The Cort Ashton Story

Cort Ashton’s professional life has taken unexpected turns. He was majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Utah and switched to the University of Phoenix to study business. He spent the first 11 years of his career in logistics and distribution, working for companies like Roadway Express and Franklin Covey. Then he and his wife, Teryn, went to dinner with friends.

“I always felt the entrepreneurial pull of starting my own business,” Cort said. “All my advancement opportunities at the time were going to move me out of state and force me to travel. These were lifestyle changes I wasn’t prepared to make. A good friend of mine and I were at dinner one night and he was at a similar point in his career. He needed to evolve, grow and make a change. I told him he was one of the very few people I’d feel comfortable going into business with. About a month later, he called and asked if I wanted to start a title company. I replied, ‘What’s a title company?’”

That friend, Dan Horman, was familiar with the real estate world. The two had served as full time missionaries together. Cort said they had an enormous amount of trust and confidence in each other, so he studied up on the title industry. They put together a business plan and “jumped in with both feet.”

“While I was working in logistics, I used my vacation time to go to school. At that time in Utah, you had to go to title and escrow school before you took the tests required for licensing. I passed the tests and gave my two-week notice the next day,” said Cort. “My wife was a little nervous, but she had confidence. She knew my frustration with where my career was going at the time.”

Cort passed the two, two-part tests back-to-back and he and Horman opened Preferred Title in 1995, which is still in business today. Cort was a minority partner and served as president of the company. The most surprising part of this venture was that the company was paperless — almost 15 years ago.

“I was the only title company I knew of in Utah that didn’t have any paper files,” he explained. “The only time I had a paper file was when I was assembling documents for a closing. I’ve always been an early adopter of technology. It was more efficient than depending on paper files. We even offered clients a copy of their documents on CD-Rom.”

In 2004, Cort sold his interest in Preferred Title and accepted his current position as vice president of escrow operations at Cottonwood Title. He said he went to work for Frank Ivory, the finest and most capable businessman he had met in the industry.

“I had the skill-set he needed, and he had a new company and was ready to grow. I manage the entire escrow operation. I also get to steer most of the  production processes, software, and system configuration.”

However, that wasn’t enough of a challenge for Cort, so he took on a few more projects on the side. In 2002, before he joined Cottonwood, Cort was elected to a four year term serving part time on the Salt Lake County Council, where he also served as chairman.  When it came time to run for office again, he stepped aside but focused his efforts on a ballot initiative he sponsored for a $48 million open space and parks bond in Salt Lake County. He has also been involved in state legislative issues, helping to ban “third-party transfer fees” in Utah. Later, he joined the leadership team at the Utah Land Title Association. He was president from July 2009-July 2010. At the same time, he was appointed by the governor to serve on the Title and Escrow Commission for the State of Utah, a position he finished just this past July.

“I’ve always felt I needed to be involved in my community and give back,” he said. “My wife has been very supportive all along. There were days when I felt pulled in a lot of directions, but most of the time it was pretty manageable. I had great help from the staff at the office and the support of the owner from Cottonwood Title and great support at home. It was fun. It’s great to be involved. It’s great to be in the middle of making great things happen in your community and your company.”

Cort was also faced with the same challenge everyone in the industry faced in the past decade, how to keep the doors open in a plummeting market. So, how did he manage it?

“You have to be nimble, and respond to customer needs” Cort advised. “We want to be the best in the business, not necessarily the biggest.”

In 2014, he wants to take Cottonwood paperless. Since it’s a bigger company than the title agency he owned, making the transition has been a bit tougher.

Despite his professional drive, Cort was still able to have a life separate from work and public service. He and his family love the outdoors and spend as much time as they can skiing, hunting, fishing, backpacking, scuba diving and cycling. And, he never had to move out of Utah.

“My family has lived in the Salt Lake area for generations and generations,” he said. “It’s a great place to raise a family. It’s a wholesome, healthy community. It’s a great employment market and a great place to grow up.”

He and his family did leave Utah, temporarily. Cort, his wife and three of their four kids went to Guatemala together with Choice Humanitarian to build a water system in a mountain village. He said it changed their lives. He wants to do more good works in the future. After, hopefully early, retirement, so they still have the energy, Cort and Teryn plan to serve as missionaries again and work internationally. After all, that is how they met.

“We want to go wherever we are needed,” said Cort.

But, he’s not leaving the industry he has served and grown to love without some parting words.

“The title industry has been a pleasant surprise for a little business niche I didn’t even know existed. It’s fun to be involved in real estate. It’s fun to have a seat at the table in really big deals and big developments and big projects and transactions. But, I think we have a lot of headwinds in this industry. It’s impossible to predict. It’s impossible to forecast and very difficult to plan. It’s an uncertain future.”