Jul 27, 2022

Cuningham

Anderson

Cuningham announced the hiring of Charles Anderson as principal and director of urban design and landscape architecture. In this role, Anderson will guide Cuningham's Urban Design and Landscape Architecture team and will act as a leader for the firm as a whole. Anderson brings more than 35 years of design experience to Cuningham — including teaching appointments at several universities, such as the University of Southern California, Arizona State University and North Dakota State University. He was inducted to the ASLA Council of Fellows in 2007, and his work has received over 100 awards for design, including five ASLA national and 20 state chapter awards.

Swenson Say Fagét

Galeotti

Huffert

Witthuhn

Bovee

Kuzubov

Hollinger

Nguyen

Borseth

Skelton

Swenson Say Fagét structural engineers announced nine new hires in three offices. Dennis Kuzubov and Karina Bovee both joined the Tacoma office as staff engineers. Kuzubov received his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Washington in 2021. Bovee received a bachelor of science in engineering with a concentration in civil engineering from Walla Walla University.

In February, Tyler Witthuhn, PE, joined the Ellensburg office as a project engineer. With a bachelor's degree from Washington State University and a master's degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Witthuhn's career began in Herndon, Virginia, then moved to Atlanta. He eventually landed back in his home state, where he worked most recently for the city of Yakima.

Nicole Huffert, PE, Francesca Galeotti, and Garrett Skelton, PE, joined the Seattle office as project engineers. With a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Maryland, Huffert worked for six years in Maryland and Seattle, and joined SSF in January. Galeotti received her bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering from the University of Washington. After working for three years at another engineering firm in Seattle, she joined SSF in January. A graduate of Seattle University, Skelton joined SSF in February after six years with an engineering firm in Woodinville.

Recent graduates Mitchell Borseth and Lan Nguyen joined the Seattle office as staff engineers. Borseth completed his bachelor's degree in civil engineering at Gonzaga University and started in November 2021. Nguyen graduated from Seattle University this spring with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and started in April.

Aiko Hollinger joined the Seattle office as a marketing specialist. A graduate of Gonzaga University with a bachelor's degree in public relations, Hollinger previously worked with two structural engineering firms. Her primary responsibilities are increasing SSF's social media presence and providing website and other marketing support.

Natural Systems Design

Vito

Doran

elkie

Mary Pelkie joined the firm as a staff engineer. Pelkie is an Engineer in Training with a background in marine construction. She graduated from Montana State University with dual degrees in civil engineering and English.

Grace Doran joined as a project engineer. She has experience providing design for fish passage and stream relocation projects, as well as extensive experience with hydrologic analyses and one- and two-dimensional hydraulic modeling, as well as Civil3D design, ArcGIS mapping, and scour analyses. Doran graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Missouri — Columbia.

Natural Systems Design is also celebrating Olivia Vito's one year anniversary at the firm. Vito has seven years of experience in conservation and restoration, specializing in river and floodplain assessment, emphasizing geospatial analysis and both biological and morphological assessment at reach and watershed scales. She has managed numerous construction and design-phase restoration and riparian revegetation projects. Vito holds a bachelor's degree in biology with a concentration in forest ecology, and completed her master's in natural resources with a concentration in geographic information science from Oregon State University.

Funko

Funko, an Everett-based pop culture and lifestyle brand, plans to enter the video game market through a collaboration with developer 10:10 Games. The companies' first co-production will be an “AAA action platformer” video game in 2023. This first game will have major third-party studio integration and is expected to be rated for teens. Funko and 10:10 Games will focus on developing content for current and next gen consoles and PCs with the still untitled release. 10:10 Games was founded last summer by industry veterans, and is led by video game developer Jon Burton.

Boise Cascade

Boise Cascade completed the previously announced acquisition of Coastal Plywood and its manufacturing operations in Havana, Florida, and Chapman, Alabama. Boise Cascade is one of the largest producers of engineered wood products and plywood in North America, and is a leading U.S. wholesale distributor of building products.

Moda Assist Program

Moda Health, the Portland Trail Blazers and Astoria Parks & Recreation opened an improved, all-abilities playground at 45th and Cedar streets in Astoria, Oregon. The city of Astoria was selected by the Moda Assist Program to receive funding to purchase new equipment, receiving $20 for every assist the Portland Trail Blazers made during the 2020-21 regular season for a total of $37,000. The Blazers and Moda each contributed $10 per assist. The park includes a we-saw (a wheelchair-accessible see-saw), an ADA-accessible merry-go-round, and a pyramidal climber installed on poured-in-place surfacing designed to increase access and reduce the frequent maintenance associated with bark chips. Funding assistance was also secured through grants from the Pacific Power Foundation for $4,500 and from the Ford Family Foundation for $5,000. Parks Maintenance Supervisor Matt Moritz and his team led the design of the park and selected the equipment after conducting a community survey. The Moda Assist Program has provided funding since 2013 for all-abilities playgrounds in eight other cities across Oregon.

