May 24, 2019

Skagit County

The Skagit County Board of Commissioners appointed Trisha Logue as interim county administrator. On June 1, Logue will take on this role in addition to her job as budget and finance director. She has worked for the county since 1994. Current county administrator Tim Holloran is retiring next week after 10 years in that role and 39 years at the county.

City of Tacoma

The Tacoma City Council wants to fill two positions (districts 2 and 5) on the City Events and Recognitions Committee. CERC is responsible for planning, reviewing and evaluating events, as well as helping with community fundraising and soliciting sponsorships for those events. Applications can be submitted until June 3 to http://www.cityoftacoma.org/cbcapplication.

U.S. Department of Education

The U.S. Department of Education honored one school and three school districts in the state: The Northwest School in Seattle was named a Green Ribbon School, and District Sustainability awards went to Lake Washington School District in Redmond, Lopez Island School District in Lopez Island and Oak Harbor Public Schools in Oak Harbor. Northwest School and the three districts were cited for reducing environmental impact and utility costs, improving health and wellness, and ensuring effective sustainability education.

May 23, 2019

Kymeta

In Redmond, mobile communications network company Kymeta hired Walter Z. Berger as president, CFO and COO; and appointed S. Douglas Hutcheson as executive chair of its board. Berger was COO and CFO of Nuvectra, a neuromodulation medical device company. Prior to that, he held senior executive positions at AppDynamics, which was acquired by Cisco. Hutcheson is senior advisor of technology, media and telecom for Searchlight Capital, and was CEO of Leap Wireless for a nearly a decade.

Zones

Auburn-based IT solutions provider Zones appointed Jai Venkat as senior vice president and chief services officer. Venkat has over 30 years of experience in sales, operations, delivery, business consulting and program management. He held senior leadership roles at DXC Technology, HP Enterprise, Cognizant, Capgemini and Infosys.

Mod Pizza

Seattle-based Mod Pizza received $160 million in equity financing from private investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice of New York City. Fidelity Management & Research Co. also participated. CD&R partners Ken Giuriceo and Paul Pressler will join Mod's board. Mod will use the capital to help it grow from 433 stores to 1,000 over the next five years.

May 22, 2019

Seattle Genetics

Taylor

Bothell-based Seattle Genetics hired Dr. Robin Taylor as chief commercial officer, a newly created position. Taylor has 18 years of experience launching and marketing oncology drugs. He was vice president and immuno-oncology franchise head at AstraZeneca. Prior to that, he was vice president and cancer immunotherapy franchise head at Genentech.

Pixvana

In Seattle, Pixvana named Nicole Bunselmeyer as vice president of sales. Bunselmeyer was senior account executive at Seattle-based Intrepid by VitalSource, a software as a service corporate learning provider. She also was an instructor of e-learning environment design at the University of Washington. Pixvana uses virtual reality for corporate training.

Cray

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is buying Seattle-based supercomputer company Cray for about $1.3 billion in cash. The companies expect the combination to drive revenue growth and reduce costs. Hewlett Packard is based in San Jose, California.