May 02, 2024

PACCAR

Pierre Breber and Brice Hill have been elected to the PACCAR Board of Directors, effective July 1, according to Mark Pigott, PACCAR executive chairman.

Breber held several senior executive roles in finance and operations during his 34 years at Chevron. He served as chief financial officer from 2019 – 2024 and as executive vice president of global refining and marketing from 2016-2018. He was executive vice president over trading, LNG marketing, pipeline and shipping businesses from 2014 – 2015 and managing director of Chevron's Asia South exploration and production business from 2011 – 2013. He was also a senior leader in finance roles such as treasurer, controller and investor relations.

Hill is a semiconductor industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience in finance, global operations and strategy. He is the chief financial officer at Applied Materials, a position he has held since 2022. He also served as chief financial officer at Xilinx Corp. from 2020 – 2022. He had a 25-year career at Intel in senior finance and operations roles, including as chief financial officer and chief operating officer of the Technology, Systems and Core Engineering Group. He began his career in finance at General Motors.

Additionally, Luiz Pretti has been elected to the board, effective Sept. 1. Pretti will succeed Franklin Feder, who will retire from the board on Aug. 30. Pretti served as president and chief executive officer of Brasil for Cargill from 2005 – 2020. He previously served in other executive leadership roles in the agribusiness, finance and automotive industries. Pretti has served as the chairman of Votorantim Cimentos since 2018, and as the chairman of AmCham-Brasil from 2019 – 2023.

Amazon Business

Amazon Business, the company's business-to-business procurement store, kicked off its third annual Small Business Month to help support the growth of small businesses in the U.S. This year, Small Business Month includes a new online resource center called Small Business Success Studio. The studio provides small businesses with free online educational tools and resources to start, run and grow their business. As part of Small Business Month, Amazon Business also launched the 2024 Small Business Grants program that gives eligible small businesses in the U.S. the chance to win over $250,000 in monetary grants, with one grand prize winner, four finalists, and 10 semi-finalists. Existing Amazon Business customers with an annual revenue of $1 million or less can apply for the grant. Grant recipients will receive one year of free Business Prime membership, Amazon Devices and Amazon Basics products. Applications are due by May 24, and winners will be announced on July 22. Additional information is available at http://www.amazon.com/smallbusinessgrants. GiftAMeal, based in St. Louis, Missouri, was the 2023 grand prize winner, receiving $25,000 to invest into its business.

May 01, 2024

Seattle Green Earth Cleaning

McDowell

Heather McDowell, founder and managing member of Seattle Green Earth Cleaning, has been named Washington Small Business Person of the Year, and National Small Business Person of the Year Runner-Up by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Founded in 2010, Seattle Green Earth Cleaning is an environmentally friendly residential cleaning company offering customized services to clients throughout the Seattle metropolitan area. The SBA Small Business Person of the Year award recognizes small business owners who demonstrate staying power and substantiated history as an established business with at least three years of business operation. Winners must also show growth in net worth and business expansion, increase in jobs and sales, innovativeness of products or services, response to adversity, and contributions to community-oriented projects. McDowell initially launched her own business from a home office, with a flip phone and a rented storage unit, and cleaned client homes herself as the only employee. Now in 2024, the company has its own headquarters with offices, warehouse, and staff kitchen, has created jobs for 46 team members, and is on track to exceed $3 million in annual revenue. The Seattle District serves Washington state and northern Idaho with office locations in Seattle and Spokane.

T-Mobile

Bellevue-based T-Mobile and EQT, a purpose-driven global investment organization, have entered into a joint venture with EQT's Infrastructure VI fund that will acquire fiber-to-the-home platform Lumos from EQT's predecessor fund EQT Infrastructure III. The joint venture will bring T-Mobile's retail, marketing, brand and customer experience strengths together with EQT's fiber infrastructure investment expertise. Together they will acquire Lumos' scalable fiber network build capabilities to deliver high-speed fiber internet connectivity to customers across the U.S. without current access to fiber. After the transaction closes, Lumos, which currently reaches 320,000 households with fiber optic internet and home wi-fi service in the Mid-Atlantic, will transition to a wholesale model with T-Mobile as the anchor tenant. The agreement will focus on market identification and selection, network engineering and design, network deployment, and customer installation. The transaction is expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025, subject to regulatory approvals. At closing, T-Mobile is expected to invest approximately $950 million in the joint venture to acquire a 50% equity stake and all existing fiber customers, with the funds invested by T-Mobile being used by Lumos for future fiber builds. The next capital contribution by T-Mobile out of an additional commitment of approximately $500 million is anticipated between 2027 and 2028.