SeekOut

Seattle-based SeekOut, an enterprise talent optimization platform, announced the launch of its Inbound Talent solution, transforming workflows for inbound application review and reducing hours of manual review and process. Inbound Talent works in tandem with the platform's other search capabilities to match candidates with job requirements. In 2022, SeekOut was named on the Forbes annual list of America's Best Startup Employers and CEO Anoop Gupta was crowned GeekWire's CEO of the Year. Founded in 2017, SeekOut has raised $189 million in funding, is backed by Tiger Global Management, Madrona Venture Group, Mayfield, and Founders Circle Capital. It is valued at $1.2 billion.

Jul 26, 2022

The Standard

Burlie

The Standard named Jason Burlie vice president and head of sales for retirement plans. Burlie will have direct responsibility for The Standard's retirement plans distribution and market development strategies. He will also be responsible for designing and delivering customer-driven solutions that accelerate growth. Prior to joining The Standard, Burlie served in various sales leadership roles at Prudential Financial and most recently was head of retirement plans sales and strategic relationships. The Standard, based in Portland, is the marketing name for StanCorp Financial Group, and its subsidiaries.

Mason

Richarson

Moon

Seattle-based Mason, creator of a fully managed infrastructure for developing and delivering dedicated smart devices, announced the appointment of Phil Moon as CFO and Bernard Richardson as VP of Operations. Moon has previous experience at both top financial services firms and startups including Morgan Stanley, Texas Pacific Group, Square and Grove Collaborative. He recently helped lead Grove's public listing and previously raised more than $450 million in the private equity markets. As CFO, Moon will implement enterprise-class processes across the organization to enable Mason to deploy capital to expand its platform while ensuring there are adequate resources required to reach their operational objectives. Richardson brings relevant experience to Mason having launched products for major electronics and mobile players including Apple, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft throughout his career. He has over 30 years of leadership experience across various industries and functions. At Mason, Richardson will have a hand in further expanding the team and overall operations as well as making new investments.

City of Tacoma

The city of Tacoma is looking for applicants with a background working in human resources management to fill a position on the Citizen Commission on Elected Salaries. This position is appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council. The Citizen Commission on Elected Salaries determines the compensation of the mayor and council members. The commission meets quarterly in one or more regular or special meetings to carry out its duties. The commission is comprised of seven members. The applicant must be a resident of the city of Tacoma. Applications are due by end of day August 16, 2022. For questions about the application process contact Monica Rutledge at (253) 591-5469 or mrutledge@cityoftacoma.org.

McKinstry

National construction and energy services firm McKinstry is enhancing its services to include solar photovoltaics, distributed generation, battery storage systems, geothermal energy, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and community solar. In the past three years, the company has grown its renewable energy team from two to 20 professionals. Its local projects include Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena, which is targeted to be the first International Living Future Institute-certified zero-carbon arena in the world; and Spokane's Catalyst Building, which uses technologies and solutions such as cross-laminated timber, daylighting and air sealing to hit zero-energy and zero-carbon targets. McKinstry was one of the first groups to sign The Climate Pledge, co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism. The company's goal is to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2025 and achieve net-zero carbon by 2030.

Port of Seattle

The Port of Seattle this fall is holding its second annual PortGen Accelerator, an 11-week training and mentorship program for women- and minority-owned business enterprises, as well as small businesses. The program builds relationships with industry and agency representatives, while preparing disadvantaged businesses for contracting opportunities. It runs Sept. 7-Nov. 16, and the application deadline is Aug. 8. More information is at https://nwmmsdc.org/portgen-accelerator.

APA — The Engineered Wood Association

In Tacoma, APA — The Engineered Wood Association announced the winners of its 2021 Safety and Health Awards. The program encourages and recognizes operational excellence with the goal of reducing injury and illness rates. For 2021, 69 APA-member structural wood panel and engineered wood product facilities in the U.S., Canada and abroad participated in the program. Local winners included Boise Cascade Co. of White City, Oregon, for the Division III Three-Year Safety Award; and Boise Cascade Co. of Homedale, Idaho, for the Division III Safety Improvement Award.