Sep 03, 2020

Alaska Airlines

The Seattle Public Schools Department of Technology Services has supplied tech devices to almost all 53,000 Seattle Public School students in order to support remote learning this fall. An additonal 12,000 devices to support K-2 students was flown from Boston to Seattle by Alaska Airlines at the request of former Gov. Christine Gregoire, CEO of Challenge Seattle. Gregoire contacted Alaska Airlines CEO Brad Tilden, and Alaska used its transportation to get iPads from Apple's Boston warehouse to the airport, and fly the iPads to Seattle in time for instruction and the new 2020-21 school year. Challenge Seattle is committed to public-private partnerships for the benefit of the community. Purchase of the district-provided devices is funded through local education levies.

Fortive

Everett company Fortive announced its intention to separate Vontier through a spin-off of 80.1% of the outstanding shares of Vontier common stock to Fortive shareholders. When completed, the transaction will result in two independent, publicly traded companies: Fortive, an industrial growth company providing products, software, and services in field solutions, product realization, sensing and health; and Vontier, a global industrial technology company delivering market solutions to advance efficiency, safety, security, and environmental compliance for its customers in mobility infrastructure end-markets. The spin-off is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2020, subject to obtaining final approval from the Fortive Board of Directors and market, regulatory and other customary conditions.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services announced that Indeed, one of the world's largest job sites, has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider. As part of the multi-year agreement, Indeed will migrate more than 30 petabytes of data to AWS, moving its customer-facing products, business-critical workloads, and legacy databases to AWS. As a result of the move, Indeed expects to reduce its global data center footprint by 40% while streamlining its overall IT operations. Indeed allows job seekers to search millions of jobs in more than 60 countries and 28 languages.

Sep 02, 2020

Dorsey & Whitney

Dorsey & Whitney announced that it has named corporate Partner Jill McLeod as head of the firm's Anchorage office. McLeod succeeds Mike Mills as Office Head. McLeod has more than 20 years of U.S. and international legal experience. Prior to joining Dorsey she was in-house counsel for ConocoPhillips. Before joining ConocoPhillips, McLeod served as in-house counsel for United Companies, an Alaskan Native-owned corporation, and its subsidiaries, which provided electrical and telecommunications services to communities in rural Alaska. Dorsey has locations across the United States and in Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region,

Western Governors University

Western Governors University announced the appointment of Carolyn Douglas as regional manager of communications and outreach. Douglas brings more than 25 years of experience as a broadcast journalist and communications professional to the online, nonprofit institution. Douglas will guide the strategic direction of the university's public relations, social media and local marketing efforts across a nine-state territory, which includes Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. WGU Washington is an online, competency-based university designed to expand access to higher education for Washington residents. In 2011, the Washington State Legislature created WGU Washington in partnership with nationally recognized Western Governors University.

Ossia

Ossia, based in Bellevue, announced a strategic investment by ENEOS Innovation Partners. ENEOS HD is a $94B USD Japanese petroleum, oil and gas exploration, and metals conglomerate that is one of Japan's top ten largest companies. The partnership with Ossia includes a strategic investment in the company to bring Cota Real Wireless Power to market. Ossia and ENEOS HD will work together to explore wireless power opportunities in Japan and Asia. Ossia's flagship Cota technology is a patented smart antenna technology that delivers remote, targeted energy to devices at a distance and automatically keeps multiple devices charged without any user intervention.

Sep 01, 2020

Seattle Art Museum

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and the Betty Bowen Committee, chaired by Gary Glant, announced the six artists selected as finalists for this year's Betty Bowen Award: Dawn Cerny, Roland Dahwen, Elijah Hasan, Marilyn Montufar, Christian Alborz Oldham, and Tariqa Waters. The juried award honors a Northwest artist for their original, exceptional, and compelling work. The award was founded in 1977 to honor the legacy of Betty Bowen (1918–1977), Founded by Bowen's friends, the award is administered by SAM. The Betty Bowen Committee — comprising Northwest curators, collectors, and artists — reviewed 615 applications from visual artists residing in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Last year's winner was Lynne Siefert, the first filmmaker to win the award. The winner of the 43rd Betty Bowen Award will be announced in September.

PEMCO

Halfon

Seattle-based PEMCO Mutual Insurance announced that Josh Halfon has been named as a new manager of pricing analytics. Halfon joined PEMCO in 2017 as a product analyst, In 2019, Halfon transitioned to the Pricing Analytics team. In his new role, Halfon will support PEMCO's ongoing pricing strategies. Before joining PEMCO, Halfon served as an analyst and consultant at Third Sector Intelligence and as a CMM Programmer at Exotic Metals Forming Co.

Convoy

In Seattle, Convoy announced that Mark Okerstrom has been appointed as the company's President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), In this newly created role, Okerstrom will work closely with Co-Founder and CEO, Dan Lewis, Okerstrom will directly oversee Convoy's finance, operations, sales, marketing, supply, and marketplace growth teams. Most recently Okerstrom was President & CEO of Expedia Group, and prior to that was Expedia Group's CFO and EVP of Operations. Convoy is a digital freight network.

Terreno Realty

In San Francisco, Terreno Realty Corporation announced that it has completed the redevelopment of its property at 8615 S. 192nd St. in Kent and leased 100% of the property. The redeveloped property consists of a newly developed 220,000-square-foot rear-load industrial distribution building on approximately 12.7 acres adjacent to state Route 167. The total cost of the redeveloped property is approximately $33.9 million. Terreno Realty Corporation has executed a lease for 100% of the property which commenced Aug. 25, 2020 and expires Nov. 30, 2027 with a provider of retail supply chain, warehousing and final-mile delivery.

Tempered

In Seattle, Tempered announced new hardware and software designed to protect data, applications, and devices across on-premise, remote, and cloud environments. The new version 2.2.8 software split tunnel includes improved user onboarding, Alibaba Cloud support, high-availability and performance enhancements. Also announced and available immediately is the Airwall 110-Series for distributed edge deployments where secure connectivity and remote access are needed. The 110e supports ethernet, while the 110g includes support for cellular modems for last-mile connectivity. Both can be deployed to protect, connect, and manage devices at the IoT edge or inside an operational technology (OT) environment.