Sep 14, 2021

Summit Bank

Doug Wolford joins Summit Bank as vice president, SBA Program Advisor for Summit Bank's Small Business Administration Division. Wolford has nearly 30 years of SBA experience, previously leading SBA for a well-known regional bank with borrowers in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho. Wolford's role with Summit will focus on cultivating relationships with current and prospective SBA borrowers. He is a long time member of the National Association of Guaranteed Government Lenders and is a member of the Northwest Business Development Association Loan Committee. Summit Bank has offices in Eugene/Springfield, Central Oregon and the Portland Metropolitan area, and specializes in providing service to professionals as well as medium-sized businesses and their owners. Summit was recognized in 2020 as the Top Small Business Administration Community Bank Lender in the state of Oregon.

State of Washington

The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) has hired Tao Kwan-Gett, MD, MPH, as the agency's chief science officer. In his new role, Kwan-Gett will serve as DOH's primary science expert and a key spokesperson on public health issues. Currently, Kwan-Gett is a primary care pediatrician at Virginia Mason Sand Point Pediatrics at University Village in Seattle and serves as the faculty lead for the Northwest Public Health Primary Care Leadership Institute. He attended Harvard University for college and medical school and moved to Seattle in 1990 to complete his pediatric residency. After earning his MPH at the University of Washington, Kwan-Gett practiced pediatrics at Virginia Mason while also serving Seattle refugee and immigrant communities at Harborview Medical Center's Community House Calls Program. He spent several years as a medical epidemiologist at Public Health – Seattle & King County and, in 2013, joined UW's Department of Health Systems and Population Health as the director of the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. In 2017, he returned to primary care pediatrics. Kwan-Gett's first day with the department is October 1.

Alaska Internet Service

Nearly 1,250 Alaskans in Hoonah and Gustavus, two isolated communities in Southeast Alaska, will receive fiber optic cable-based high-speed internet for the first time, if the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) approves a request for a tribal broadband grant. Alaska Communications would offer Gigabit service in communities that today cannot stream classes, work remotely or access quality telehealth care. Hoonah Indian Association and Alaska Communications would also provide a community technology center in Hoonah and Gustavus to facilitate broadband education, awareness, training, access, equipment and provide support for community members. The technology center would offer basic skills training, access to social and medical services, and support community cultural activities. Once constructed, the Hoonah and Gustavus fiber optic network would connect to the Alaska Communications core fiber network. Grant applications were submitted to the NTIA Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program Sept. 1. NTIA expects to award grants by the end of 2021. If awarded, the project would be complete in December 2023.

Sep 10, 2021

Sila

Sila, a fintech software platform that provides payment infrastructure as a service, appointed Rick Holt as the firm's first chief revenue officer. Holt has been with Sila for several months as the acting vice president of Sales. In his new role, Holt will be responsible for the cohesiveness of Sila's revenue-related functions including sales, marketing, and customer experience. Most recently, Holt led SOLE Financial, which was acquired by Comdata in July 2019, as the CEO, chairman and co-founder. Prior to leading SOLE Financial, Holt founded, operated and sold Aptus Financial, a payments company with several products, serving customers throughout the United States. Sila is headquartered in Portland.

Parcion Private Wealth

Parcion Private Wealth, a Seattle-area wealth management firm, announced that managing principal Terry Cook has been recognized as one of the top-ranked advisors in the country in Forbes' ranking of America's Top Wealth Advisors for 2021. Cook was ranked in the top 100 advisors. The award is drawn from independent analysis conducted by SHOOK Research, which employs an amalgam of telephone and in-person interviews, coupled with an examination of criteria from 2020, including industry experience, compliance, and assets under management. Cook founded Parcion Private Wealth alongside other principals at the firm in 2019 as an independent multi-family office that partners with entrepreneurs, business owners and their families to optimize wealth events.

