The Ownership — Field Guide
Where the next independent hospital goes.
Every hospital is a bet on a place. Here is how Nicole reads a market, where her hospitals actually are, and where she is looking first for the next one — 'first' being the operative word.
The short version: Nicole builds where growth is outrunning services. Both of her hospitals are in Utah — Mtn Green in Morgan County (open since September 2025) and Agave in Washington County (opening early 2027), the state’s third-fastest-growing county by rate. For the next hospitals she is looking first at Utah and its neighbors — Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona — and a strong doctor with a strong market from anywhere gets a real conversation.
The method
How do you pick a town for an animal hospital?
The pattern Nicole builds against is simple to say and demanding to verify: rooftops outrunning services. A community adding households faster than it adds exam rooms is a community where a well-run independent hospital fills its schedule on fundamentals, not on marketing spend. Mtn Green proved the pattern — Morgan County had growth, commuting ties to the Weber corridor, and thin veterinary coverage; the hospital was busy from its first autumn. Agave is the same bet in the fastest-growing corner of the state.
The verification is the unglamorous part: county population estimates, building permits, drive times, the real competitive map, and lease-versus-land economics — the workup Britain runs before any site gets serious. Market selection is the first thing the partnership does together, and the one where a second build’s worth of experience saves the most expensive category of mistake: the right hospital in the wrong place.
The map
Where she is looking first
Utah
Home turf — two hospitals hereUtah added 44,351 residents in the year to July 2025 (Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute), with the fastest county growth in Tooele, Iron, Washington, Utah, Grand, and Wasatch counties — rooftops going up faster than services behind them. Utah State University, which opened the state’s first four-year DVM program, notes Utah ranks 42nd nationally in veterinarians per capita. Licensing for an out-of-state DVM runs by endorsement through DOPL.
Idaho
Watching closelyThirty-six of Idaho’s forty-four counties grew in 2025 (Idaho Department of Labor), led by Canyon County at 2.9% — and the Treasure Valley’s bedroom cities (Star, Kuna, Caldwell) are among the fastest-growing in the nation. Licensure by endorsement is available through the state board.
Arizona
Open to the right doctorArizona grows about 1.2% a year (Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity), and Pinal County — the corridor between Phoenix and Tucson — led the state at 3.7% in 2025. Arizona’s licensing is notably welcoming, with universal-recognition and endorsement routes for experienced DVMs.
Nevada & Wyoming
The longer lookSlower growth overall, with real pockets — and in both states, officials have publicly described the difficulty of attracting the next generation of veterinarians outside the metro areas. Wyoming’s Lincoln County borders Utah, the most natural extension of an existing Utah operation. Licensing is more procedural in both; budget extra weeks and start with the state board.
Licensing notes are starting points, not legal guidance — every state’s veterinary board publishes current requirements, and that is the first phone call. And “first” means first: if you are a veterinarian with roots and a market somewhere else in the West, bring it. The map follows the doctor, not the other way around.
Why here at all
The case for building in the Mountain West
The Mountain West is where America is moving — Utah, Idaho, and Arizona have ranked among the fastest-growing states for most of a decade — and its growth lands disproportionately in exactly the kind of communities where an independent hospital thrives: family-forming bedroom cities and small regional hubs, where the veterinarian who owns the building becomes a known name rather than a rotating face. Nicole trained for this region at Washington State through WIMU — the regional program built for these states — and she is building her hospitals in it on purpose.
The next hospital
Somewhere in this region there’s a town whose next animal hospital should be yours.