Feb 19, 2020

The Standard

Briggs

Beaulieu

Ijaz

Gonzalez

In Portland, Standard Insurance Co. (The Standard) promoted Maria Gonzalez to vice president of retirement plans services, A.J. Ijaz to vice president of retirement plans, Christopher Beaulieu to vice president of individual annuities and fixed income, and Julie Briggs to assistant vice president of retirement plans actuarial and finance. Prior to joining the company in 2003, Gonzalez worked in investment banking for Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. Ijaz's career includes nearly 30 years of experience in financial services at Allstate. He joined The Standard in 2017. Beaulieu has been with the company since 2015 and has over 15 years of enterprise investment portfolio management experience, including a stint at Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co. Prior to joining The Standard in 2005, Briggs spent nearly seven years in benefits plan consulting at Towers Perrin and at Mercer.

At Home Group

Texas-based At Home Group is opening six home decor superstores this month, including two in Washington state. A new store opened at 1001 E. Sunset Drive in Bellingham and another will open soon at 2530 Rudkin Road in Union Gap. At Home repurposes former big box stores, as well as builds new stores. It will have 218 stores in 39 states by the end of the month.

Funko

Everett-based Funko, a pop culture consumer products company, inked a deal for Bandai to become the exclusive distributor of Funko products across Japan. Bandai is a Japanese manufacturer and toy licensee. It will take control of Funko's distribution channel in the fourth quarter of this year.

Bellevue College

Bellevue College launched Tombolo Institute, which provides noncredit courses and programs along with industry-based certifications in the business, technology and health care fields. Registration for the inaugural quarter is now open. In-person courses will be held at the college's North Campus. Many courses can either be taken in the evening or online. The institute is part of the college's continuing education division.

Intercity Transit

In Olympia, Intercity Transit won a first prize in the 2020 AdWheel Awards competition sponsored by the American Public Transportation Association. The award recognizes the agency's comprehensive outreach effort, known as IT Road Trip, to involve the community in transportation planning. It will be presented next week at an APTA conference in Florida.

Feb 14, 2020

Stoel Rives

Pritchard

Morse

Stoel Rives promoted attorneys Kara Morse and Scott Pritchard to partners in its Seattle office. Morse is a health care attorney providing regulatory, business and transactional support to medical groups, managed care companies and other health care entities. Pritchard focuses on complex litigation in a variety of fields including commercial, corporate, partnership, trust and estate, real property, construction and health care disputes.

Omeros

In Seattle, biopharmaceutical company Omeros appointed Kurt Zumwalt to its board. Zumwalt worked at Amazon for 15 years, where he was global treasurer and managed the company's relationships with over 45 banks. Prior to that, he was assistant treasurer at Paccar.

Alliant

Casey Parvey is the newest vice president in the Portland office of Alliant Insurance Services. Prior to joining Alliant, Parvey was a sales executive with a national insurance brokerage and consulting firm. He is experienced in workers' compensation, property, liability and other lines of coverage. Alliant is headquartered in Newport Beach, California.

Anitian

Cloud security company Anitian appointed John Vecchi as chief marketing officer. Vecchi has over 25 years of experience delivering new enterprise security and technology products to market. He previously was CMO at ColorTokens and at Solera Networks. At Anitian, he is splitting his time between Salt Lake City and the company's newly redesigned headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.

Nike

Beaverton, Oregon-based Nike is transitioning its Nike brand business in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay to strategic distributor partnerships to improve efficiency and drive growth. The move has Grupo Axo acquiring Nike's operations in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, and Grupo SBF, through its wholly owned subsidiary, becoming owner of operations in Brazil. The deal is expected to close by mid-year.