She made a temporary move for Goldman Sachs. Then Utah converted her.

Gemma Carlaw expected to be a temporary Utahn.

The native Londoner moved from the UK in 2013 for Goldman Sachs, to join its burgeoning global markets team in Salt Lake City. It was a short-term change, she thought — she’d put in two years in Utah, get some career development and go home.

But then Carlaw’s office made its own moves: from a small building near the University of Utah, to a downtown office on Salt Lake City’s Main Street, to an even newer office a block north. Each shift felt like proof that Goldman Sachs was growing in Utah, and so were the opportunities, Carlaw said.

She and her husband began a family. They spent their weekends exploring the deserts of southern Utah and skiing at nearby resorts.

Twelve years later, they have three “American boys” and “this is home,” Carlaw said at a Goldman Sachs volunteer day last month at Rosewood Park.

Now, the global financial services giant is working to convert more employees to Utah.

As part of cost-cutting initiative “Project Voyage,” Entrepreneur recently reported, Goldman Sachs will be asking managers to leave Manhattan (where rent for commercial office buildings is about $80 per square foot) to cheaper outposts ($26 per square foot) in Dallas and Salt Lake City.

The firm also is expected to cut 3%-5% of its workforce, according to reporting from Bloomberg, which put it this way in a headline: “Goldman Gives Managers a Choice: Dallas, Salt Lake City or Leave.”

The news drew immediate advice from protective Utah fans on Reddit: “Please pick Dallas.” “Move to Dallas, it’s really really awesome.” “Yea move to Dallas plz.”

But on another Reddit thread, incoming Goldman employees looking for housing are getting tips from helpful locals about Salt Lake City neighborhoods and transit.

‘A central part’

Goldman Sachs has now been in Utah for 25 years, growing from its first Salt Lake City office with a few hundred employees to become the company’s third largest U.S. hub, and fifth largest in the world.

Carlaw is one of more than 3,000 current employees, many of whom have also moved from somewhere else. Of the junior staffers in Utah, roughly 70%, according to recent estimates, moved in from out of state, said Stacey Miller, chief operating officer in Salt Lake City.

Goldman Sachs’ career page boasts of Salt Lake City’s “vibrant arts, culinary, and social scene,” plus its proximity to “some of the world’s most magnificent hiking, biking, and skiing in the world.”

Some outsiders still contend, though, with lingering stereotypes about Utah’s drinking scene and dating opportunities, which one trade publication went as far as to call “miserable.” And while cost of living may be lower than in coastal hubs like New York, so, too, are wages, some junior Goldman staff have found.

One pitch Goldman Sachs makes is the wide range of roles available in Utah, despite its distance from world headquarters in New York. What was once more of an “operational hub,” said Jill Borst, head of the Salt Lake City office, is now “a central part of our global enterprise.”

What she means is: Every one of Goldman Sachs’ business segments, including global banking, asset management and financial technology, have employees in Utah.

Borst sees Goldman Sachs’ growth as akin to a well-planted garden in fertile ground. The firm was drawn to Utah as Salt Lake City was investing in downtown infrastructure ahead of the 2002 Olympics, and the state’s universities offered a pool of talent. A Utah office also put employees closer to West Coast clients.

And the lifestyle Utah offered — outdoor recreation, a lower cost of living, a younger population — helped the firm grow organically, Borst said.

But that growth hasn’t been an accident, or just a response to cost-cutting efforts, Borst said. “We’ve chosen to invest in Salt Lake City,” she said. “It’s a long-term commitment that we have made.”

Utah taxpayers have also invested in Goldman Sachs. In 2009, the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity gave the company a tax incentive of up to $47.2 million, in exchange for the company’s estimated $51 million in spending and its creation of 690 new jobs over 20 years.

It expanded the incentive five years later, agreeing to an additional $13 million contingent on Goldman Sachs creating 350 new jobs and investing up to $40 million in new office space.

Each year that Goldman Sachs meets the criteria in the contracts — including paying salaries higher than Salt Lake County’s average wage — it earns a portion of the incentive. The state’s dashboard lists both tax credits as between 50% and 75% collected by the company.

‘Live the lifestyle’

Mark McCaskill already lived in Utah when he joined the firm 18 years ago, as one of 300 employees.

Now, as a manager of the firm’s global wealth management division, he said his job offers the same professional growth, plus personal fulfillment, as it did nearly two decades ago.

Salt Lake City is, in its own way, the geographic center of the Goldman Sachs universe. McCaskill has colleagues in Asia and can greet them as their day is beginning and his is ending; and he can finish work that started earlier in New York or London, he said.

“I think the opportunity to work for a global investment bank like Goldman Sachs, but then also be able to live the lifestyle that Utah and Salt Lake City affords us,” he said, “is very special.”

On a mostly sunny April day, he and Carlaw stood nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, shovels in hand, digging into the ground at Rosewood Park. They planted Osage orange trees in the holes they dug, as part of a series of service projects the firm planned for its 25th anniversary.

Over the course of three days, roughly 400 volunteers planted 100 trees on Salt Lake City’s west side, which has faced a “real discrepancy” in green space and natural shade compared to neighborhoods east of Interstate 15, Mayor Erin Mendenhall said.

“I hope you feel the connection here,” Mendenhall told the crowd of volunteers. “And may we grow for another 25 years.”

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Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.