Utah
Look what Utah ingenuity — and a desire to get out of work — has wrought
Matt Aposhian, COO of FireFly Automatix, is conducting a tour of the company’s warehouse in the industrialized part of the valley. In addition to showing off the impressive lineup of Firefly’s automated sod harvesters and driverless lawnmowers, he’s also pointing out the tens of thousands of parts that are fabricated, molded, welded, shaped, cut, bolted and painted right here on the premises to put the machines together.
When FireFly says its products are made in Utah, it means made in Utah.
“Steel and electronics come in one door,” says Matt, “fully functioning machines go out the other side.”
All of it a testament to the unlimited ingenuity of the human mind.
That and the age-old desire to get out of work.
“Our engineers joke around,” Matt says. “They say they’re inherently lazy so they think of ways to do things easier.”
Then he adds, “It would’ve been nice to have all this around when I was a kid.”
* * *
When the Aposhian kids — Matt’s three brothers and two sisters — were growing up, their father, Lawrence, ran a sod farm. Besides putting a roof over their heads and food on the table, the farm made sure the siblings were no strangers to manual labor. When the cut sod rolled off the conveyor belt, they were the ones who got to get down on their hands and knees to lift it and stack it.
“Those weren’t what I’d call the fun days,” says Matt, “but our parents were honorable people who taught us to work hard. They instilled that work ethic and an entrepreneurial spirit in us from a very young age. I think that has a lot to do with what’s happened.”
What’s happened is the invention and production of sod harvesters and lawnmowers that have taken the robotic age by storm.
The company’s automated harvesters — capable of turning what used to be a four-man operation into one driver sitting in a heated or air-conditioned cab listening to Spotify — can be found all over the U.S. and around the world, including as far away as China and South Africa.
And its eagerly anticipated, just-released fully electric robotic lawnmowers — requiring no driver — have already been ordered by sod farms and golf courses.
It all goes back to the day about 16 years ago when Steve Aposhian, Matt’s older brother, decided he could make a better robotic arm than the one that kept breaking on the early self-stacking harvester Lawrence had bought for his sod farm.
Steve is the family engineer. When Steve was a teenager, Matt remembers him rigging up a motor from an electric race car to the blinds in his bedroom so he didn’t have to get out of bed to open and close the blinds.
Steve recruited a friend and fellow engineer, Will Decker, to redesign the robotic arm that kept breaking. When their version proved unbreakable, they decided to see if other sod farms might like to purchase something that was better than the original equipment.
When the response was “yes,” Steve and Will, along with another engineer friend, Eric Aston, and Matt Aposhian and his younger brother Dan formed a company they called FireFly. They set up their headquarters on Lawrence’s farm.
Then they set their sights even higher.
Lawrence Aposhian remembers the initial exchange he had with his son Steve.
“He said, ‘I want to build an entire harvester from the ground up.’ I said, ‘Well, go ahead.’ So he got his engineer buddies, they sat in my office, got on my computer, and started designing this sod harvester. At night they went into my shop, got the steel and started fabricating.”
Steve, Will and Eric recruited Sam Drake, the professor who taught them engineering at the University of Utah, to help.
In less than a year — quick work even by Elon Musk standards — they had created what Lawrence calls “this remarkable thing.”
Horizon Turf Farms, a huge sod operation in Texas, bought the first FireFly harvester; then bought 17 more.
FireFly moved out of Lawrence’s farm into a spacious warehouse and in the 12 years since, as the company has grown to 190 employees (including 30 engineers), more than 600 fully completed FireFly ProSlab harvesters have rolled out the door. Currently, the company is selling about 110 harvesters a year.
The success of the harvesters led to the six years of thinking, tinkering and fabricating that produced the just-released AMP — Autonomous Mowing Platform.
That’s a fancy way of saying a lawnmower that mows by itself.
“There’s nothing like it in the world,” says Matt. “With it being fully electric and fully autonomous, it does some things nobody else can do right now.”
