state legislature -- which is 90% white, male and Mormon -- passed a law that would make virtually all abortions punishable by imprisonment. It has not been implemented because it is held up in the courts.

Racial minorities too can find life in Utah uncomfortable. The state's population is 93% white, and minorities lack the critical mass to make their concerns heard. Although the unemployment rate is only 5% (compared with 7% nationally), many Utahans work in low-paying service-industry jobs that make supporting a family difficult. Just over 10% of the people live in poverty, and although their circumstances are not nearly as desperate as those of the poor in other parts of the country, many fall in the cracks of the Mormon and state welfare systems. To critics, the failure to correct these flaws is all the more frustrating because Utah has the wealth to address them. "Utah is not that different from the rest of the country in terms of the social and economic problems it faces," says Professor Nancy Amidei of the School of Social Work at the University of Utah. "But the smaller scale makes it potentially more manageable."

These problems have not deterred a huge surge of visitors and new residents. Tourism now brings in $2 billion annually, and new arrivals from other states and foreign countries have begun to dilute the pervasive -- and sometimes smothering -- Mormon atmosphere. For some, the changes flowing from Utah's opening itself to the outside world cannot happen soon enough.

Though Utah politics tends to be fairly dull and uniformly conservative, issues are bubbling to the surface that are causing residents to take a hard look ahead. "The leadership is at a crossroads," says Deedee Corradini, a businesswoman who is favored to become the city's first woman mayor this fall. "We have to make the transformation from reactive politics to involved, activist politics."

Environmental concerns are of increasing importance to a state that has only so much land to itself, since the Federal Government controls 60% of Utah. Some of that is devoted to U.S. military facilities that house almost half the country's stockpile of chemical weapons. "We deal with heartland issues that set individual rights against government wishes," explains Steve Erickson, a spokesman for Downwinders, a citizens' group.

The new Utah is most evident in Salt Lake County (pop. 728,000). Since 1975, so many people have moved in that Mormons, once 75% of the population, now account for only half. Eighteen months ago, the city relaxed its prohibition on alcohol, and bars and restaurants are thriving. The local gay community has become large enough and vocal enough to have mounted a colorful antidiscrimination protest at the Salt Lake County fairgrounds in June. Some of America's best ski areas are 20 minutes away from high-rise office buildings. A $500 million downtown redevelopment project has revived the city's arts community. Even intellectual life got a charge last month when the University of Utah named Arthur Smith as the first non-Mormon president in its 141-year history. "Salt Lake City is what people think Denver should be," says mayoral candidate Corradini.

Even more startling transformations may occur if Utah keeps attracting people from around the world. And the church is starting to feel the pressure flowing from its success. By the year 2000, more than half the Mormons' worldwide membership of 8 million will be from Third World countries -- and many could move to Utah. Accommodating such diversity could be wrenching for a faith that did not allow blacks to hold any church office or join the priesthood until 1978 and still bars women from the clergy. After a century and a half of isolation, Utah is no longer a place that Mormons can keep to themselves.