Apr 02, 2021

Brightwork Consulting

Rogers

Brightwork Consulting has hired Rob Rogers as vice president, business development. Rogers has more than 20 years of experience in business development, advisory services, and strategy for healthcare information technology clients. Rogers will lead Brightwork's business development and sales efforts. Seattle-based Brightwork Consulting is a healthcare IT consulting firm specializing in business/IT strategy, change management, risk mitigation and project management.

State of Washington

Duffy

Gov. Jay Inslee appointed Megan Duffy as the new director of the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO), the largest state agency grantor of funding for outdoor recreation and habitat conservation efforts in Washington. She replaces Kaleen Cottingham, who is retiring and has served the agency since 2007. Duffy has more than 20 years of experience working in natural resources in Washington. She has served as the department supervisor for the Washington Department of Natural Resources, where she oversaw the daily operations of the agency and its 1,500 employees. Duffy also was the executive coordinator of the Governor's Salmon Recovery Office. She currently is the deputy director of the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board. RCO is a state agency that awards grants to cities, counties, tribes, nonprofits and state and federal agencies to build and improve parks, trails, boating facilities, water access sites and firearm and archery shooting ranges. The agency also awards grants to preserve working farms and forests and to conserve fish and other wildlife habitat.

Clearwater Analytics

Boise-based Clearwater Analytics has named Microsoft veteran Suraj Poozhiyil as senior vice president of product. In this capacity, Poozhiyil will lead the company's end-to-end product development strategy, including the addition of new features and expansion into new markets. Prior to his role at Clearwater, Poozhiyil held a wide variety of product and engineering leadership roles at Microsoft for over 20 years. Most recently, he served as partner director of product management for the Dynamics 365 Connected Store. Poozhiyil is an inventor with over 30 worldwide patents in data analysis, visualizations and data security.

Funko

Funko, a pop culture consumer products company, announced it has acquired a majority ownership stake in TokenWave, the developer of TokenHead, a mobile app and website for showcasing and tracking Non-Fungible Token (“NFT”) holdings. TokenHead is available on iOS and Android. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. The investment accelerates Funko's initial entry into the NFT market and will extend the Company's pop culture platform to include digital assets. Funko expects to launch its initial NFT offerings in June. Headquartered in Everett, Funko designs, sources and distributes licensed pop culture products across multiple categories, including vinyl figures, action toys, plush, apparel, board games and housewares.

Apr 01, 2021

ASH visits town

Design and development firm ASH NYC announced that its ASH Staging division has reached Seattle. Its first local project was a half-dozen units at the new Emerald condominium tower downtown, which is seeking to sell its few remaining units (of 262). Andrew Bowen leads ASH Staging from the firm's New York headquarters. ASH has, with partners, developed a trio of boutique hotels in historic buildings in New Orleans, Detroit and Providence, Rhode Island, along with mixed-use projects on the East Coast. It also designs furniture.

Oakpointe Communities

Nelson

Oakpointe Communities of Bellevue announced that its in-house attorney Megan Nelson was recently elevated to general counsel. Company CEO Brian Ross said in a statement, “Her superb legal expertise and guidance will continue to be a valuable asset as we move forward with several developments throughout King and Snohomish counties.” Among those are Ten Trails, now with about 400 homes developed near Black Diamond, and LakePointe. The latter is now a 214-acre gravel pit near Covington that Oakpointe acquired last year for $28 million. The future plan there is about 1,500 residential units (both apartments and houses), 850,000 square feet of retail, hospitality and office space. Said Nelson, “This step forward in my career and with the company is an exciting one.”

Spectrum Development Solutions

Boyce

Spectrum Development Solutions announced that its Kaitlin Boyce has been promoted to associate principal. She's been with the firm for seven years, working on entitlement, feasibility, financial analysis, design and project management. She's worked on past Spectrum projects including Decibel and Reverb, near Yesler Terrace, and on Canton Lofts — which is under construction in Pioneer Square by new owner Nitze-Stagen.

