Leigh von der Esch

by John Blodgett

There’s more to Utah than skiing.

There’s pickle and pinto bean pies in Bicknell. Dinosaur tracks in St. George. Wildlife on Antelope Island. World-class symphony, opera and theater in Salt Lake City.

And there’s more to tourism than attracting out-of-staters.

“We sell ourselves short,” says Leigh von der Esch, managing director of the Utah Office of Tourism, who is trying to get Utah residents to buy into the idea of vacationing in their own backyard — a reflection of her own passion for the state.

Her primary job, of course, is to market Utah to the world. She has a budget of almost $12 million to accomplish this. By law, however, Von der Esch cannot use her marketing funds for in-state messaging.

Nonetheless, in 2007, she found $20,000 in her operating budget to play with. That summer saw the “Just a Tank Away” campaign; one year later it was “Create a Summer Memory.” Von der Esch speaks of “stories” and “forever moments” that intrepid explorers can find in Utah, no matter from where they hail.

Von der Esch has moved to Utah three times since the early 1960s. She first moved here from New Jersey with her family, so her father could work at Thiokol. Next they moved to California, again to follow their father’s work. Then Von der Esch returned to attend the University of Utah. Her first job out of school was in Washington, D.C., but by the end of the ‘70s, accepting that she was a “Western girl” at heart, she came back to Utah and has stayed ever since. She has homes in Salt Lake City and in Torrey.

Utah is ingrained in Von der Esch’s soul. Case in point: She collects paintings by local artists, which hang on the walls of her home in Salt Lake’s Olympus Cove. One morning after waking, as she was starting her day, her eyes swept across the desert vistas rendered in paint.

“It was the same scene I wake up to in Torrey,” she says of her subconscious choice and arrangement of images. “I said, my word!”