Tola Capital

Seattle-based Tola Capital announced that Phil Sorgen has joined the firm as a venture partner. Sorgen will be part of the Tola investment team, serve on boards, and guide companies on their sales and growth strategies. Most recently, he was the chief revenue officer for RingCentral, where he led the company's global sales and partner organization. Prior to this role he spent 24 years at Microsoft, most recently as a corporate vice president, leading Microsoft's U.S. Enterprise Commercial Group, an organization responsible for helping the company's commercial customers in the U.S. navigate digital transformation. Founded in 2010 by ex-software operators, Tola Capital is a venture capital firm that invests globally across multiple stages and targets companies who are building essential software for enterprise customers.

NAVEX Global

NAVEX Global has appointed Sean Thompson as president and chief operating officer, reporting to CEO Bob Conlin. Thompson has also been named to NAVEX Global's board of directors. Thompson's responsibilities in this newly created role include leading go-to-market planning and execution as well as supporting customer success, product innovation and operational excellence strategies. Thompson joins NAVEX Global from SAP, where he most recently served as executive vice president and general manager of SAP Procurement Network & Ecosystem and led the company's strategy for business network and payments, including the Ariba Network. He was previously the chief revenue officer for SAP's SMB cloud and ERP business. Before joining SAP, Thompson was the CEO and co-founder of Nuiku, a natural language processing and artificial intelligence company. He also spent nearly 10 years at Microsoft in various leadership capacities and was a management consultant at Deloitte. NAVEX Global is a worldwide leader in integrated risk and compliance management software and services, and is headquartered in Lake Oswego, OR.

Sep 09, 2021

King Conservation District

Mendez-Perez

King Conservation District (KCD) announced the selection of Rosa Mendez-Perez to fill the position of executive director. Mendez-Perez has a background in environmental and climate advocacy focused on issues of equity and community empowerment. She served most recently as the director of the Office of Environmental Justice for New York's Department of Environmental Conservation where she led the agency's Environmental Justice and Indian Nations Affairs programs. She also chaired the Climate Justice Working Group and worked with communities to address their environmental challenges. King Conservation District is a nonregulatory, special purpose district that works with individuals, communities, nonprofits and local governments on a voluntary basis to steward natural resources.

Carney Badley Spellman

Vermillion

Jared Vermillion has joined Seattle law firm Carney Badley Spellman. Vermillion's practice primarily focuses on advising startups and emerging companies through a variety of matters such as entity formations, raising capital through venture and angel investment financings, commercial transactions, regulatory compliance, M&A and corporate governance.

710 ESPN Seattle

Hasselbeck

710 ESPN Seattle, owned by Bonneville Seattle Media Group, announced “The Matt Hasselbeck Show” as a weekly program on 710 ESPN Seattle. The new, one-hour show will air each Wednesday at 9 a.m., with the 2021 Seahawks Ring of Honor member joining morning host, Mike Salk. A three-time Pro Bowler, Hasselbeck played for the Seahawks from 2001-2010, including leading the Seahawks to their first ever Super Bowl appearance in 2005. Hasselbeck enjoyed a 17-year NFL career including other stops in Green Bay, Tennessee, and Indianapolis. The inaugural show will air Wednesday, Sept. 15, and will also be offered as a weekly podcast at 710Sports.com.

Kymeta

Redmond-based Kymeta announced that Walter Berger and S. Douglas Hutcheson have been named co-chief executive officers. Berger, formerly Kymeta's president and chief operating officer, will serve as president and co-CEO. Hutcheson, formerly Kymeta's executive chairman, will serve as executive chairman and co-CEO. Berger and Hutcheson joined Kymeta in May of 2019 and began their co-CEO duties effective September 1, 2021. Kymeta's connectivity solutions provide mobile connectivity on satellite and hybrid satellite-cellular networks to customers around the world. Kymeta was recently named 2021's Top Ten Hottest Companies in Satellite and Hottest New Mobility Solution for 2021.