Republican County Convention Speech

This speech was given by Greg Jensen at the Sevier County Republican Convention April 6, 2022 at the Sevier County Fairgrounds.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for giving your time this night.

I have been asked this question hundreds of times over the course of my career, “what is the best investment?” I have always replied that the best investment is investing in yourself.

There are hundreds of individuals in our county who have done this exact thing by invested in themselves. These individuals have built successful businesses; many have grown these to employ several, others have grown these to employ hundreds. All this, accomplished by investing in themselves.

When people are given the chance to use their gains as they see fit you will see capitol improvements and growth. This needs to be encouraged. This needs to be planed for. This will build success. When making plans for the future we can not just look in the near timeframe. We need to be planning for things that are 10-20 years and even further into the future.

As I was speaking with one large business owner. I asked specifically, “what is the timeframe you have in mind when making capital improvements”? Their answer was 50 years. I asked, who are you thinking of when making these improvements? Their answer was, "The employees!”

These are the people in the county and community we need to be helping. This is the growth we need. This will be the answer to building our community for the future.

To accomplish this, we need to be listening to each and every community leader that we have in our county. These leaders have been elected by you and deserve and need to be listened to carefully by county officials. I am currently on the agenda to meet with each and every city and town council in our county. I look forward to listening to them. In the next 5 weeks I will have this accomplished. I started this process last week at the Salina town council.

I think it is of utmost importance to be listening and helping in any way possible to this leadership. The county commissioners should be meeting with the mayors of each community together regularly. Our former commissioner Ralph Okerlund did this and called it “meeting with the mayors.” This needs to begin again.

Our community has been blessed with people who are very innovative. We have an entrepreneurial spirit here in our wonderful county. These people need to help us and lead with their innovative ideas and practices to help our businesses grow.

Last week I held three different voter registration events. One in the North Sevier area, one in the South Sevier Area, and one in Richfield at my home. This was a great opportunity to meet with people from all over our county. It was wonderful to hear from from you and hear your concerns and the issues that you are facing.

Currently in our county there are over 1300 business licenses. This doesn’t include any of the

agricultural business we have in our county either. Can you imagine what growth we could have by helping these current businesses. Showing them what programs that are available. Showing them what grants and incentives that are waiting for them to use.

We need to find ways to build our current businesses so our children don’t have to keep leaving to find work. Currently there are incentives that employers in the technology fields have available to them. These incentives would bring employees to work and live here in our community. We need to be talking to and bringing this here.

We have the Blackhawk arena in our county, the Sevier Valley Center and these fairgrounds. There should not be a weekend that they are not each filled. One of the problems with making this happen is finding places for people to stay. This needs to be addressed and fixed so we don’t loose what we already have and so we gain what we are missing out on.

I have been able to meet with leadership at Snow college. They have shared their ideas, plans and the things they need help with. We have an incredible asset with this college here. Working with them is a priority.

The future can be very bright for our county. This bright future will entail crucial planning. This planning and change needs to happen now. We cannot band aid issues with wasted dollars anymore. We need to be ready for that change tonight. We need to implement what our county needs to grow and prosper. I am ready to help with these changes so we can grow and be successful.

Henry Ford said

Coming together is the BEGINNING

Keeping together is PROGRESS

Working together is SUCCESS

Tonight, we are coming together as the BEGINNING

June 28th we will be keeping together and winning the primary as PROGRESS

November 8th, Election night, we will be working together and have SUCCESS in winning the election

Thank you