Sep 15, 2023

City of SeaTac

Guzmán

SeaTac Councilmember Iris Guzmán earned a Certificate of Municipal Leadership from the Association of Washington Cities. AWC’s Certificate of Municipal Leadership program recognizes city and town elected officials for accomplishing training in five core areas: roles, responsibilities and legal requirements; public sector resource management; community planning and development; effective local leadership; and diversity, equity and inclusion. Guzmán completed more than 30 hours of training to earn this distinction. Guzmán started her tenure as a councilmember in 2022, and is the Parks & Recreation Committee chair. She previously worked as a school social worker, and is a former board member of the group Para los Niños and founding former member of La Barra Fuerza Verde. Founded in 1933, AWC is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan corporation that represents Washington’s 281 cities and towns before the state Legislature, the state executive branch, and with regulatory agencies.

CalmWave

Wilson

Seattle-based CalmWave appointed Howard Wilson, CFO of PagerDuty, to the company's board of advisors. Wilson is a technology leader who has played an integral role in building and scaling PagerDuty and the company's AI-powered Operations Cloud platform. Wilson's appointment to the board marks its expansion beyond subject matter expert clinicians to include IT and operations leaders. Prior to his role as CFO, Wilson served as PagerDuty's chief commercial officer. CalmWave recently announced its “transparent AI” platform to support mission-critical decision making in the ICU. CalmWave's transparent AI ingests hospital data in real-time and provides clinicians with a holistic view of the information to make informed decisions regarding alarm management and patient care.

Symetra

Fortune magazine and Great Place to Work have recognized Symetra Life Insurance Co. as one of the 2023 Best Workplaces in Financial Services & Insurance. Symetra was among the top 50 organizations in the best large workplaces category. Great Place To Work surveyed companies employing 7.5 million people in the U.S. and received 1.3 million responses. Of those, over 191,000 responses were received from employees at companies who were eligible for the 2023 Best Workplaces in Financial Services & Insurance list. The survey enables employees to share confidential quantitative and qualitative feedback about their organization's culture by responding to 60 statements on a five-point scale and answering two open-ended questions. Ninety-three percent of Symetra's surveyed employees say it is a great place to work, while 96% said you are made to feel welcome when you join the company and 95% feel good about the ways the company contributes to the community. Symetra Life Insurance is a subsidiary of Symetra Financial Corp., a diversified financial services company based in Bellevue.

Worth Avenue Yachts

The Seattle office of Worth Avenue Yachts is now an authorized representative for Sanlorenzo Yachts. Additionally, the Seattle location will represent Bluegame Yachts, a brand under the Sanlorenzo umbrella. This collaboration will focus on showcasing the BG and BGX range of luxury yachts. Ray Prokorym is the managing partner of the Seattle office. Worth Avenue Yachts is a yacht brokerage firm with a global presence, specializing in the sale, purchase, charter, and charter management of luxury yachts. With a heritage dating back to 1958, Sanlorenzo Yachts delivers Italian-crafted vessels.

Sep 14, 2023

Ogletree Deakins

Ogletree Deakins added Arianna Gardner and Kristofer Noneman as associates in the firm's Seattle office. Both will practice labor and employment law. Gardner joined Ogletree Deakins after completing judicial clerkships at both the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division One for the Honorable Linda Coburn, and Snohomish County Superior Court for the Honorable Millie Judge. She earned her J.D. from Seattle University School of Law and her bachelor's degree from the University of Washington. Noneman earned his J.D. from Willamette University School of Law and his bachelor's degree from Oregon State University.

Lattice Semiconductor

Lattice Semiconductor appointed Pravin Desale as senior vice president, research and development, effective immediately. Steve Douglass, who served in this role since 2018, is transitioning into a new role as chief technology officer, responsible for the long-term Lattice technology strategy. Desale has more than 30 years of R&D and technology leadership experience delivering silicon, software, and application-centric solutions for a variety of market verticals. He most recently served as senior vice president of IoT engineering at Semtech. Prior to the Semtech acquisition of Sierra Wireless, Pravin was the senior vice president of engineering at Sierra Wireless where he was responsible for all hardware and software development. He also held previous technical leadership roles at Veritas Technologies, Seagate, and LSI Corporation. He has a Master of Electrical Engineering degree from Santa Clara University and a Bachelor of Electronics and Telecommunications degree from the College of Engineering Pune Technological University. Lattice Semiconductor is based in Hillsoboro, Oregon.

