May 17, 2024

Pacific Earth Works

Brandvold

Mike Brandvold, senior estimator and project manager at Pacific Earth Works WBE, is celebrating his 30th anniversary with the company. Brandvold first day on the job was May 16th 1994. He initially worked in a mix of maintenance and new construction installation, then transitioned to truck driving and eventually became a full-time estimator and project manager. He has seen the industry evolve significantly, becoming more technical. According to Brandvold, “my proudest moments are seeing each project through to completion, overcoming challenges, and maintaining great relationships with clients. Accomplishing projects on time and budget while exceeding expectations is incredibly rewarding.” He lists his favorite projects as the 5th Avenue Garage green roof and the Amazon Spheres. Pacific Earth Works WBE is a second generation,100% woman-owned certified DBE/WBE landscape construction firm serving the Puget Sound since 1979. The company is based in Monroe.

Know Labs

Know Labs, a Seattle-based company providing non-invasive medical diagnostic technology, appointed Chris Somogyi as president, international. With over 40 years of experience in commercializing innovation across related industries, Somogyi brings a wealth of expertise to lead the company's global patent licensing efforts. In his role, Somogyi will focus on identifying new applications of Know Labs' intellectual property portfolio consisting of over 300 patents issued, pending and in-process and covering more than 100 medical and non-medical applications. Somogyi has an extensive background in biomedical engineering and product innovation, with over 20 issued patents to his name. His experience includes managing intellectual property at Stanford University, leading innovation grant funds for the New Zealand government and holding product development and incubation roles at organizations such as SRI International and Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). He has B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue, an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane and an MBA from the University of Washington. Somogyi's appointment allows the company to maintain its core focus on bringing the first non-invasive continuous glucose monitor to the marketplace.

Agility Robotics

Agility Robotics announced that it has bolstered its leadership team with the appointment of Daniel Diez as chief strategy officer. Additionally, Melonee Wise was named chief product officer and Pras Velagapudi was named chief technology officer. Diez will be responsible for setting Agility's overall business and go-to-market strategy, working closely with CEO Peggy Johnson. Diez most recently served as chief commercial officer at Magic Leap, where he led the company's public transformation from a consumer technology startup to an enterprise technology company and was responsible for the commercial launch of Magic Leap 2. Wise joined Agility as CTO in May 2023. In the expanded role of CPO, Wise will continue to lead Agility's engineering team in addition to the newly-formed product organization. Prior to joining Agility, Wise was the vice president of robotics automation at Zebra Technologies. In the year since he joined Agility as VP of innovation and chief architect, Velagapudi has galvanized the company's AI strategy. Agility is headquartered in Corvallis, Oregon. The company's bipedal Mobile Manipulation Robot Digit is a multi-purpose, human-centric robot that built to augment the human work force.

May 16, 2024

Digimarc

Quinn

Digimarc Corp. named human capital strategist Carle Quinn as the company's chief people officer. Quinn brings expertise in attracting, developing, engaging, and retaining leading talent to drive organizational and business growth. Quinn's background includes human resource management, global strategy, customer advisory, and go-to-market leadership roles at SAP, Citrix, IBM, GE, and QVC. Quinn served as first CPO at Workato and was instrumental in scaling the company for growth. As Digimarc CPO, Quinn will spearhead the company's global human resource function, driving initiatives that foster organizational resilience and optimize performance globally. Digimarc provides digital watermarking technologies, and is based in Beaverton, Oregon.

SSA Marine

Seattle-based SSA Marine announced the launch of a new, dedicated cruise division, as well as the appointment of cruise industry veteran Stefano Borzone as president. The new business unit builds on SSA Marine's service and partnership capabilities and provides a platform for future growth opportunities to meet the growing needs of cruise lines and their customers. A veteran port operations and development executive, Borzone spent several years in senior vice president roles with Carnival Corp., as well as 13 years with Metro Cruise Services, where he served as president. In his new role, Borzone will oversee all SSA Marine cruise operations, while collaborating closely with all joint venture partners, customers, and port authorities. The new division will focus on expanding the company's long-term partnerships with major cruise lines, as well as developing value generating solutions for its cruise, port, and destination partners. Safety, labor relations, and sustainability initiatives will remain as key priorities for the division. SSA Marine is an independent, privately held marine terminal operator, with activities at more than 250 terminal facilities and rail yards in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, and Asia.

Frazier Healthcare Partners

Frazier Healthcare Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm focused exclusively on the healthcare industry, named Maria Molland to the firm's Growth Buyout team as an executive in residence. Molland will work alongside the firm to develop and execute investment strategies focused on women's health and wellness, with a particular emphasis on tech-enabled products and services supporting women through their reproductive and post-partum journeys. In this role, Molland will focus on the sourcing, diligence, and leadership of a new platform investment for Frazier.

Molland has over 25 years of experience leading businesses in women's health, health and wellness, digital media, e-commerce, marketplaces, and sustainability. She most recently served as the CEO and board member at Thinx, and ultimately, she led its sale to Kimberly Clark in early 2022. Molland was a full-time advisor to eBay's CEO, and was the chief European officer at Fab.com. Molland held global executive roles at corporations including Thomson Reuters, Dow Jones, Yahoo, and Disney. Founded in 1991, Frazier Healthcare Partners is headquartered in Seattle, and invests broadly across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

May 15, 2024

CalmWave

CalmWave has won the “Health Innovation of the Year” at the 2024 GeekWire Awards. The award showcases health, life science, biotechnology, or medical breakthroughs that illustrate how technology is transforming healthcare and that hold promise for bettering lives or improving healthcare. This is CalmWave's second consecutive GeekWire Award, following last year's award for UX Design of the Year. CalmWave uses a Transparent AI platform to analyze hospital data and minimize alarms in the ICU. The platform ingests the hospital's high-frequency data from diverse sources, including electronic medical record systems, on-network medical devices, and patient vital signs, and distills that data into actionable information. CalmWave went from inception to funding at the AI2 Incubator, a startup incubator at the Allen Institute for AI. Headquartered in Seattle, CalmWave has raised a pre-seed round led by Bonfire Ventures with participation from Tau Ventures, AI2 Incubator, SeaChange Ventures, Hike Ventures, and the co-founders of PagerDuty. Ophir Ronen is the founder and CEO of CalmWave.

Lattice Semiconductor

Lattice Semiconductor's Lattice Avant FPGA platform was selected as a 2024 SEAL Award winner. Lattice Avant was recognized in the Sustainable Product category for its leadership power efficiency, performance, and small form factor.“Sustainability is a key focus area for Lattice and we are honored to receive this recognition for our Lattice Avant FPGA platform, which continues to extend our low power FPGA leadership across diverse markets like Communications, Computing, Industrial, and Automotive,” said Esam Elashmawi, chief strategy and marketing officer. Lattice Semiconductor is based in Hillsboro, Oregon.