Jul 13, 2021

AAA Washington

Snavely

Heather Snavely has succeeded Kirk Nelson as president and CEO of AAA Washington. Snavely is the first woman chosen by the AAA Washington Board of Trustees to lead the organization during its 117 year history. Snavely comes to AAA Washington from PCC Community Markets in Seattle, where she served as vice president of marketing. Previously, Snavely was the senior director of global brand marketing for Brooks Running in Seattle, and director of global consumer communications at Microsoft for Xbox. Snavely also serves on the board of directors for KEXP, a nonprofit arts organization. Bellevue-based AAA Washington serves 1.2 million members in Washington state and North Idaho with emergency road service, leisure travel planning, and personal and small-business insurance.

City of Tacoma

The city of Tacoma was awarded a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) in support of its MBDA Business Center, which has served growing minority-owned businesses in the local area and region since September 2016. Through June 30, 2026, the city will receive $400,000 annually in federal funds over a five-year period, as long as satisfactory performance is met and congressional appropriations are made. With these grant dollars, the city will continue its work to help minority-owned businesses access capital and contracts and expand market opportunities at home and abroad. They will be supported by a federal team of MBDA staff, and receive business development and grant management training annually. MBDA is the only federal agency created to foster the establishment and growth of minority-owned businesses in the United States.

Symetra

Symetra Life Insurance announced the appointment of Solynn McCurdy as senior vice president, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, a new role for the organization. McCurdy, who joins Symetra's leadership team, will lead Symetra's newly formed DE&I office, with responsibility for driving the company's DE&I strategy. He reports to Anne-Marie Diouf, senior vice president, chief human resources officer. Most recently, McCurdy was senior vice president of social impact at BECU, where he oversaw all philanthropic and financial health efforts, community engagement and cooperative community advocacy for the credit union. Prior to joining BECU, McCurdy was chief executive officer at Social Venture Partners Seattle and led social impact programs at Premera Blue Cross. Formerly, he was director of external affairs at Seattle University, where he stewarded regional strategies in community engagement and advocacy. Symetra Life Insurance is a subsidiary of Symetra Financial, a diversified financial services company based in Bellevue.

Jul 09, 2021

Zeitworks

Zeitworks announced that Jay Bartot will be taking on the role of CEO and will lead the company through its next stage of technology and product development. Co-founder and former CEO Ryan Windham will remain active as a board member and assist the company with strategic projects. JAZZ Ventures and Madrona Venture Group will invest an additional $2M in the company. The additional funding, led by JAZZ Ventures, will support the next phase of product and technology development as well as customer and go-to-market initiatives currently underway. Headquartered in Seattle, Zeitworks was founded by veteran machine learning application developers, entrepreneurs and investors with experience backing intelligent automation companies. Bartot will leave his current post as CTO at Madrona Venture Labs (MVL) to become Zeitworks' CEO. He will remain an advisor to MVL.

ATS Automation

ATS Automation, an independent, smart building controls provider for the greater Pacific Northwest, has acquired WayPoint Systems, headquartered in Roswell, GA. This purchase will enable ATS to grow in the Southeast region of the United States and provide increased capabilities and support for national account clients. With this acquisition, ATS will add WayPoint Systems to its family of facility solution providers under the new name, ATS Waypoint. Established in 1986, ATS is headquartered in Renton, with a local management and ownership team. ATS serves clients in Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota, Eastern Oregon, and the greater Atlanta Metro market.

Ascensus Specialties

New York-based investment firm New Mountain Capital has acquired Ascensus Specialties, a leading U.S. based provider of specialty materials for use in critical life sciences and specialties markets and applications. Wind Point Partners, the former majority shareholder, will reinvest in Ascensus in partnership with New Mountain Capital through a special purpose vehicle raised in association with the transaction. Headquartered in Bellevue, Ascensus is a world leader in borohydride, borane and specialty alcoholates chemistries. The Company supplies a diversified portfolio of reagents and catalysts to a global customer base in the pharmaceutical, microelectronics, and other specialty end markets. The company serves its global customer base at its three facilities located in Elma, Washington, Evans City, Pennsylvania, and Newburyport, Massachusetts.

Edifecs

Edifecs, a global health information technology solutions company, announced that Sunny Singh will transition to the role of chairman of the board of directors and Venkat Kavarthapu will become chief executive officer. Singh founded Edifecs in 1996 and has been CEO since, growing the company to over 600 employees and more than 350 customers worldwide. Singh was also instrumental in securing a significant growth investment from TA Associates and Francisco Partners in 2020. Kavarthapu has served in a number of senior leadership capacities at Edifecs over the past 12 years, and has been working closely with Singh for months to prepare for the transition. Edifecs is headquartered in Bellevue, with additional offices in Atlanta, Georgia and Mohali, India, and an engineering center in Moldova.

Jul 08, 2021

Shockey Planning Group

Anderson

Everett-based Shockey Planning Group appointed Camie Anderson as vice president and principal. A 1999 graduate of Western Washington University with a degree in planning and environmental policy, Anderson joined the firm in 2000. She serves private and public sector clients in all aspects of land use and environmental planning. Shockey Planning Group was founded in 1980 by Reid Shockey, who continues his role and president and managing partner.

WineBid

WineBid, a Seattle-based online wine auction marketplace, added regional account managers in the Rockies, the Southeast, New England, the Mid Atlantic, the Midwest and Hong Kong. WineBid's new regional sales staff will help sellers maximize the value of their collections and get their wines to market more easily by enabling them to connect with wine consignment experts in their own cities. The new account managers join a team of wine auction professionals already in the Northeast, Southeast and Southwest. In addition to working with consignors across the country, WineBid will also continue to offer the Trade Support Program that in 2020 helped many restaurants, wineries and wholesalers offer collections and inventory in response to the need to trim or reposition wine lists and quickly access liquidity. Founded in 1996, WineBid has more than 140,000 registered bidders worldwide. The company has operations in Napa, California.

Washington Federal

Washington Federal, parent company of Washington Federal Bank, announced its board succession planning. Two directors, chair Thomas Kelley and Barbara Smith, will not be nominated for reelection to the board in January 2022, consistent with the company's director retirement policy. Also, the board announced that director Stephen Graham will be appointed chairman following the January 2022 annual meeting. In anticipation of the upcoming retirements, the board has increased the number of seats to 12 and appointed three new directors: Sylvia Hampel, Sean Singleton and Shawn Bice. Hampel brings 25 years of business management experience to the board. She was president of her own company Clearview Cleaning, operating throughout Idaho and three other western states, before selling the company to KBS. She is a licensed real estate broker and owns her own real estate development company. Singleton has experience with J.P. Morgan Chase, and was the founder of Oglethorpe Capital. Bice, a technology executive for more than two decades, is president of products and technology at cloud data company Splunk. In addition, Bice is a former Amazon Web Services vice president and Microsoft executive. Washington Federal Bank, a national bank with headquarters in Seattle, has 226 branches in eight western states.