Committee advances three Utah Tech trustee nominees with healthcare and innovation backgrounds

A Utah Senate advice-and-consent committee on May 1 unanimously recommended three nominees — Natalie Ashby, Rick Acton and Lincoln Nadal — to the full Senate for appointment to the Utah Tech University Board of Trustees.

Natalie Ashby, introduced as president of St. George Regional Hospital and market president for Intermountain Health’s Southwest Utah market, described her health-care leadership background and said she would prioritize partnerships to address regional nursing shortages and student mental health resources. “One of the things that keeps me up at night as a president of the hospital … is mental health concerns,” she told the committee, and she described Intermountain programs for suicide prevention and community outreach.

Rick Acton, co-founder and chief executive officer of Trula, described work linking universities, startups and student mental-health supports. He said Utah Tech’s polytechnic direction can help the region by combining technical training with “durable skills” such as critical thinking and social capital. Lincoln Nadal, an MD–PhD who described years mentoring Utah Tech students and convening summer research internships at institutions such as Stanford and Johns Hopkins, said he would work to grow graduate pathways in health and science while keeping talented students in Utah.

Senator Reedy moved to recommend Ashby and Acton to the full Senate; Senator Johnson moved to recommend Nadal. All three motions passed by unanimous voice votes; the committee recorded no roll-call tallies in the transcript. Committee members asked nominees about AI in health care, campus mental-health services, regional workforce development, and the polytechnic model; nominees emphasized partnerships among the university, health systems and local employers.

With the committee’s recommendations, the nominees advance to a future full-Senate advice-and-consent day for final confirmation.