Senior Lending Officer and SVP Judd Blakesley Talks Momentous Deals
Published on: September 22, 2025
It’s one of the last summer days along the Wasatch Front before school starts. We’re flies on the wall as Judd Blakesley, Mountain West Small Business Finance’s Senior Lending Officer / SVP, chats with COO Danny Mangum on the way to a morning tennis lesson.
Mountain West is having one of its highest production years in history, so carving out time for interviews can be a little tricky when there are deals to be done and employees to support. Between the record-breaking loan production, three small kids, and his heavy volunteer commitments, we’re lucky to catch him at all.
Luckily, we managed to join him on his commute to tennis, where he shared some of his favorite and most memorable deals from his years at MWSBF.
We All Scream for Ice Cream
The deal began with a call from a lender in Southern Idaho, “We knew it was a big one,” Judd recalls.
Judd credits Danny for quickly driving from Utah to Wyoming for the initial meeting. Danny, however, is quick to confess his true motivation:
“Yeah, but it’s because—ice cream!” he laughs. “I love Fat Boys. I’m thinking, ‘I’ve got to go tour this plant today!’ Honestly, it was less about small business altruism and more about my stomach.”
Judd laughs, a twinkle in his eyes, and continues, “It was just synergistic, both of us getting it done.”
The two share a laugh, remembering conveyor belts, massive freezers, and—of course—the samples. It felt like discovering Willy Wonka’s factory in their own backyard. Casper’s owner, Paul Merrill, later became Utah’s 2018 SBA Small Business Person of the Year.
Pit Viper
Another standout deal was Pit Viper, a bold and irreverent sunglasses brand.
“Just the sheer fun factor of those guys,” Judd says, with a bit of amazement in the reflection. “A great idea comes in where the product is so simple and seeing the social media impact on the business. At the same time a loan committee questioning the viability of ‘how can this work?’ But it did!”
Judd loved working with Pit Viper and Pit Viper loved working with Judd. In fact, they loved working with Judd so much that they gave him his own private promo code for personal orders.
Cafe Sabor
Cafe Sabor started out with a location in Logan, Utah and then decided to expand and make the move to St. George, and then the refinance program came out.
“We all have a handful of deals where you carry it through,” he says. “You look at it and you think, ‘I don’t know if this would have gotten done anywhere else.’ And now we’ve done three deals in each type: an expansion of refinance, a straight refinance, and a new purchase.”
The location in St. George had historically been a graveyard for restaurants. Yet Café Sabor has flourished there for more than a decade.
Judd’s Lasting Influence
These are just deals off the top of his head. It’s easy to understand why not all the names are top-of-mind. In his 20-year tenure with MWSBF, Judd has amassed astounding production numbers: 818 total loan approvals and $545,161,601 in Net Debentures.
