Sep 15, 2021

Edifecs

Edifecs, a health information technology solutions company, announced that it has acquired Talix, an information technology company that provides risk and quality solutions to healthcare payers and providers. Talix provides health plans with a natural language processing-enabled risk adjustment coding, retrieval, and analytics platform to improve coding accuracy, efficiency, and overall revenue integrity of their programs. Talix also helps providers identify, document, and code risk-adjusted conditions accurately at the Point-of-Care. By integrating Talix's technology with Edifecs' signature Encounter Management solution, Edifecs will provide the opportunity for customers to operate risk adjustment processes more efficiently for Medicare Advantage, Managed Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act products. Edifecs is headquartered in Bellevue, with additional offices in Atlanta, Georgia, and Mohali, India, an engineering center in Moldova, and has more than 750 employees globally.

CU Servnet

CU Servnet, a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) dedicated to mortgage loan servicing, announced that BECU senior vice president of mortgage lending, Lorraine Stewart, has been appointed to chair of its board of directors. CU Servnet shapes the design and execution of the mortgage loan servicing experience for credit unions. The CUSO has partnered with Cenlar, a mortgage loan subservicer since 2005. Stewart has more than 35 years of experience in mortgage banking. She joined BECU in January 2014. Prior to BECU, she held leadership positions in production support, fulfillment operations and strategic analysis and business development with depository institutions and independent mortgage bankers. In addition to her mortgage lending role at BECU, Stewart is the executive sponsor of the credit union's Veterans Employee Resource Group and is actively engaged in the credit union's equity and inclusion work. She is a member of the Mortgage Bankers Association D&I Advisory Committee and serves on the board of Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King County.

Rural Alaska Internet

Nearly 12,000 rural Alaskans in 23 communities along the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers will receive high-speed internet for the first time, if the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) approves requests for tribal broadband grants. The Alaska FiberOptic Project, a collaboration between Calista Corporation, Doyon, Limited, Gana-A ‘Yoo Limited and Alaska Communications, would connect one of the most underserved regions in the United States with a fiber-optic cable that would be the foundation for expanding broadband to communities in the region. It would offer Gigabit service in communities that today cannot access virtual meetings, online classes, telehealth, or online jobs. The proposed project would create a fiber optic network that starts at Fort Yukon, ends in Napakiak and connects to Alaska Communications core network in Fairbanks. The Alaska FiberOptic Project would also deploy fiber-to-the-home in each of the 23 communities served on the route. Grant applications were submitted to the NTIA Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program Sept. 1. NTIA expects to award grants by the end of 2021. If awarded, the project would be complete in 2024.

Sep 14, 2021

Summit Bank

Doug Wolford joins Summit Bank as vice president, SBA Program Advisor for Summit Bank's Small Business Administration Division. Wolford has nearly 30 years of SBA experience, previously leading SBA for a well-known regional bank with borrowers in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho. Wolford's role with Summit will focus on cultivating relationships with current and prospective SBA borrowers. He is a long time member of the National Association of Guaranteed Government Lenders and is a member of the Northwest Business Development Association Loan Committee. Summit Bank has offices in Eugene/Springfield, Central Oregon and the Portland Metropolitan area, and specializes in providing service to professionals as well as medium-sized businesses and their owners. Summit was recognized in 2020 as the Top Small Business Administration Community Bank Lender in the state of Oregon.

State of Washington

The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) has hired Tao Kwan-Gett, MD, MPH, as the agency's chief science officer. In his new role, Kwan-Gett will serve as DOH's primary science expert and a key spokesperson on public health issues. Currently, Kwan-Gett is a primary care pediatrician at Virginia Mason Sand Point Pediatrics at University Village in Seattle and serves as the faculty lead for the Northwest Public Health Primary Care Leadership Institute. He attended Harvard University for college and medical school and moved to Seattle in 1990 to complete his pediatric residency. After earning his MPH at the University of Washington, Kwan-Gett practiced pediatrics at Virginia Mason while also serving Seattle refugee and immigrant communities at Harborview Medical Center's Community House Calls Program. He spent several years as a medical epidemiologist at Public Health – Seattle & King County and, in 2013, joined UW's Department of Health Systems and Population Health as the director of the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. In 2017, he returned to primary care pediatrics. Kwan-Gett's first day with the department is October 1.