Not only is a driverless 100-inch wide mower attractive to sod farms — where grass is cut as often as three times a week — but also to other places with large expanses of grass such as golf courses — a market Matt sees as the AMP’s future. There are 38,000 golf courses in the world, he points out. With a lawnmower that needs no driver, no gas and makes no noise, golf courses can mow their lawns early and late, not pollute the air and not wake anyone up. (You can see a video of the AMP in action at fireflyautomatix.com/amp-mowers/.)
* * *
As Matt concludes our warehouse tour, making sure photographer Laura Seitz hasn’t taken any photos that might give away intellectual property (FireFly is home to more than six dozen current and pending patents), he surveys an assembly line Henry Ford would be proud of and an engineering laboratory right out of Thomas Edison’s playbook.
Hearkening back to his boyhood, he sums up in a sentence what the Aposhians and their engineer friends have wrought.
“We took what were the worst jobs on the sod farm,” he says, “now they’re the best.”
The Utah Jazz are rolling into a big offseason before they into what’s projected to be a wildly different-looking 2026-27 campaign from what they had just seen this past 22-win season.
But before that season is able to get underway, the Jazz have some priorities to address in the offseason––both in terms of constructing their roster and retaining a few key pieces from last year’s group into next year.
That makes their salary cap situation and everything around it important to be aware of in the next few months. So with that in mind, we’ve put together an offseason cap tracker for a glimpse of what the Jazz are dealing with in terms of cap space, contracts, and any of their own free agents hitting the open market.
Let’s break it down:
Maximum Possible Cap Space: $24.7M
The Jazz are currently projected at just under $25 million in cap headed into the summer. That’s without any additional moves made to the roster from how they’re entering the offseason, and without factoring in any free agents’ pending cap holds.
That number is bound to get smaller once the Jazz hash out their contract situation for Walker Kessler, but it could also see an uptick if Utah were to shed salary with some of their non-guaranteed deals, or any other player they wanted to pivot from.
As of now, it allows the Jazz to make a couple of moves around the edges in free agency, but the main focus will lean on signing Kessler to a long-term deal.
Contracts
A glimpse of the Jazz’s contract values for the 2026-27 season, and when they’re slated to hit free agency from their current deals:
– Jaren Jackson Jr.: $49.0M, ’29 PO
– Lauri Markkanen: $46.1M, ’29 UFA
– Ace Bailey: $9.5M, ’29 RFA
– Keyonte George: $6.5M, ’27 RFA
– John Konchar: $6.1M, ’27 UFA
– Cody Williams: $6.0M, ’28 RFA
– Brice Sensabaugh, $4.8M, ’27 RFA
– Svi Mykhailiuk: $3.8M*, ’28 UFA
– Kyle Filipowski: $3.0M, ’28 RFA
– Isaiah Collier: $2.7M, ’28 RFA
– Hayden Gray: $2.1M*, ’27 RFA
– Bez Mbeng: $2.1M*, ’27 RFA
– Blake Hinson (two-way), ’27 RFA
Total: $142.1M
*- non-guaranteed
The biggest chunk of the Jazz’s salary leans on their top two veterans, Markkanen and Jackson Jr., each making a combined $95 million next season alone.
However, the rest of the roster isn’t taking up much money. No one else will be making more than $10 million, and their payroll is a little less than $150 million in total.
Another noteworthy fact: the Jazz’s key roster pieces outside of George and Sensabaugh are all under contract through the next two seasons.
Both of the aforementioned names are also bound to see extension discussions take place this summer, which might lock in their future for even longer.
Free Agents
A look at who from this season’s roster is set to hit the free agent market in July:
– Kevin Love (UFA)
– Jusuf Nurkic (UFA)
– Walker Kessler (RFA)
– Oscar Tshiebwe (two-way)
– Elijah Harkless (two-way)
The biggest name of note is, of course, the Jazz’s restricted free agent big man, Walker Kessler, who Utah is bound to hand a big payday, but it remains to be seen how much that contract––or offer sheet from another team––will be.