Edifecs

Belleuve-based Edifecs, a global health information technology solutions company, announced that Summerpal Kahlon joined the leadership team as chief medical officer. Kahlon is an active internal medicine and infectious diseases physician with a background in health care strategy and leadership. He has held product strategy and operational leadership roles at McKesson, Oracle, Steward Health Care, and Change Healthcare. During the ongoing industry-wide transformation from fee-for-service to value-based care, Kahlon spent time on the development and implementation of electronic health records, data interoperability, large-scale population analytics, and applied artificial intelligence. Kahlon earned his MD from the UAB School of Medicine, a master's degree in health care informatics from the University of Central Florida, and a bachelor's degree in economics from Case Western Reserve University. Earlier this year, Edifecs announced the additions of Rod O'Reilly as chairman of the board, Tom Shultz as chief revenue officer, and Chris Lance as chief product officer to its leadership team.

Tour Washington 1000 with ULI

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As part of the larger Seattle Convention Center expansion, aka Summit, Lease Crutcher Lewis has topped out on the Washington 1000 office tower next door to the north. Work began in the spring of last year, on a building site above the Summit garage, on a separate triangular block. Developer Hudson Pacific Properties hopes to open the 16-story, 546,000-square-foot project in the first quarter of next year. But come Oct. 6, whether you're a member of the Urban Land Institute or not, you can take a hard hat tour of the LMN-designed building. The walk will begin at 3:30 p.m., departing from the nearby Hill7. Details and registration: northwest.uli.org.

SKB signs new tenant in Interbay

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Three years ago, ScanlanKemperBard of Portland paid $24 million for the 7-acre Northwestern Industries glass manufacturing plant in Interbay. (The latter company consolidated operations in Arizona.) The following year, renovations began on the three old buildings now branded as the Commodore Interbay Industry Center. CBRE represents the space, and its Bryan Hester and Andrew Stark recently signed a new tenant, the climbing gym Vertical World. That gym has been a longtime fixture in Interbay, and it isn't moving. Rather, its new 42,337 square feet, with a 15-year lease, will be a satellite operation at 2501 W. Commodore Way; that's but a few steps west from the current gym. Jo Ann Williams of SKB said in a statement, “We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Vertical World to Commodore, especially because this expansion will allow them to provide their specialized youth programs to a greater number of kids in Seattle.” SKB's entire complex spans about 213,066 square feet. The renovation was done by Venture General Contracting and Mildren Design Group, which is based in Oregon.

LPC West elevates Aigner

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Lincoln Property Company and its LPC West arm recently announced a trio of promotions. Here in Seattle, Alex Aigner becomes senior VP. He'll help oversee projects all over our state, working with Patrick Gilligan, who said in a statement, “All three of them embody Lincoln's high standards of trust, partnership, grit and innovation established by our founders and embraced by our colleagues across the United States and Europe.” Those three also include Trever Nicoll (covering Idaho, Montana and Utah) and Kasey Silva, working in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah and our state. LPC's most notable current project in our market is the U District Station Building (pictured), now rising atop U District Station itself.

NAIOP takes wing

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Aerospace could be called a niche within the office and industrial markets, one example of which is Alaska Airlines' fairly new 128,000-square-foot SeaTac office building dubbed The Hub, which opened during the pandemic. (That, pictured, was designed by NBBJ and built by Howard S. Wright, a Balfour Beatty company.) And aerospace is to be the subject of NAIOP's breakfast gathering next Wednesday the 20th. A panel will chat on stage while you eat, talking about current flight-adjacent trends in real estate. Those four experts are architect Todd Buchanan Sr. of HOK, Ben Brookman of Alaska Airlines, Kelly Hennig of Stoke Space — which, based in Kent, makes reusable rockets! — and Keri Stephens from the Port of Seattle. The event begins at 8 a.m. at the Hyatt at Olive 8. Details and registration: naiopwa.org.

Columbia Pacific revamps Omaha units

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Over in Omaha, Nebraska, Columbia Pacific Advisors did a previously unreported March deal to acquire a troubled 408-unit apartment complex from the early 1970s. It's now been rebranded as Highpoint, and renovations are underway. Under prior ownership, local media amply covered the poor living conditions — including black mold — and code violations that led to the city condemning the 24-acre property in December. The vacant property then went into foreclosure, and Columbia Pacific acquired it for an undisclosed price. In a recent press release, Columbia Pacific cited “past mismanagement and sub-par housing conditions.” Its Billy Meyer says, “We knew restoring this complex would be a challenge. However, with support from the Mayor's office, city officials and our business partners, we are delighted to have turned Highpoint Apartments into one of Omaha's most attractive and desirable residential locations.” Local firm the Lund Company is now overseeing the phased renovations and pre-leasing the apartments. Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert said in a statement, “It's always preferable to rehabilitate properties rather than abandon or demolish them. Highpoint is an example of saving a previously unsafe property and providing new housing options for renters.”