Aug 13, 2020

SterlingRisk Aviation

Marshall

Destin, Florida-based SterlingRisk Aviation hired Travis J. Marshall as vice president and senior account executive. Marshall is working from Sammamish. He previously was a commercial account manager at HUB International Northwest in Bothell. Prior to that, he was an underwriter at London Aviation Underwriters in Seattle, and a sales executive and account manager at NationAir Aviation Insurance in Florida.

Shujinko

Seattle-based startup Shujinko hired Jason Kelleghan as vice president of sales, Rick Harwood as vice president of engineering and Brett Goodwin as vice president of marketing. Kelleghan comes from audit and tracking software company Reciprocity, where he was director of sales. Harwood led software engineering teams at Starbucks as director of engineering for digital platforms. Goodwin has 25 years of experience building enterprise software companies, including MessageYes, Qumulo, Isilon and RealNetworks. Shujinko has a software-as-a-service platform that reduces the cost and time of building and maintaining IT audit compliance. It was incubated and spun off from Pioneer Square Labs.

Symend

Canadian tech company Symend added former Microsoft senior executive John Connors to its board. Connors is a managing partner at Bellevue-based Ignition Partners, an early stage, business software venture capital firm. He has over 30 years of experience as a builder, leader and advisor of high-growth companies. Calgary-based Symend has a debt collection system for service providers and financial institutions that uses behavioral science, advanced AI and machine learning to treat financially at-risk customers with empathy and dignity.

Omeros

Seattle-based biopharmaceutical company Omeros priced an offering of 6.9 million shares of common stock at $14.50 per share and a separate offering of $210 million in 5.25% convertible senior notes due in 2026. The offerings are expected to close on Friday and include options to purchase up to 1.04 million additional shares and $31.5 million in notes. Omeros will use $297.4 million in net proceeds for general corporate purposes and to repurchase about $115 million of existing 6.25% convertible senior notes due in 2023.

Aug 12, 2020

Blueline

McWain

Blueline hired Alan McWain as director of landscape architecture. McWain has 20 years of experience assembling multi-discipline teams and working with public and private clients. Most recently, he was the director of landscape architecture at Katerra, and was with Hewitt prior to that. He will lead the landscape architecture studio at Blueline. The firm provides civil engineering, land use planning and landscape architecture services.

Cary Kopczynski & Co.

Hakim

Vincent

Featherstone

Penzin

Policarpio

Structural engineering firm Cary Kopczynski & Co. hired Joel Policarpio, Dmitriy Penzin and Amanda Featherstone as design engineers, and promoted Stephanie Vincent to level 3 design engineer and Allina Hakim to senior marketing coordinator in the Bellevue headquarters and Chicago office. Policarpio has nine years of experience in structural analysis and design of urban buildings including commercial and mixed-use developments. His current projects include BB6, a mixed-use development comprised of two 480-foot towers atop a seven-level podium, and 9th & Howell, a 30-story hotel over a six-story podium adjacent to the new Hyatt Regency, both in Seattle. Penzin has 15 years of experience in structural design of residential projects in the U.S. and internationally. He will assist project managers and principals with coordination and design. Among his current projects are Calle De Luna which includes three 12-story residential towers atop a shared podium in Santa Clara, California. Featherstone has 13 years of experience in gravity and lateral design of structures for educational, office, residential and mixed-use buildings. She will assist project managers and principals with coordination and design of building elements and is working on Harbor Point Block P6, a 15-story residential tower in Stamford, Connecticut. Vincent has five years at CKC. She engineers complex building systems while handling design coordination and calculations. Her current projects include Belltown 36, a 29-story mixed-use tower in Seattle; and 325 7th Street, a twin tower development comprised of 27 and 13 stories in downtown Oakland. Hakim will continue to lead in preparing responses to complex, multi-million-dollar pursuits while managing the company's business relations and mainstream marketing initiatives.

Art Anderson

Jamison

Art Anderson, a Bremerton-based multidisciplinary engineering services firm, hired Matthew Jamison as a CAD designer. Jamison will work in the marine division, and do detailed design and drafting of ship systems. His experience as a shipfitter, which allowed for hands-on problem solving, will be an asset.

Seattle Art Museum

Frank

Seattle Art Museum appointed Priya Frank as director of equity, diversity and inclusion, a new position on the museum's executive team. Frank has been at SAM since 2016 as associate director of community programs in the Education department, and is the founding chair of the staff-led equity team. In her new role, she is helping shape SAM's priorities, partnerships, communications strategies and audience-engagement efforts to build an equitable, diverse and inclusive museum.

Avalara

Seattle-based business tax software developer Avalara hired tax technology and consulting veteran Jayme Fishman as executive vice president of corporate development. Fishman was president of the software division at global tax services firm Ryan. Prior to that, he was senior vice president of sales, marketing and professional services at Taxware. At Avalara, he is overseeing the company's mergers and acquisitions strategy, and managing the acquisitions process from due diligence through integration.

Marchex

Seattle-based mobile advertising analytics company Marchex said it plans to buy up to 10 million shares of its Class B common stock in a joint tender offer with Edenbrook Capital. The first 6 million shares would be bought for $1.80 each, while the remaining 4 million shares would be bought for $1.96 each. The offer is expected to expire in early October, unless extended. If it is fully subscribed, Marchex and Edenbrook will have purchased about 25% of the outstanding Class B stock.

Vesta

Singapore-based EDBI invested in Lake Oswego, Oregon-based fintech company Vesta. This investment, along with a strategic alignment with EDBI, will accelerate Vesta's expansion of its fraud detection and e-commerce payment platform across Asia Pacific. As part of the deal, Vesta will open a regional headquarters in Singapore. Financial details were not disclosed.

Saykara

Health care news publisher FierceHealthcare named Seattle-based startup Saykara as a finalist for the Fierce Innovation Award: Healthcare Edition 2020. Saykara was nominated in the Digital/Mobile Health Solutions category for its artificial intelligence-powered assistant for physicians called Kara. The voice-enabled mobile app “listens” as doctors converse with their patients and then transfers the salient content into patients' electronic health records.