Sep 23, 2022

Harborstone Credit Union

Harborstone Credit Union has selected Geoff Bullock to serve as its next chief executive officer and succeed Phil Jones, who is retiring after fifteen years of leading the credit union. Bullock currently serves as executive vice president and chief member experience officer of Royal Credit Union in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and is expected to transition to his new role before the end of October 2022. He was placed by DDJ Myers, a leadership development firm. Bullock is currently working towards his Doctorate in Change Leadership at the University of Southern California and holds a Master of Business Administration in Finance from Concordia University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from North Park University. Founded in 1955, Harborstone Credit Union is a Washington state, member-owned financial cooperative. DDJ Myers specializes in leadership success through executive recruitment, strategic organization, and board development for financial institutions. DDJ Myers recently joined forces with ALM First, a strategic partner that offers depositories an array of financial advisory services.

F5

Seattle-based F5 announced that Aite-Novarica Group, a financial services research and advisory firm, has ranked the company as a Best in Class provider of bot management solutions in their recently released Aite Matrix: Leading Bot Detection and Management Providers report. As a Best in Class vendor, F5's approach integrates bot and fraud detection capabilities to secure organizations from a breadth of automated attacks while reducing user friction and allowing for the continued operation of good bots. Its solution, F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense, uses machine learning models to monitor and process HTTP transactions daily, allowing it to instantly adapt to new attack patterns. The Aite-Novarica Group report shows how organizations can leverage solution providers to protect themselves from bot attacks and explores the trends within the bot detection and management market.

T-Mobile

Twenty-five small towns and rural communities across the country each received a T-Mobile Hometown Grant up to $50,000 for community development projects spanning technology, education, environment and health care. The latest recipients follow 100 others that have been announced since Hometown Grants began in April 2021 to support the people and organizations responsible for helping small towns across the country thrive. A year and a half into the $25 million, five-year initiative, Bellevue-based T-Mobile has given more than $5.5 million dollars to projects across 37 states. The latest grant winners included two towns in the state of Washington. The Rainier Foothills Wellness Foundation in Enumclaw will renovate an existing building in Enumclaw's downtown core to create a Community Connections Center, creating a community hub for volunteerism and community service while enabling RFWF to maintain and expand services including senior food delivery, weekly community meals, weekend food support for students, community-based mental health interventions and health care access. Also, Toppenish received a grant to repaint the town's 78 historical murals. To select Hometown Grant recipients, T-Mobile works with Main Street America and Smart Growth America. Together, the organizations assess applications based on level of detail and completeness, potential community impact, project viability and other factors. Each quarter, T-Mobile awards Hometown Grants for up to 25 towns with a population of less than 50,000. For details on how to submit a proposal for Hometown Grants, see t-mobile.com/brand/hometown-grants.

Sep 22, 2022

Amazon

Amazon and Water.org announced a partnership to help launch the Water.org Water & Climate Fund, focused on climate-resilient water and sanitation solutions that will result in lasting access for 100 million people across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Amazon will also donate $10 million to Water.org efforts to provide 1 million people with access to clean water by 2025. The Water & Climate Fund will support climate-resilient water and sanitation projects including water reuse infrastructure, wastewater treatment plants, and water loss reduction. Water.org, founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, is an international nonprofit organization that pioneers market-driven financial solutions to the global water crisis.

ZoomInfo

Vancouver-based ZoomInfo, a global provider of go-to-market software, data and intelligence, hired Andrew Riesenfeld as senior vice president of business development. Riesenfeld will lead the sales development and sales enablement teams, and prioritize redefining ZoomInfo's go-to-market processes, playbooks, and training programs. Riesenfeld joins ZoomInfo from DocuSign, where he served as vice president of go-to-market operations and productivity. He helped scale the company from $200 million to $2.5 billion in revenue, which included the company's IPO. Prior to DocuSign, Riesenfeld helped lead two other SaaS companies – Responsys and Heighten – to acquisitions by Oracle and LinkedIn Microsoft, respectively.

