The Military Installation Development Authority exercises municipal-style land-use and public-finance powers within eight active project areas spread across multiple Utah counties — with a seven-member board no one directly elects. Three of the governor's five seats carry an automatic vacancy rule tied to local office; the board's two legislative-leadership seats don't. Here's the current roster, the appointing authority behind each seat, and the one seat with no automatic-vacancy provision at all.
MIDA's board has seven voting members. Under Utah Code § 63H-1-302, the governor appoints five, the president of the Senate appoints one, and the speaker of the House appoints one. An eighth, nonvoting seat can be added by board resolution.
Three of the governor's five appointments must be local elected officials — mayors or members of a local legislative body — near an active MIDA project area. When MIDA has more than three active project areas in different jurisdictions, the governor must appoint at least one local official near the highest-value project, one near the second-highest, and a third eligible local official who may come from elsewhere. The governor still picks the individual. What's automatic is the vacancy: if one of these three appointees stops holding the qualifying local office, the MIDA seat opens up by statute, and the governor appoints a new eligible local official.
The board's other two seats — the Senate President's and House Speaker's appointees — don't carry that same automatic-vacancy trigger. That difference is the structural story here.
Confirmed via MIDA's own board-member disclosures (midaut.org/board-members) and public reporting, current as of August 2026.
| Member | Position | Appointing authority |
|---|---|---|
| Mark Shepherd | Mayor, Clearfield City | Governor — local official near a project area (Falcon Hill, Davis Co.) |
| Erik Rowland | Wasatch County Council, Seat C | Governor — local official near a project area (Jordanelle/Deer Valley); appointed May 2026 |
| Gage Froerer | Weber County Commission | Governor — local official near a project area; on the board since 2019 |
| Gary Harter | Exec. Director, Utah Dept. of Veterans & Military Affairs | Governor — executive branch/military-affairs seat |
| Mike Ostermiller | Partner, Kyler, Kohler, Ostermiller & Sorensen LLP | Governor — "interested in military efforts" seat; on the board since 2008 |
| Sen. Stuart Adams | President, Utah State Senate | Senate President's seat — currently self-appointed see below |
| Sen. Jerry Stevenson | Utah Senate District 6; MIDA Vice Chair | Presumed House Speaker's seat, inferred by elimination — not directly confirmed on state records unconfirmed |
| Jeff Moss (nonvoting) | Exec. Director, Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity | Appointed by MIDA board resolution, Nov. 2025 |
Adams, Stevenson, and Ostermiller are MIDA's three longest-serving current members. According to MIDA, all three have served since 2008, one year after the authority was created.
The clearest example of the automatic-vacancy rule in action sits in Wasatch County, tied to MIDA's Military Recreation Facility project area — the Jordanelle/Deer Valley expansion.
What this sequence demonstrates is the automatic-vacancy rule tied to holding local office — not that a particular MIDA seat permanently belongs to "whoever holds" a specific position. When a gubernatorial appointee occupying one of the three local seats leaves the qualifying office, the MIDA seat becomes vacant by statute, and the governor appoints another eligible local official.
Gage Froerer appears to occupy another of the three local-official seats. He has served on MIDA since 2019 while serving as a Weber County commissioner, although the appointment record identifying his precise statutory seat was not located.
Not every seat on the board carries that automatic trigger — and the difference is where the real accountability gap sits.
Sen. Stuart Adams has served on MIDA's board since 2008 and currently chairs it. That appointment came after his time in the Utah House (2002-2006) had ended, and before he joined the Senate in 2009 — his MIDA seat actually predates his Senate service. His original appointment came from then-Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. Today, Utah's boards and commissions records list him as "self-appointed" to the Senate President's seat — a function of his holding that office now, not a fixed personal appointment.
Adams lost his Republican primary in June 2026. His Senate District 7 seat ends at the close of the year. Senate Republicans won't select a new Senate President until a closed-door caucus vote after the November 3, 2026 general election.
Board members serve four-year terms and continue serving until a successor is "duly appointed and qualified." They also serve at the pleasure of their appointing authority and can be replaced at any time.
In practical terms: the mechanism that automatically opens a Wasatch County Council seat when its occupant leaves local office doesn't apply to the seat currently held by the board's own chairman.
On the nonvoting seat: MIDA's resolution appointing Jeff Moss closely associates the position with the GOEO Executive Director's office — it frames the value of having GOEO's director specifically on the board — although it formally appoints Moss by name, for the remainder of the GOEO director's term (expiring March 2027) and a subsequent four-year term that automatically renews until another appointment is made.
Utah law treats MIDA's three local seats differently from its two legislative-leadership appointments. A local-seat appointee automatically loses the MIDA position upon leaving the qualifying mayoral or local-legislative office — Wasatch County's seat has changed hands twice under that rule since 2025. The statute imposes no comparable automatic vacancy when the Senate President's or House Speaker's appointee leaves elected office.
Instead, those board members serve four-year terms, remain until a successor is appointed and qualified, and may be replaced at any time by their appointing authority. Adams's departure from the Senate would not by itself remove him from MIDA — he could remain until the appropriate appointing authority acts.
No — nothing here alleges wrongdoing. The point is structural: Utah law does not apply the same automatic-vacancy rule to this category of appointment that it applies to the three local-official seats. Whether Adams stays or is replaced is entirely up to the next Senate President.
Not directly. By elimination — the board's other five seats are independently identified as governor appointees (Shepherd, Rowland, Froerer, Harter, Ostermiller), and Adams is confirmed as the Senate President's seat — Stevenson's seat is the only one that can logically be the House Speaker's. But that's inference, not a record. Utah's own boards-and-commissions site (boards.utah.gov) blocks automated access, so this wasn't confirmed by pulling the record directly, and no source found states outright that Stevenson was appointed by the Speaker. Treat this line as unconfirmed pending a direct records check.
Statute
MIDA's own records
Local/state reporting
No board member was contacted for comment; this page relies on the public record only.