Jun 17, 2021

Lane Powell

Block

Steven Block joined Lane Powell as a shareholder in the firm's Seattle office. Block comes from Foster Garvey and has more than 35 years of experience in all modes of transportation and logistics. His practice also focuses on general commercial litigation before courts and administrative bodies across the U.S. Block is an active member, and former national president, of the Association of Transportation Law Professionals. He has been ranked a Washington Super Lawyer by Thomson Reuters in the area of Transportation/Maritime since 2008.

State of Oregon

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed into law House Bill 2344, requiring manufacturers of personal care and household wipes for sale in the state to clearly label “Do Not Flush” on products not intended for disposal in the toilet. Introduced in January, this legislation received broad support from the wipes industry, as well as Oregon municipal wastewater agencies. During the pandemic, many municipalities saw an increase in volumes of inappropriately flushed baby wipes, hard surface cleaning/sanitizing wipes and other items not intended to be disposed via the toilet. Similar legislation has passed in Washington state, is currently under review in California and is awaiting the governor's signature in Illinois.

Remitly

Remitly, a mobile-first provider of remittances and financial services for immigrants, announced that Robert Kaskel has joined the company in its newest leadership position — executive vice president of people. In addition to Kaskel's hire, Remitly also appointed Margaret Smyth to its board of directors. Smyth is the chief financial officer for National Grid, US, one of the world's largest investor-owned energy companies. Kaskel brings nearly 20 years of experience in human resources to Remitly, having held leadership roles with some of the nation's biggest technology companies. Most recently, Kaskel was the HR director for Finance and Global Business Services at Amazon. Prior to Amazon, Kaskel worked for Microsoft and Mattel in various human resources and organizational development positions. Established in 2011 and headquartered in Seattle, Remitly operates from numerous offices around the world.

Jun 16, 2021

T-Mobile

T-Mobile announced donations of $1 million to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation's new financial and digital literacy initiatives, and $250,000 to GLSEN's efforts aimed at making schools safer and more inclusive for LGBTQ+ students. The HRC Foundation donation will support initiatives for LGBTQ+ youth, and will provide educational resources on the basics of budgeting and financial management, as well as cyberbullying and internet safety. T-Mobile's donation to this new programming is part of its Equity In Action Plan that advances diversity, equity and inclusion across all aspects of its business. T-Mobile's donation to GLSEN will support year-round initiatives and events that provide students in grades K through 12 with a safe, supportive and LGBTQ-inclusive education, including the Rainbow Library, Respect Awards 2021-2022, Day of Silence and Solidarity Week.

CoreStack

Bellevue-based CoreStack was named the winner of the People's Choice Stevie Award in the 2021 Annual American Business Awards for Favorite New Products. This recognition endorses CoreStack's AI-powered multi-cloud governance solutions that enable enterprises to decrease cloud costs while increasing operational efficiencies by governing cloud operations, security, cost, access and resources. The People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products are a feature of The American Business Awards in which the public can vote for their favorite new products and services of the year. More than 92,000 votes were cast in people's choice categories this year. More than 3,800 nominations were submitted to this year's American Business Awards for consideration in a wide range of categories.

Puzzle Break

Puzzle Break, the first U.S.-based escape room company, announced its virtual professional development series, Excellence Unlocked. Excellence Unlocked takes teams through a variety of collaboration-based, virtual escape experiences designed to challenge and refine the group's communication tactics and problem-solving skills. Each workshop includes four game segments, two discussion periods and a final debrief that recaps the experience and gives teams the opportunity to discuss lessons learned. Led by specially-trained senior Puzzle Break facilitators, the discussion periods are placed throughout the day and provide a forum to deliberate on team progress, collaborative successes, and actionable opportunities for improvement. Puzzle Break was established in 2013 by Nate Martin and Lindsay Morse. Headquartered in Seattle, Puzzle Break has physical escape room locations in New York, Massachusetts and on Royal Caribbean cruise ships around the world. In addition to its virtual escape room offerings, Puzzle Break has also operated workplace team-building challenges at offsite meetings, retreats and corporate events.

Critical Insight

CI Security, a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service provider specializing in protecting the networks of life-saving organizations and critical infrastructure, announced the company's name change to Critical Insight. Founded by Michael Hamilton, Critical Insight assists companies, organizations, and municipalities with a personalized blend of MDR, managed, and professional services that also includes assessments, penetration testing, incident response, and vulnerability scanning.

Jun 15, 2021

KRWM-FM Seattle

Hughes

KRWM-FM morning host, Seth Hughes has inked a deal to continue as morning host and has been named music director for the Hubbard Radio Seattle station. Hughes joined Hubbard Radio Seattle in March of 2018, as mid day host of Seattle's Country 98.9 KNUC. He assumed the Warm 106.9 morning time slot in April 2019, and can be heard from 5am-9am. Started in 1923, Hubbard Broadcasting, is a television and radio broadcasting corporation based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

DigitSec

Software industry veteran Adrian Szwarcburg has joined Seattle-based DigitSec as senior vice president of business development. Szwarcburg most recently was vice president of channel sales and partnerships at AutoRABIT, a DevOps and data protection provider. He has led global channel sales and partnerships at software and SaaS providers including Cloud Lending Solutions (acquired by Q2 Software); AtHoc (acquired by Blackberry); EVault (acquired by Seagate); and Autonomy (acquired by HP). DigitSec provides a continuous application security testing platform for Salesforce DevSecOps that integrates multiple security tools.

Alaska Communications

Alaska Communications has signed a Distribution Partner Agreement with OneWeb, a global communications network powered from space, to expand the company's connectivity solutions across Alaska. Through the agreement, Alaska Communications will sell OneWeb's low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite service to its customers and use OneWeb's infrastructure for critical middle mile connections. LEO satellites deliver fiber-like connectivity performance to areas that have been inaccessible via terrestrial options. LEO services through Alaska Communications and OneWeb will be available for service in the fourth quarter of 2021. Alaska Communications is the leading provider of advanced broadband and managed IT services for businesses and consumers in Alaska. OneWeb, headquartered in London, is a global communications network powered from space.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services announced it will open an infrastructure region in Israel in the first half of 2023. The AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region will enable more developers, startups, and enterprises as well as government, education, and non-profits to run their applications and serve end-users from data centers located in Israel. Additionally, the government of Israel announced that it has selected AWS as its primary cloud provider as part of the “Nimbus” contract for government ministries and subsidiaries. The Nimbus framework will provide cloud services to Israeli government ministries including local municipalities, government-owned companies, and public sector organizations with the aim of helping to accelerate digital transformation.

AWS Regions are comprised of Availability Zones, which place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations with enough distance to significantly reduce the risk of a single event impacting customers' business continuity. Globally, AWS has 81 Availability Zones across 25 geographic regions.