Powin

Global energy storage platform provider Powin announced the acquisition of EKS Energy, a provider of advanced power electronics and energy management solutions for energy storage and renewables. This acquisition expands Powin's offering to include the EKS Power Conversion System and Power Plant Controller, enabling Powin to deliver a complete AC energy storage platform capable of advanced control functionality to support microgrid applications while interfacing with multiple generation assets. Other new products include PV inverters, DC-to-DC converters and multi-port inverters, which are used to maximize performance and profits for utility-scale solar plus energy storage projects. Powin is headquartered in Oregon.

Oregon Fruit Products

Oregon Fruit Products appointed Joe Prewett as president and chief executive officer. Prewett will assume the role effective mid-October, while current CEO Chris Sarles will help to ensure a smooth transition. Prewett has been with Tillamook County Creamery Association since 2013 as executive vice president of brand and category growth. He has been a member of the Oregon Fruit Products board for two years. Before joining Tillamook, Prewett served as vice president of marketing for Farmer Brothers Coffee, Coffee Bean International and Medical Research Institute. Prewett has a bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon and a master's in business administration from the Anderson School at UCLA. Sarles is stepping down and plans to focus on non-profit organizations that help women and children. Founded in 1935, Oregon Fruit Products offers canned, frozen and shelf-stable premium fruit. The company is the located in Salem, Oregon.

Sep 21, 2022

Standard Insurance

Martin

Portland-based Standard Insurance (The Standard) has promoted Shannon Martin to second vice president and assistant controller. In her new role, Martin will lead accounting and finance staff in the management of accounting close activities, financial reporting, investment accounting, financial systems and accounting policy. Martin joined The Standard in 2012, leading several corporate accounting and finance teams with increasing levels of responsibility and management. Prior to The Standard, she was an auditor with Deloitte.

Martin received a Bachelor of Science in accounting and a Master of Science in financial analysis from Portland State University. In business since 1906, The Standard is the marketing name for StanCorp Financial Group, and its subsidiaries: Standard Insurance, The Standard Life Insurance Company of New York, Standard Retirement Services, StanCorp Mortgage Investors, StanCorp Investment Advisers, StanCorp Real Estate, and StanCorp Equities.

Taqtile

Taqtile, maker of Manifest, an augmented reality-enabled work instruction platform for deskless workers, announced completion of a $5 million preferred equity round. The Seattle-based company will utilize proceeds to increase sales and marketing efforts, reinforce engineering and development teams and increase its global footprint through its partnership network. Investors in this round include Mesmerise, a London-based creator of augmented reality and virtual reality immersive technologies for enterprise customers, as well as Downer Group, a publicly traded Australian industrial and defense systems integrator. Bellevue-based 5G Open Innovation Lab, and tech-focused Ascend, a Seattle venture capital fund, have also invested in Taqtile. Downer Group is both a Taqtile investor and strategic partner. Close collaboration between Downer and Taqtile has already begun and will continue to grow across major defense and infrastructure projects in Australia and New Zealand.

City of Tacoma

The city of Tacoma is now accepting Community Arts Projects funding applications from eligible organizations and groups producing publicly accessible arts programming, across all artistic disciplines, within Tacoma city limits in 2023. Applicants can apply for either $3,000 or $6,000 for their project. Applications must be submitted online by 11:59 PM on October 31, 2022. Community Arts Projects funding can be used for a variety of projects including, artistic presentations, activities, events, workshops, experiences, festivals, performances, or other projects that are accessible to the general public – either in-person and/or virtually. Funded projects must be completed between January 1 - December 31, 2023. Eligibility extends to private non-profit corporations with a 501(c) designation, organized groups of people working together towards a specific mission or purpose, for-profit businesses or educational institutions producing projects that are non-profit in nature, and tribes or Native non-profit organizations. Applicants are required to have offices or their place of business within Tacoma or, if they have no offices, a majority of their activities must take place within Tacoma city limits. Funding for Community Arts Projects is determined through a competitive application process. The number of projects funded will be based on the availability of funds and review of each application as measured against the evaluation criteria detailed in the guidelines. More details, including access to the online application form, are available at cityoftacoma.org/artsopps.