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Show Thursday, March 13, 2008 AMERICAN FORK CITIZEN Page 3 XanGo cuts part of Lehi workforce Grace Leong DAILY HERALD -1 XanGo LLC, a Lehi direct seller of a mangosteen-based juice, on Thursday terminated several workers as part of what it called a "strategic reallocation re-allocation process." A XanGo official declined to specify how many workers work-ers were terminated, why the cuts occurred and whether this was the first time the privately-held company has downsized its work force after five straight years of consistent growth. Bob Freeze, vice president of public relations for XanGo, described the cuts as a "reallocation "real-location of resources, and not a layoff." But one employee with XanGo disagreed with the characterization, saying he himself was laid off on Thursday Thurs-day morning and believes there were at least 35 others terminated that same day. "This is very much a layoff. lay-off. I'd like to know where they're reallocating me," said the former employee who spoke to the Daily Herald on condition of anonymity. He said he was one of several workers escorted out of the XanGo corporate office in Lehi after a 15-minute meeting meet-ing with senior management on Thursday morning. "There were three people in my department who were laid off, and one of them had been there for three years," he said. "According to the security guard who escorted us out, there were at least 35 people laid off." The former employee said the layoffs occurred after Kent Wood, president of XanGo, Xan-Go, sent out a companywide e-mail on Thursday morning saying he has had to make "tough decisions" after meeting meet-ing with senior executives in the past few weeks. Freeze said the company was "reallocating corporate resources to align with its continued global expansion and provide premium service to its growing international markets." "As a result of an evaluation evalua-tion of changing global needs, XanGo is implementing a strategic stra-tegic reallocation process that will enable us to deploy personnel per-sonnel and financial resources to assertively advance our service commitment in every one of our 23 international markets," Freeze said in an e-mailed statement Thursday. "This reallocation will impact a small number of employees at our Lehi headquarters, but will position us to continue to support the vibrant growth that has characterized the first few years of our company's history." The cuts come in the wake of what the company CEO WAKTEID) WATER, WELL RIGHTS & IRRIGATION. Call Ross at 642-0119 InzUJ (H?TJ Aaron Garrity described as phenomenal international growth last year, which includes a gain of 10,000 international in-ternational distributors, and the opening of new markets worldwide like that of Malaysia, Ma-laysia, where XanGo chalked up more than $1 million in revenue within the first month of doing business in the Asian country. That same year, XanGo Xan-Go also hired 353 employees, introduced XanGo.TV and expanded ex-panded its 300,000-square-foot distribution center in Spanish Fork. The former employee said he believes the layoffs were due to slowing sales in the U.S. market. Both the U.S. and Canada are XanGo's biggest markets, accounting for more than 50 percent of total sales. "Since the new year began, things have started getting more and more tight. Last week, the senior executives asked managers where they could cut budgets. This week, it's personnel cuts. But XanGo still has many markets like Germany and Mexico where it's growing and doing exceptionally ex-ceptionally well," the former employee said. "Because XanGo only has one product, and the company has based all of its growth in the past five years on that one product, some people speculate that the product lifecycle of its man-gosteen man-gosteen juice is starting on a downward trajectory," he said. "The remedy would be to come out with new product lines like the new cosmetics line that's being launched this November." XanGo also faces growing competition from more than two dozen rivals that sell fruit juices, powdered drinks and vitamin fizz tablets. That includes Tahitian Noni International In-ternational Inc., which owns Pure Fruit Technologies, a Las Vegas company that markets mar-kets exotic fruit beverages including MangoXan, a mangosteen-based drink. Not only does Pure Fruit underprice XanGo on MangoXan juice in health food stores, its parent, Tahitian Noni, also sold $2 billion bil-lion worth of Noni juice in its first 10 years by 2006, according accord-ing to an Associated Press report last month. But Freeze maintains XanGo Xan-Go has "experienced magnificent magnifi-cent growth domestically and internationally in its first five years of business. As we now approach a million distributors distribu-tors worldwide, a major part of our ongoing success will be dependent on improving XanGo's premium service to our growing global network of independent distributors." Founded in 2002 with just six workers, XanGo now has 700 employees including 650 in Utah, and nearly 750,000 distributors worldwide. fumy Renaissance Academy hosts storytelling festival Mysti Santiago NORTH COUNTY STAFF Parents and grandparents alike will learn to create their own magic and adventure if they attend a Pirates in Pajamas Paja-mas storytelling class Friday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., hosted by Renaissance Academy as part of the school's storytelling festival. Storytelling is an avenue for families to express different values and ideas in a memorable memo-rable way. "I think that storytelling is a great way for us to express and to communicate ourselves and our values." says Janette Jones a parent who organized much of the storytelling month at Renaissance Academy. Anyone in the community is invited to attend the class and it is not necessary to have a students that attends Renaissance Renais-sance Academy. There is a suggested $25 donation that will go to the storytelling festival festi-val at Renaissance Academy. "I think that its a great opportunity op-portunity for everyone who does it, to put themselves and their values and the things they think are important into their stories." said parent Janette Jones. Recently, marriage and family therapist Kelly Gagalis-Hoffman Gagalis-Hoffman conducted a study and found that storytelling helps families to create their own family identity, and helps both parents and children to see different sides of the same story. The study also found that storytelling can also act as UNDER THE BIG TOP Lj ampanuio ine uuwn a y 1 1 j me VUcuo vvui ui iv.Ti v.--0 p.m. and 7 p.m. Visit www.heraldextra.com for a multimedia presentation on the circus. 801 - 435 - Licensed Storyteller Nanette Watts tells of the tissue villain. a valuable tool to helps parents express important information with their children in a non-threatening non-threatening and often fun way. The Pirates in Pajamas class will be taught by professional storyteller Steffani Raff. She will teach parents how to quickly come up with bedtime stories using a six step process that's sure to get those creative cre-ative juices flowing. For more information on the benefits of 4'? .. ' 1 Jordan World Circus at the UVSC McKay Lvents center on ividi ui n ti, mU Ko in tnwn tbrntiffh Saturday with shows at 2 367 - 4437 623 - 4606 Insured nm WW third, fourth and fifth graders at Storytelling visit www.pira-tesinpajamas.com. www.pira-tesinpajamas.com. The month got kicked off with Nannette Watts, another professional storyteller, who visited last Friday. All the students stu-dents rotated between hearing Nannette's stories, working on art work and attending storytelling story-telling workshops. The focus on storytelling will continue on March 28, when more professional profes-sional storytellers will come Kail into flip uwui "&ABCC3 Windows For 0,Glass ProductC Every Need! LOCALLY GENUINE LEATHER GUN BELTS & HOLSTERS Pack Saddles Panniers A Wnll Tents . ft - " f .w Stoves Sleeping Wat. Covers 1274 West 300 South I St , MYSTI SANTIAGONorth County Rennaissance Academy the tale to Renaissance Academy. The professionals will go to different differ-ent classrooms sharing their stories while some students at the school will have the opportunity oppor-tunity to present their stories alongside the professionals that day. April 4 will be the last day students will participate in more storytelling for their Wonder days' activities. i r n if Nit its rrnwd during the HAND MADE N JV C- 0 Lindon, Utah SO 1.922.4234 l PI IO Ll Li II ZM |