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SALT LAKE CITY — One Washington, D.C., heavyweight will acknowledge another Beltway "giant" as their careers come to an end.
The Salt Lake Chamber announced Wednesday that outgoing U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan will be the keynote speaker at the 39th Giant in Our City award ceremony honoring Sen. Orrin Hatch. The award recognizes those with exceptional and distinguished service and extraordinary professional achievement.
Currently serving his seventh and final term as Utah's senior senator, Hatch is the longest-tenured Republican in the U.S. Senate and the longest-serving Republican senator in United States history. He became president pro tempore of the Senate in 2015 and is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance.
Hatch is also a member and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee as well as the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the Joint Committee on Taxation. Additionally, he sits on the board of directors for the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
"In the history of the state of Utah, no other individual legislator has had a greater impact than Sen. Orrin Hatch. He has spent the entirety of his career dedicated to the citizens of Utah and this state's business community," Lane Beattie, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber, said in a statement. "We are pleased that Speaker Ryan, someone who has worked so closely with Sen. Hatch to develop and enact legislation that has helped Utah and the rest of the country unlock economic growth, will be in attendance to help us honor this great statesman."
Ryan announced last month he would retire from Congress when his current term ends.
Hatch will officially be presented with the Giant in Our City award at the ceremony on June 9 at the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.