Apr 30, 2024

The Standard

Orr

Portland-based Standard Insurance Co. (The Standard) named Porter Orr second vice president of artificial intelligence strategy and development. In his new role, Orr is responsible for leading and administering the company's AI strategy. Orr will partner with employees in IT as well as business and service divisions across The Standard to harness AI capabilities. Prior to joining The Standard, Orr was head of Applied AI Products and Platforms at Unum. He also held various roles in data analytics, machine learning and AI at Mobi Systems, the U.S. Department of Defense and Walt Disney. Orr earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science and business from Pepperdine University and a MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. In business since 1906, The Standard is a family of companies providing financial protection products and services for employers and individuals.

Itron

Itron is collaborating with Cairns Regional Council, located in Queensland, Australia, to modernize its water distribution system. The Itron solution will be deployed over the next three years as part of the council's comprehensive water security plan to take advantage of technology to better identify water leaks and improve customer experience. This project builds on phase one of the council's smart water network project, which included an initial deployment of Itron's Intelis ultrasonic water meters and integrated IoT network solution. Now, in this second phase, Itron and the council are working together to deploy additional Intelis smart water meters, which will be managed by Itron's Temetra NB-IoT digital platform to improve collection, tracking and management of water data from all endpoints within its network. Itron, a global provider of energy, water, smart city, IIoT and intelligent infrastructure services, is headquartered in Libery Lake, Washington.

Apr 25, 2024

Salmon Recovery Board

Bizyayeva

Gov. Jay Inslee has appointed Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians councilmember, fisheries director and Northwest Indian Fisheries commissioner Kadi Bizyayeva to the Salmon Recovery Funding Board. Bizyayeva is the fisheries director for the Tribe's Natural Resources Department, where she has worked since 2013. She co-manages treaty resources with state, federal and tribal governments, working with them to recover species of concern in the Stillaguamish River watershed, which includes two of Puget Sound's 22 threatened populations of Chinook salmon. “We are excited for Ms. Bizyayeva to join the Salmon Recovery Funding Board,” said Megan Duffy, director of the Recreation and Conservation Office, which administers the funding board's grants. “She has more than a decade of experience working on salmon recovery and understands the issues, the people and the fish.” The Salmon Recovery Funding Board awards more than $206 million biennially in grants to cities, counties, tribes, nonprofits, private landowners and regional salmon enhancement groups to do on-the-ground projects to restore salmon habitat. Bizyayeva's term ends July 15, 2027.

Novelty Hill Capital

Seattle-based Novelty Hill Capital announced the recent sale of Firehook Bakery, a baking business specializing in artisanal baked goods, to Forward Consumer Partners, a private equity firm that invests in branded consumer businesses. Novelty Hill Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor to Firehook on the deal. Established in 1992 by founder Pierre Abushacra, Firehook began as a neighborhood bakery in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, and has risen to become a national artisanal cracker brand. Novelty Hill Capital is a middle-market investment bank and financial advisory firm with expertise in mergers and acquisitions, raising capital, and evaluating strategic alternatives throughout the consumer, industrial and agribusiness value chains. Michael Barber is the CEO and managing director of Novelty Hill Capital.

Lattice Semiconductor

Lattice Semiconductor's Lattice Avant FPGA platform was selected as a 2024 Environment + Energy Leader Award winner. Lattice Avant was recognized for its power efficiency, performance, and small form factor in the Business & Infrastructure category. The awards celebrate innovation within the industry, and highlight companies making an impact in driving forward a sustainability agenda. The Avant platform enables Lattice to address an expanded set of customer applications across the automotive, communications, computing, and industrial markets. Lattice is headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon.