May 13, 2021

Summit Bank

DeVita

Angela DeVita, a 20-year Portland-based banking veteran, has joined Summit Bank as vice president, relationship banking manager for the Portland Metropolitan and Southwest Washington market. DeVita has extensive experience reviewing, analyzing and supporting the ongoing needs of complex deposit account relationships. She is a 2018 graduate of the Executive Leadership program for the Oregon Bankers Association and a member of the Association for Financial Professionals of Oregon and SW Washington. Summit Bank, with offices in Eugene/Springfield, Central Oregon and the Portland Metropolitan area, specializes in providing service to professionals and 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.

City of Tacoma

The Tacoma City Council has reappointed Elizabeth Pauli to the position of city manager for a two-year period beginning May 16, 2021 and ending May 15, 2023. Pauli started serving as Tacoma's interim city manager in February 2017, until she was appointed to an initial two-year term as city manager in May 2017 and reappointed to another two-year term as city manager in May 2019. Prior to her appointment as city manager, Pauli served as Tacoma's city attorney. She first joined the city of Tacoma in May 1998 as chief assistant city attorney. Prior to joining the city of Tacoma, she was a partner at Tacoma law firm McGavick Graves.

University of Washington

Jewell

Sally Jewell, U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Barack Obama and former CEO of REI, has been appointed as the Edward V. Fritzky Endowed Chair in Leadership at the UW Foster School of Business for the 2021-2022 school year. Established in 2002, this faculty position is designed to bring distinguished leaders to campus to share their expertise with faculty and students. Jewell is currently on the boards of Costco, Symetra Financial, Green Diamond Resource and The Nature Conservancy, where she recently served as interim CEO. The Edward V. Fritzky Endowed Chair in Leadership was established by Amgen as a gift honoring the career of Edward Fritzky, retired chairman, president and CEO of Immunex. Previous Fritzky Chairs include: Chris Petersen, former head football coach at the UW and Boise State University; Charles Pigott, former chairman of PACCAR; Howard Behar, former president of Starbucks North America; Dorrit Bern, former CEO of Charming Shoppes; and Paula and Steve Reynolds, former CEO's of Safeco and Puget Sound Energy, respectively.

Columbia Pacific lends $39M for NYC project

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The recently created Columbia Pacific Recovery Fund has deployed a $39.1 million bridge loan to help complete a mixed-use project in New York City, said Columbia Pacific. The fund is intended to help owners and developers complete pandemic-delayed projects. The eight-story mixed-use project is now under construction; it'll have 24,357 square feet, with 10 rental units over retail. Eric Jordan of Columbia Pacific said in a statement, “We are pleased to provide the first loan through the Columbia Pacific Recovery Fund for 68-70 Spring St. in SoHo, which is ideally located near one of the strongest retail corridors in New York City.” The new fund will deploy more bridge loans for periods of two to five years. In SoHo, landowner P. Zaccaro Co. is developing the project for the LLC that took the loan. CNY Group is the builder, and Bialosky + Partners is the architect. Construction began in 2018, replacing an old one-story retail building. (The Zaccaro family is well known in NYC real estate, after a century in that business; John Zaccaro was married to the late vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.)

Tri Pointe shuffles staff

Quadrant recently took the name of its Nevada owner, becoming Tri Pointe Homes – Washington. The firm is growing, too. It recently announced that Jared Knickmeyer has joined the company as VP of land acquisition. Working with him in the company's Eastgate office will be the recently promoted John Potts, now director of land development, and new hire Matthew Grimm. He'll be a director of land acquisition; he makes the move from BMGI, the asset management group for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

PMF pre-leases all of Puyallup retail center

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PMF Investments made news last month by selling the former Sheraton Bellevue property for $152 million to Tishman Speyer, which will develop what's currently called BelleVista Place. Now, returning to its core business, Brian Franklin says that the family company's PMF Real Estate Services will manage all the space it has pre-leased at Pioneer Crossing. That's the 86,000-square-foot, six-building development PMF began in 2019. (BCRA was the architect, and CSI Construction was the builder.) Tenants include Safeway, Taco Bell, Starbucks and MOD Pizza. PMF's leasing agents were Deborah Oswald and Blake Springer-Trybus. Said Franklin in a statement, “We're thrilled by the success of PMF Real Estate Services and look forward to growing this side of our business with new third-party clients.”

May 12, 2021

Elliott Bay Design Group

Complita

Reeves

In Seattle, naval architecture and marine engineering firm Elliott Bay Design Group promoted John Reeves to principal in charge and Michael Complita to vice president of strategic expansion. EBDG said theses changes to its executive leadership team come shortly after Robert Ekse was appointed president and reflect the company's new vision. Reeves will oversee technical projects, provide direction and engineering support and continue as director of business development. Complita will lead the expansion of service offerings inside and outside of the marine industry. His initial focus will support EBDG's goal to foster business opportunities that will expand the reach of EBDG, Inc. and its family of companies. He will also continue as a principal in charge and remain involved in oversight of engineering projects, recruiting and cross-training opportunities for staff.