Local brokers honored

Industry website Connect Media recently named its top national brokers for the past year. The 2021 awards are broken out by region. In ours, the honorees include Thad Mallory of Newmark; Eli Hanacek of CBRE; Derek Heed, Gregg Riva, Bill Condon and Matt McGregor of Colliers; Scott Alan and Patrick Mullin of Cushman & Wakefield; and the Berkadia team of Kenny Dudunakis, David Sorensen and Ben Johnson. Connect said it honored 101 brokers from over 500 nominations.

Weingarten lands new tenant in West Seattle

Weingarten Realty owns the retail portion of The Whittaker, at 4755 Fauntleroy Way S.W., which was completed about four years ago. The company recently announced a new commercial tenant in the two-building, mixed-use complex: YogaSix, which is taking 2,302 square feet. The studio should open in mid-April. Amanda Blackwood of CARR represented the tenant; Weingarten's Andy Armstrong negotiated the lease. Named for famed mountaineer and West Seattle native Jim Whittaker, the complex is also home to a Whole Foods, and has 389 apartments. LMC was the developer, in a venture with Weingarten.

Albertsons

Albertsons and Google have formed a multi-year partnership to make shopping easier and more convenient for millions of customers nationwide. Google and Albertsons have been collaborating behind the scenes for the past year and, as part of the partnership announcement, are debuting several new enhancements to make the shopping experience easier. Albertsons has engaged with numerous teams at Google, covering a wide range of technologies and services aimed at making the customer experience more efficient — for example, integrating with Google Search and Maps to help shoppers more easily find what they need, making it easier to shop with Google Pay, and incorporating Google Cloud AI technologies. Boise-based Albertsons operates stores across 34 states and the District of Columbia.

Ballard Food Bank

The Ballard Food Bank announced that Amazon has donated to its Hope Beyond Hunger capital campaign and formed a strategic partnership to bring food and assistance to people across northwest Seattle. The multifaceted partnership includes $750,000 in total funding for the future of Ballard Food Bank, Amazon employee volunteering support, and an exploration of innovative community programs and markets where families can shop and access healthy food. Amazon has provided grants totaling $500,000 for the Hope Beyond Hunger capital campaign to support Ballard Food Bank's future home — scheduled to open in fall 2021 — plus $250,000 to support programming for families and children in need. Ballard Food Bank's future location at 1400 N.W. Leary Way will serve an expanded area including Licton Springs through Bitter Lake and up to 145th Street. This will be the first building that Ballard Food Bank has owned — an effort that has brought together supporters including The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the city of Seattle, the state of Washington, and many individual donors.

Liberty Northwest Bancorp

Liberty Northwest Bancorp, the holding company for Liberty Bank, has completed a private placement of $5 million in aggregate principal amount of fixed-to-floating rate subordinated notes to certain qualified institutional accredited investors. The company will use the proceeds for general banking purposes with an emphasis on supporting the growth of the holding company and the bank. Liberty Northwest Bancorp was established in 2020 as a single bank holding company for its Washington state-chartered bank subsidiary Liberty Bank. Liberty Bank, headquartered in Poulsbo, serves clients throughout the West Sound and Puget Sound regions. Keller Rohrback served as counsel to Liberty Northwest Bancorp and Los Angeles-based MJC Partners served as the sole placement agent for the offering.

BitTitan

BitTitan, the developer of MigrationWiz and a provider of managed services automation, hired Khan Klatt as its director of engineering. Bringing more than 25 years of diverse technology experience, Klatt will lead development operations and release management for BitTitan. He will be based in the company's Bellevue office. For the past two years, Klatt served as the vice president of technology for the Committee for Children, a global nonprofit that promotes the safety, well-being and success of children. Before that, Klatt spent four years as the senior director of web application engineering for McGraw-Hill Education. BitTitan has offices in the Seattle area and Singapore.