Frank Tusieseina

Founder & CEO

Tusieseina has 35 years of experience in sports management and marketing and media. CMO for the Sports Agent Corporation. An Executive at JVC Entertainment. Sports Agent for U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist, in Beach Volleyball, 2000 Sydney Olympics. Director AVP Salt Lake City Open in 2013 & 2014. Created and Produced the Aloha Invitational collegiate volleyball tournament on CBS Sports Network.  Founder of the PolyStrong Leadership Foundation.

Eric Valgardson

Principal

Valgardson Co-founded EMG through his passion for sports and interest in being an entrepreneur in the sports industry. He earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Aviation Science and Management at Utah Valley University and after earning his degree remained there as a Flight Instructor. His flying career included a position as Captain with Delta Connection and he is currently a Captain for Alaska Airlines. Eric has been involved in sports since his childhood and continues to have a passion and love of sports and has served as a coach in various youth Basketball and Football leagues. Eric worked as an Associate Producer of the Aloha Invitational in Hawaii. He owns and manages a portfolio of residential real estate.

tallen Meek

CFO

Tallen graduated cum laude with his Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Dixie State University in 2010. Since then, he has worked with both public and private organizations, helping them prepare and manage budgets, establish sound accounting practices, secured more than $75 million in project financing, and plan strategically for long term growth and sustainability. Tallen is currently the CFO for an auto group as well as its sister development company and has also worked with the city of West Valley, earning the designation of Certified Government Financial Manager from the Association of Government Accountants during his time there. He has also operated his own tax & accounting firm for more than 11 years, focusing on tax planning and strategy.  Applying his broad knowledge base and skill set, Tallen has worked on a variety of different successful development projects through every step of the process including planning, budgeting, funding, stabilization, management etc.

Jill Paulsen

GRI, SRS, Real Estate Representative

Jill Paulsen started her career in Real Estate in 2009. She represents buyers and sellers for both residential and commercial properties across the nation but her primary focus is in Southern Utah. Jill was “Agent of the Year 2015” and received the “Outstanding Agent” award in 2019 with her brokerage Red Rock Real Estate, the second largest independently owned brokerage in the State of Utah. Jill also specializes in new construction and development and maintains important key relationships with large institutional lenders and developers whom she works closely with throughout the entire development process. During her career Jill has closed over 200 transactions which includes residential sales, commercial sales and short sales. She continues to be one of the top agents and real estate professionals in St. George.

Craig Bennett

Design-build Contractors

Design-Build Contractors, Inc is a full service commercial and residential construction company specializing in the design-build construction method. Owned and operated by Craig Bennett with over 40 years of construction experience on a large variety of commercial and residential projects. Over the past 20 years their combined projects have exceeded $400,000,000 in total gross sales. Projects constructed by the Design-Build team include schools, churches, storage facilities, restaurants, strip malls, auditoriums, warehouses, office flex space, commercial office space, luxury style custom homes, multi-family housing, disadvantaged and assisted living housing units, commercial and residential remodels and much more. DBC has constructed buildings of varying types including concrete tilt-up construction, conventional and pre-engineered steel buildings, CMU block masonry and traditional wood frame structures. Projects have ranged in price from $100,000 to $15,000,000.

Ryan Erekson

Skywire Technologies

Skywire Technologies is a full-service IT integrator for large venue businesses / schools and specialty facilities across the country. Skywire Technologies / Classroom Smart has worked with many construction firms and financial groups as an end-to-end IT resource from conception to completion. Highmark School Development is one example, they have completed many of their schools around the country. Skywire Technologies is located in Saint George, UT and has a nationwide footprint as a unique IT Integrator. 

Mike Morley

American Charter Development

Mike is the Managing Partner of MTM, LLC development company based in Springville, Utah. Mike has over 40 years of development experience in Charter Schools, Government leases, office, retail and hotels with over $400M in project revenues and financing. Mike is also the owner of American Charter Development (ACD) and has developed over80 charter school projects nationwide. He served as member of the House of Representatives of Utah for 10 years. ACD currently has over 20 Charter Schools undermanagement or development across the United States.

‘Ainu Kaufusi

Executive Assistant

‘Ainu started with EMG in April 2022. ‘Ainu has work experience covering multifaceted aspects of business development. This experience entails Information Systems, Consulting, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and Business Strategy. ‘Ainu graduated from the University of Utah majoring in B.S. Operations & Supply Chain with a Digital Literacy Certificate.

daylene taualii

Associate Director of Marketing

Daylene graduated from Dixie State University with a Bachelor’s in Marketing and a Certificate in Entrepreneurship. In 202, she did an internship with EMG for about a year before graduating. After graduating, she accepted a role at a Digital Marketing Agency to further her experience in the marketing industry, specializing in email marketing. Now back at EMG, Daylene is ready to jump back into the sports and events world.