Olson Kundig

Matthes

Riordan

Olson Kundig promoted John Riordan and Todd Matthes to principal. Riordan has more than 23 years of experience that includes private residences, hospitality, cultural, commercial and mixed-use projects. He frequently works with international technology companies to design high-tech workplaces, and incorporates meaningful elements of other typologies into these assignments. Matthes has over 20 years of experience. His work includes private residences, retail and hospitality, large-scale mixed use and multi-unit housing projects. Olson Kundig provides architecture, landscape architecture and interior design.

Exeltech Consulting

Cannon

In Portland, Oregon, Exeltech Consulting hired Ian Cannon as deputy director of engineering. The former Multnomah County transportation division director/county engineer has 30 years of experience managing design delivery for public infrastructure projects, including the $330 million Sellwood Bridge replacement in Portland. Cannon will manage Exeltech's Portland office and provide owner's representative, asset management and engineering services to public infrastructure project clients. Lacey-based Exeltech provides civil and structural engineering, environmental documentation and permitting, landscape architecture, and construction management and inspection services.

Opsis Architecture

O'Neil

Fashimpar

Ahn

Howard

Long

Hindman

Portland-based Opsis Architecture promoted Carol Long to principal and hired Margaret Howard as chief financial officer, Elisa Ahn as an associate and project manager, Amy Fashimpar as a project architect, Kate O'Neil as a project coordinator and Nick Hindman as an accounting assistant. Long, the firm's marketing director, is a business development and marketing strategist with 30 years of experience. She was marketing director at Opsis from 2001 to 2006 and returned in 2018 to work with the leadership team to guide pursuits and set a path for achieving the design and business goals of the firm. Howard has strategic planning experience and has worked for publicly held and private companies with roles including accounting, administration and human resources. Most recently with Precoa, LLC, she has held similar positions at Maul Foster & Alongi and The Oregonian Publishing Co. Ahn will oversee Opsis's work with a major federal client. Most recently, Ahn was the development team's manager for the Meyer Memorial Trust's Headquarters Building in Portland. She practiced as an architect for a decade in Vancouver, B.C. and the San Francisco area, working on office, residential, student housing, civic, mixed-use and master planning projects. Fashimpar has 15 years of experience, most recently at EHDD in San Francisco, working on civic, cultural, educational and office designs. At Opsis, she will work on Salem-Keizer School District projects. O'Neil will support design teams on major new projects. She has 15 years of experience in project management and orchestrating daily operations within design, manufacturing and architectural projects. Hindman has a master's in education and bachelor's in English from Portland State University. He most recently worked at Travel Oregon as operations coordinator.

Oregon Tool

Blount, a global manufacturer of professional grade cutting tools and equipment, has rebranded as Oregon Tool. The company was founded by Joe Cox in 1947 in the basement of his Portland home. Over the years, the company has grown into a multinational organization with numerous acquisitions and mergers. Today, the newly named Oregon Tool has over 3,000 team members and sells thousands of products in more than 110 countries across multiple consumer brands, among them Oregon, Woods and ICS Diamond Tools.

The shift from Blount to Oregon Tool will be effective June 2. The brands and product names will remain the same – they will simply operate under the umbrella of Oregon Tool instead of Blount.

Amazon

Amazon released its 2020 Brand Protection Report which provides a comprehensive view of how it ensures customers shop from authentic products in its stores. Amazon makes investments in dedicated teams and machine learning technology to proactively protect customers, brands and its selling partners from counterfeiters, and to hold them accountable if they attempt to sell fakes through Amazon. In 2020, Amazon invested more than $700 million and employed more than 10,000 people to protect its stores from fraud and abuse. Only 6% of attempted account registrations passed Amazon's verifications processes and listed products for sale, and Amazon seized more than 2 million products that were sent to its fulfillment centers and that it detected as counterfeit before being sent to a customer. Amazon established its Counterfeit Crimes Unit to build and refer cases to law enforcement, undertake independent investigations or joint investigations with brands, and pursue civil litigation against counterfeiters.

USAFacts

Bellevue-based USAFacts, a not-for-profit, nonpartisan civic initiative making government data easy for all Americans to access and Understand, announced its Coronavirus Tracking Hub and Interactive Map earned an Innovation Services Gold Medal in the 2021 Edison Awards. It also won an honorable mention in the Pandemic Response category of this year's Fast Company World Changing Ideas competition. Both awards recognize the work that the USAFacts team did to inform the public throughout the global pandemic.

USAFacts Coronavirus Tracking Hub and Interactive Hub is still live on USAFacts and has been expanded to include a state-level vaccine tracker. USAFacts produces topical content throughout the year. The Edison Awards are named after Thomas Alva Edison, and are operated by Edison Universe, a non-profit organization with the mission of recognizing, honoring and fostering innovations and innovators.