Nov 26, 2019

Suji's Korean Cuisine

Suji Park earlier this year moved the headquarters of Suji's Korean Cuisine from Nebraska to Seattle, hired chef Anjana Shanker as director of culinary innovation and opened a test kitchen. Shanker comes from Modernist Cuisine. Park founded her first New York-style brunch restaurant nearly 15 years ago in Seoul. She now operates multiple restaurants, delis and cafeterias in Seoul and Tokyo. Suji's Korean Cuisine sells frozen Korean entrees primarily in Safeway and Albertsons grocery stores in parts of Oregon and Washington.

City of Tacoma

The city of Tacoma hired Laurie Hardie as safety director. Hardie has 16 years of safety experience, with stints as division safety manager at WestRock in Atlanta, operations supervisor for industrial and commercial operations at Republic Services in Bellevue, and senior safety specialist for FedEx in Pittsburgh. She begins next week at the city.

Boeing

Anne Toulouse, senior vice president of communications at Boeing, will retire at year end after 30 years with the company. Toulouse started as a media relations manager at McDonnell Douglas, which Boeing later bought, and advanced to lead Boeing's global brand-building programs. Boeing will name a successor in the near future.

City of Kenmore

The city of Kenmore is seeking volunteers to serve on a financial sustainability plan task force from January to May of 2020. The city said its revenues are not keeping pace with the cost of doing business and it faces an upcoming structural deficit in its operating budget. The new task force will make recommendations to the city manager on how to resolve the deficit. Task force members can be residents, business owners or employees of businesses in the city. The deadline to submit a letter of interest is Dec. 2. More information is at https://tinyurl.com/Kenmore-taskforce.

Amazon

Seattle-based Amazon said it will open a 1 million-square-foot fulfillment center in Auburndale, Florida. The center will employ 500 full-time workers earning at least $15 an hour. Workers will pick, pack and ship large customer items, such as patio furniture, kayaks and bicycles. Prologis is the project's developer.

Nike

Beaverton, Oregon-based Nike struck an intellectual property licensing deal with Handsfree Labs, a Utah developer of a shoe component that allows wearers to put on and remove shoes without using their hands. Nike also made a strategic investment of an undisclosed amount in Handsfree.

Nov 22, 2019

WSU

Chastagner

The National Christmas Tree Association gave Gary Chastagner — known as “Dr. Christmas Tree” at Washington State University — its Lifetime Achievement Award. Chastagner is a WSU Extension plant pathologist and internationally recognized Christmas tree expert. Since 1979, his research with holiday fir trees has encompassed genetics, post-harvest preservation, insects, root rot, interstate shipping and needle problems. He has helped develop healthier, longer-lasting Christmas trees.

Dream Challenges

Dr. Justin Guinney is the new chair of Dream Challenges, a Seattle-based volunteer organization of collaborators benchmarking algorithms in biomedicine. Guinney is vice president of computational oncology at Sage Bionetworks in Seattle and has served on Dream's board since 2013. Other board members are Dream founder Dr. Gustavo Stolovitzky, Dr. Laura Heiser of Oregon Health Sciences University, Dr. Paul Boutros of UCLA, Dr. James Costello of the University of Colorado, Dr. Pablo Meyer of IBM and Dr. Julio Saez-Rodriguez of Heidelberg University.

Xiologix

Brian Page is the new chief technology officer at Xiologix, a Portland-based IT company. Page has over 20 years of IT experience and most recently was senior cloud security architect for cybersecurity company Fortinet. He is expanding security, cloud and managed service offerings at Xiologix.

City of Tacoma

The city of Tacoma extended the deadline for students to apply for Student Government Day to Dec. 3. Students in grades 9-12 who live in the city or attend Tacoma Public Schools can apply for the Dec. 10 event. They will meet with the mayor, council members, executives and staff to gain firsthand knowledge of how the city works. More information is at cityoftacoma.org/studentgovernmentday; or contact Latasha Ware at lware@cityoftacoma.org or (253) 591-5274.

Shared Technologies

Seattle-based Shared Technologies plans to expand its fleet of Zoomer electric vehicles to 10 U.S. cities by the end of 2020. In July, the company launched its moped-like scooters with fat tires in Portland. It says riders in Portland log about twice the mileage per trip as those riding standard electric scooters. It didn't disclose which cities it plans to expand into. Shared Technologies was funded by Seattle venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group and a number of Seattle angel investors.

Laplink Software

Bellevue-based Laplink Software developed a free version of its PCmover program to help users of Windows 7 systems transfer their settings and data to Intel-based Windows 10 computers. Microsoft is ending support for Windows 7 at the end of the year. Laplink says about 30% of Windows PCs are still running on Windows 7. The free program is for non-commercial users.