Alaska Internet Service

Nearly 1,250 Alaskans in Hoonah and Gustavus, two isolated communities in Southeast Alaska, will receive fiber optic cable-based high-speed internet for the first time, if the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) approves a request for a tribal broadband grant. Alaska Communications would offer Gigabit service in communities that today cannot stream classes, work remotely or access quality telehealth care. Hoonah Indian Association and Alaska Communications would also provide a community technology center in Hoonah and Gustavus to facilitate broadband education, awareness, training, access, equipment and provide support for community members. The technology center would offer basic skills training, access to social and medical services, and support community cultural activities. Once constructed, the Hoonah and Gustavus fiber optic network would connect to the Alaska Communications core fiber network. Grant applications were submitted to the NTIA Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program Sept. 1. NTIA expects to award grants by the end of 2021. If awarded, the project would be complete in December 2023.

Sep 10, 2021

Sila

Sila, a fintech software platform that provides payment infrastructure as a service, appointed Rick Holt as the firm's first chief revenue officer. Holt has been with Sila for several months as the acting vice president of Sales. In his new role, Holt will be responsible for the cohesiveness of Sila's revenue-related functions including sales, marketing, and customer experience. Most recently, Holt led SOLE Financial, which was acquired by Comdata in July 2019, as the CEO, chairman and co-founder. Prior to leading SOLE Financial, Holt founded, operated and sold Aptus Financial, a payments company with several products, serving customers throughout the United States. Sila is headquartered in Portland.

Parcion Private Wealth

Parcion Private Wealth, a Seattle-area wealth management firm, announced that managing principal Terry Cook has been recognized as one of the top-ranked advisors in the country in Forbes' ranking of America's Top Wealth Advisors for 2021. Cook was ranked in the top 100 advisors. The award is drawn from independent analysis conducted by SHOOK Research, which employs an amalgam of telephone and in-person interviews, coupled with an examination of criteria from 2020, including industry experience, compliance, and assets under management. Cook founded Parcion Private Wealth alongside other principals at the firm in 2019 as an independent multi-family office that partners with entrepreneurs, business owners and their families to optimize wealth events.

Tola Capital

Seattle-based Tola Capital announced that Phil Sorgen has joined the firm as a venture partner. Sorgen will be part of the Tola investment team, serve on boards, and guide companies on their sales and growth strategies. Most recently, he was the chief revenue officer for RingCentral, where he led the company's global sales and partner organization. Prior to this role he spent 24 years at Microsoft, most recently as a corporate vice president, leading Microsoft's U.S. Enterprise Commercial Group, an organization responsible for helping the company's commercial customers in the U.S. navigate digital transformation. Founded in 2010 by ex-software operators, Tola Capital is a venture capital firm that invests globally across multiple stages and targets companies who are building essential software for enterprise customers.

NAVEX Global

NAVEX Global has appointed Sean Thompson as president and chief operating officer, reporting to CEO Bob Conlin. Thompson has also been named to NAVEX Global's board of directors. Thompson's responsibilities in this newly created role include leading go-to-market planning and execution as well as supporting customer success, product innovation and operational excellence strategies. Thompson joins NAVEX Global from SAP, where he most recently served as executive vice president and general manager of SAP Procurement Network & Ecosystem and led the company's strategy for business network and payments, including the Ariba Network. He was previously the chief revenue officer for SAP's SMB cloud and ERP business. Before joining SAP, Thompson was the CEO and co-founder of Nuiku, a natural language processing and artificial intelligence company. He also spent nearly 10 years at Microsoft in various leadership capacities and was a management consultant at Deloitte. NAVEX Global is a worldwide leader in integrated risk and compliance management software and services, and is headquartered in Lake Oswego, OR.