Nov 16, 2007

Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt

The Seattle office of law firm Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt hired Jamila Johnson, Virginia Nicholson and Benjamin Nivison as associates. All three worked at the firm as summer associates. Johnson will work in product liability. Nicholson will work in commercial litigation and land use. Nivison will work in commercial litigation and maritime law.

Seattle Public Schools

Seattle Public Schools hired Don Kennedy as the district's new chief financial and operations officer. In the new position, Kennedy assumes the responsibilities of former Chief Operations Officer Mark Green and former Chief Financial Officer Art Jarvis. Kennedy worked for the Charleston County School District in South Carolina.

Nov 15, 2007

Pacific Crest Savings Bank

Lynnwood-based Pacific Crest Savings Bank promoted Sheryl Nilson from president to chief executive officer. Nilson replaces long-time CEO John Fairchild who will continue as chairman of the board. Nilson and Fairchild co-founded the company as Phoenix Mortgage in 1984.

Dry Soda

Seattle-based Dry Soda Co. hired Darin White as chief financial officer. White has 15 years of entrepreneurial financial experience and worked as vice president of finance and corporate secretary for Celebrate Express.

Venture Bank

Venture Bank hired Linda McCrystal and Nancy Robertson as customer service representatives at the bank's Redmond Downtown Financial Center. McCrystal has 10 years of banking experience. Venture Bank has 18 offices in four Western Washington counties.

Noble House Hotels & Resorts

Seattle-based Noble House Hotels & Resorts, a privately held real estate development company that owns and manages 13 U.S. resorts, has added the AAA Four Diamond WaterColor Inn and Resort in Florida to its portfolio. Noble House signed an agreement with The St. Joe Co. to manage the 60-room inn and vacation rentals on the northwest Gulf Coast.

NAIOP looks at capital markets

The topic of the Nov. 28 meeting of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties is “Capital markets: Back to Earth.” It will be at the Sheraton Hotel, Seattle, starting at 7 a.m. with registration and networking. The moderator is Dan Ivanoff, managing investment partner at Schnitzer West. Bill Pollard, principal and co-founder of Pacific Real Estate Partners, will talk about institutional property sales and the direction of cap rates. Mike Makar, senior managing director of CBRE Melody, will shed light on the turmoil in capital markets lending and where he sees the markets moving in 2008. Jim Neal, CEO and president of Metzler North America, will discuss the institutional investor's perspective. For information and to register see http://www.naiopwa.org.

Nov 14, 2007

Mountain Construction

Tacoma's Mountain Construction hired Allison Worrell as a project engineer. Worrell has three years of industry experience, and is a cum laude construction management graduate of Central Washington University.

Holaday-Parks

Seattle's Holaday-Parks won a top award at the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors National Association's 2007 Safety Excellence Award Program. Of the 245 firms participating, Holaday-Parks held the best safety and health record within the 400,001-500,000 worker-hours category. The firm's safety program is led by June Nailon.

PSF Mechanical

Albert Abbott joined PSF Mechanical as a service apprentice. PSF is a national design-build mechanical contractor.

Veca Communications

Bill Arend joined Veca Communications as a project manager. Arend has 24 years of experience working in the telecommunications industry, specializing in the construction of copper and fiber-optic cabling to support computers, telephones and wireless.

HCI Steel Building Systems

Butler Manufacturing Co., a subsidiary of BlueScope Steel, recently bought privately held HCI Steel Building Systems. HCI was founded in Alaska in 1974 and opened a manufacturing plant in Arlington in 1996. The company designs and makes steel buildings for the heavy industrial, commercial and community end-use segments in the northwestern U.S. and western Canada regions. It had nearly $40 million in sales for the year ended June 2007.

Insulfoam

Insulfoam received a Voluntary Protection Programs Star from the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act VPP for its Kent insulation manufacturing facility. The plant is the 28th business out of 220,000 in the state to receive Star status. Rick Canaday is the general manager of the Kent plant. Insulfoam is a division of Carlisle Construction Materials.

Bassetti Architects

Bassetti Architects hired 11 people. The firm hired architects Lindsay Crawford, Hannah Brown Marzynski and Ted Cameron. Crawford is designing the entry sequence for worshippers at the new Seattle First United Methodist Church, Brown Marzynski just completed a Historic Structures Report for the seminary building at St. Edwards State Park, and Cameron, who is focused on educational environments, returned to Bassetti after sailing from Alaska to Mexico. The firm also hired Marketing Director Courtney Rosenstein, Project Administrative Assistant Carolyn Peterman, IT Manager Michael Sherwood and interior designers Dante Wilkins and Jeanette Chen. Rosenstein is planning the firm's 2007-2017 marketing strategy, Peterman is organizing and tracking documentation for multiple projects and Sherwood is managing the office's in-house and on-site information systems. Wilkins is developing a color palette for Fire Station No. 17 that ties the historical structure to the new addition and Chen is coordinating furniture, finishes and materials for the new Lynnwood High School. The firm also hired intern architects Freddie Dickinson, James Howeth and Rose Se-Gahon. Dickinson is creating presentation materials for owner and community meetings for the Denny Middle School/Chief Sealth High School project, Howeth is working on programming and environmental analysis for Skyline High School and Se-Gahon is documenting conceptual design and existing conditions for the Denny/Sealth project.

NAC|Architecture

NAC|Architecture hired Darrell W. Turner as an associate in its health care studio. Turner, a LEED-accredited professional, has 25 years of medical experience. He has worked on hospitals, medical clinics, and medical office buildings, including extensive work for Franciscan Health System in Tacoma and Evergreen Hospital Medical Center in Kirkland. Turner worked on the University of Washington Pharmaceutical Care Learning Center, McClellan Light Rail Station for Sound Transit, and the Seattle Combined Training Facility.

INCA Engineers

INCA Engineers hired Andre Studenny, former president of Hamilton Engineering, as senior mechanical engineer in INCA's mechanical group as part of its acquisition of Hamilton Engineering. Studenny has more than 30 years of design and project management experience. He has designed machinery and related structures for movable bridges, ferry ramps and other movable systems, projects involving mechanical and control system interaction. INCA said the acquisition of Hamilton lets them venture into the movable bridge business. INCA will now complete a Hamilton project with a moveable platform system for a casino in Singapore and the China Basin Channel Pedestrian Bridge Project in San Francisco.

Flack + Kurtz

The Seattle office of Flack + Kurtz hired Edwin Bactad, Jr. and Tom Kraft. Bactad, a registered communications distribution designer, joined Flack + Kurtz as the head of the telecom/low voltage department and brings more than 10 years of experience in electrical and telecommunications engineering. He worked on the Wing Luke Asian Arts Museum and Seattle City Hall. Kraft is an associate in the firm's code department. Kraft has more than 25 years of experience, from fire protection and safety to manufacturing. He has developed industrial safety and fire protection programs.

Garvey Schubert Barer

The Seattle office of law firm Garvey Schubert Barer hired Brian DeSoto and Jamal N. Whitehead as associates in the litigation group. DeSoto has done pro bono work for the King County Bar Association's neighborhood law clinics. Whitehead is a board member of the Northwest Defender Association.

Providence Marianwood

Providence Marianwood, a nonprofit nursing and rehabilitation center in Issaquah, hired Catherine Endicott as director of the Marianwood Foundation. Endicott was development director for FaithTrust Institute.