Mar 23, 2021

Ascendent Demolition

Ross

Jon Ross was promoted to senior project manager at Ascendent Demolition in Puyallup. Ross has 11 years of industry experience, including nearly six years at Ascendent. He has worked on total building demolition, abatement and select tenant improvement projects. In his new role, Ross is leading all large-scale projects, as well as financial oversight. His goals include expanding client relations, creating a cohesive unit with estimators/project managers, and increasing the company's market share.

Rock Project Management Services

Wilhelm

Renton-based Rock Project Management Services hired Fred Wilhelm as senior director of transportation. Wilhelm was a project director at Vanir Construction Management, and holds a Project Management Professional designation with the Project Management Institute. RPM provides owner's representative services to public and private clients throughout Washington that have K-12, transportation, health care, energy and technology, and tribal projects.

Housing Finance Commission

Espinoza

Gov. Jay Inslee named Pedro Espinoza of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters to the state Housing Finance Commission. Espinoza has been a journeyman carpenter with various locals of the union since 1999. He became a union representative and organizer in 2006. His seat on the commission will represent unions.

ABC of Western Washington

The Associated Builders and Contractors of Western Washington recently picked up three new members: United Rentals, Capital One Financial and Global Plumbing. United Rentals has branches in 49 states and 10 Canadian provinces. Capital One has a 2% cashback credit card for businesses that can be used for most vendor purchases. Kent-based Global Plumbing provides re-piping, water heater installs and other plumbing services.

Amazon Air

Amazon Air began operations at its new air gateway at Fairbanks International Airport. This is Amazon Air's second location in Alaska and its most northern gateway in the world. The location will include an onsite area to sort packages bound for their next destination and will be managed by an Amazon logistics partner, Naniq Global Logistics. The site will create more than 50 new jobs in the area.

Jensen Investment Management

Jensen Investment Management, a 100% employee-owned investment management firm founded in 1988, recently promoted Tyra Pratt and Jorge Rivas as portfolio managers to the Jensen Quality Value Investment Team. With this appointment, Pratt and Rivas will join portfolio managers Adam Calamar, Kurt Havnaer and Eric Schoenstein in overseeing the portfolio's $100+M in assets. Pratt joined Jensen in 2017 and is Jensen's first female portfolio manager. Rivas also joined Jensen in 2017. Jensen is headquartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Seattle Schools

The transition to a new interim superintendent for Seattle Public Schools will occur on May 1, 2021 when Brent Jones replaces Superintendent Denise Juneau. The transition will be made a couple months earlier than expected to help students, teachers, staff

and families as they resume more in-person learning and develop plans for the 2021-2022 school year. The search for a permanent superintendent will continue with extensive community engagement planned for fall 2021. The search is expected to conclude in the spring of 2022 with a final decision by the school board in April/May 2022.

Spaceflight

Seattle-based Spaceflight, a global launch services provider, announced it has been awarded a launch service contract for the integration and launch of NASA's LLITED mission. As a U.S. government direct procurement, Spaceflight is the prime contractor to NASA for the mission and the launch service is led by NASA's Kennedy Space Center Launch Services Program. The LLITED team includes scientists and engineers from The Aerospace Corporation, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and University of New Hampshire. In January, Spaceflight successfully deployed 15 spacecraft from its first next-gen OTV (Sherpa-FX) on the record-breaking SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-1 launch. Spaceflight is preparing several Sherpas for launch with both electric and chemical propulsion for missions later this year along with many traditional rideshare and dedicated missions, for a total of approximately 10 launches in 2021.