Jusuf Nurkic and Kevin Love have also expressed their desire to return to the roster as they hit free agency. Re-signing both likely wouldn’t cost much for the Jazz financially, but instead relies on a question of whether the roster space is readily available to keep both.
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Golden Knights vs. Mammoth Game 1 prediction: NHL odds, picks, best bets for Stanley Cup Playoffs
The Utah Mammoth is going to be a trendy underdog pick in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Not only does Utah have the novelty of this being its first-ever appearance in the postseason going for it, but the Mammoth tick plenty of other boxes that punters look for in a dark horse. They’re fast, dynamic, and create plenty of quality scoring chances.
The only problem is that they are running into the Vegas Golden Knights, arguably the best defensive team in the Western Conference, in Round 1.
Vegas is a -170 favorite to win the series, and it is -152 to win Game 1 on Sunday night.
Mammoth vs. Golden Knights odds, prediction
The Golden Knights had a weird season. Vegas started hot, took its foot off the pedal, and struggled to regain its form down the stretch. That led to a surprising coaching switch late in the campaign, but the move paid immediate dividends as John Tortorella led the Knights to a 7-0-1 record in his eight games behind the bench.
It should be noted that Tortorella benefited from an easy schedule since taking over in Vegas, but it’s hard to deny that the team looks sparked with a new voice in their ear.
What’s especially encouraging for Vegas is that its most glaring weakness, the play of goaltender Carter Hart, has started to trend in the right direction at the exact right time.
And Vegas is so good in its own zone that Hart doesn’t need to stand on his head to get the team over the line against Utah. If he’s just average, the Knights will stand a chance, especially since Utah’s goaltending situation is just as much of a question mark.
Betting on the NHL?
Outside of Vejmelka outplaying Hart, the Mammoth will also need to get this series on their terms if they want to pull the upset. Utah grades out as a slightly above-average defensive outfit, but its strength is up front with dynamic playmakers like Logan Cooley and Clayton Keller, plus sharp-shooter Dylan Guenther.
For those stars to have an impact, the Mammoth will need to get Vegas to open up and engage in a back-and-forth style. I just don’t see that happening with a team that was so disciplined in its own zone all season. The Knights led the NHL in expected goals against and high-danger chances conceded at 5-on-5, which shouldn’t be a shocker given the personnel in Sin City.
Not only does Vegas boast a deep blueline, but forwards Mitch Marner and Mark Stone are regarded as two of the best defensive minds in the entire sport.
Perhaps Utah can blitz Vegas and pull the upset, but I’d need a bigger number to go against the experienced, defensively savvy Knights in a best-of-7.
And if you’re looking for a play with more upside, have a good look at Vegas to pull off the sweep at 12/1.
The Play: Vegas moneyline (-152) | Vegas to sweep the series (12/1, FanDuel)
Why Trust New York Post Betting
Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.
KANOSH, Utah — The United States Geological Survey recorded multiple earthquakes near Kanosh Sunday morning, each of them having an average magnitude of 3.0.
The first earthquake, magnitude 3.0, was detected just after 12:30 a.m., with the epicenter located half a mile south of Kanarraville.
The second quake, magnitude 3.2, was detected around 5:45 a.m., with the epicenter nearly five miles south-southwest of Kanosh. This was followed by two more quakes in the same area, a magnitude 2.5 quake coming in around 6:35 a.m., followed by a third around 7:45 a.m, which measured at magnitude 3.3.
This has since been followed by another quake, measuring at magnitude 3.7, being detected around 8:45 a.m. The geographic location in the USGS report places the epicenter approximately over two miles south of the Dry Wash Trail, about six miles south-southwest of Kanosh.
FOX 13 News previously spoke with researchers at University of Utah, who said that earthquake swarms are relatively common. A study published in 2023 posits that swarms may be triggered by geothermal activity. The findings came after a series of seismic swarms were detected in central Utah, within the vicinity of three geothermal power plants.
The study also says that the swarms fall into a different category than aftershocks that typically follow large quakes, such as the magnitude 5.7 earthquake that hit the Wasatch Fault back in 2020.
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