Jul 19, 2022

T-Mobile

Any T-Mobile, Sprint, Metro by T-Mobile and Assurance Wireless customers who text 988 will now be able to connect to a professionally trained crisis counselor for free, at one of over 200 nationwide 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline centers. This new option follows T-Mobile's launch of 988 calling in November 2020, nearly 20 months before the July 16, 2022, national rollout deadline for all providers set by the Federal Communications Commission. Prior to the launch of 988 texting, T-Mobile worked to make sure texts would go directly to Lifeline without first being translated to Lifeline's existing 1-800 number. This solution, which became shared across providers and industry partners, means that anyone texting 988 will receive a text back from 988 as expected and not from a different, unrecognizable number.

Nyhus Communications

Spokane-based DH has acquired Nyhus Communications, including its clients and its nine-person team. The combined agency will comprise more than 50 people with offices in Spokane and Seattle. DH and Nyhus have been IPREX partner agencies for more than a decade. IPREX is a network of independently owned agencies, with 96 offices worldwide. Marc Berger, Nyhus president and partner, will become executive vice president and Seattle market leader for DH. Berger currently leads the Nyhus team and oversees the firm's work. Nyhus was founded in Seattle by CEO Roger Nyhus in 1994. The 10-person agency specializes in crisis, high-stakes and health care communications. Along with the private transaction closing on June 30, Roger Nyhus announced his retirement from the agency. DH is a branding, advertising, public relations and social change agency. The firm designs and implements integrated media and community engagement campaigns for private and public sector organizations. The firm employs nearly 50 communications strategists and creatives and has operated for more than 25 years. The new company will be rebranded at DH.

Lasher Holzapfel

Lasher Holzapfel Sperry & Ebberson announced that George Holzapfel was recognized for excellence in the 2022 Chambers High Net Worth Guide: Private Wealth Law. Holzapfel serves as general legal counsel to hundreds of private and family companies and also serves as estate planning counsel to the owners of virtually all of these businesses. In addition, he acts as estate planning counsel to senior and other executives of publicly held corporations and their families. Holzapfel also handles the estate administration for many clients, including assuring that advanced estate plans and trusts are properly implemented. Additionally, Lasher Holzapfel's Family Law Practice Group and two of the group's attorneys, Linda Ebberson and Lisa Sharpe, were recognized in the 2022 Chambers High Net Worth Guide: Family/Matrimonial. Ebberson specializes in complex, high-value divorce cases and is an experienced litigator. Sharpe advises high net worth and prominent individuals on complex and high-value divorce matters, as well as custody cases and financial issues. The Chambers High Net Worth guide covers global private wealth management work and features in-depth editorial about leading lawyers and law firms providing wealth preservation and estate planning. Chambers Research is conducted by 200 Research Analysts, across 200 jurisdictions and provides nearly 6,000 rankings tables. Annually they collect hundreds of thousands of responses from clients, the majority via in-depth interview. Lasher Holzapfel Sperry & Ebberson was founded 49 years ago in Seattle.

Jul 15, 2022

Columbia Sportswear

Columbia Sportswear's board of directors appointed Christiana Smith Shi to serve as a director and member of its audit committee. Shi is the principal at Lovejoy Advisors, an advisory services firm focused on digitally transforming consumer and retail businesses, which she founded in 2016. Previously, she served as president, direct-to-consumer at Nike from 2013 until 2016 after serving in various roles beginning in 2010. Shi serves on the board of directors, governance and people committee and compensation committee of Mondelez International, and also on the board of directors, compensation and human capital committee and risk committee of United Parcel Service.

NR Smith

Apella Capital, a financial advisory and wealth management firm serving individuals, families, and businesses, announced NR Smith and Associates, a registered investment advisor firm headquartered in Olympia, has joined the firm. NR Smith brings over $82 million in assets under management to Apella Capital. This is the second acquisition for Apella in 2022 and the first jointly with Wealth Partners Capital Group. NR Smith is a wealth management firm and CPA practice, providing clients with financial planning, portfolio creation, asset management, tax preparation and planning, and accounting services. This is Apella's thirteenth transaction to date. Apella is headquartered in Glastonbury, Connecticut and has thirteen offices around the country in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Colorado, Oregon and California. The history of NR Smith & Associates goes back to 1941, when Elliot Spring offered accounting, tax services and bookkeeping systems to local loggers, timberland owners, and Christmas tree growers.

Cyemptive Technologies

Snohomish-based Cyemptive Technologies announced that Cyemptive CEO Rob Pike has been named “Cybersecurity CEO of the Year” by CEO Monthly as part of its Global CEO Excellence Awards 2022. Pike won the award for his leadership role in Cyemptive's development of Cybersecurity solutions to protect computing environments before or immediately following a compromise. Now in its sixth year, the Global CEO Excellence awards celebrate the CEOs who have shown tenacity and dedication to their business and colleagues over the past year. Nominees are assessed based on their accomplishments, reputation, and ability to illustrate commitment to their missions and values in business. Winners are determined based on information independently gathered by the CEO Monthly team and assessed by a panel.

City of Tacoma

The Tacoma Employees' Retirement System (TERS) is seeking applications for the resident member position on the TERS Board. Applications are due August 5, 2022. This is a three-year volunteer position, with an opportunity to be reappointed, for a Tacoma resident who is not employed by the city of Tacoma. TERS Board members are responsible for maintaining the financial health of the system and high quality service to its participants. Board meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month at the Tacoma Public Utilities building or in an online format. A defined benefit plan providing retirement benefits to city of Tacoma employees, TERS serves about 3,000 active members and 3,000 deferred and retired members. The TERS Board member application form, submission instructions and details on the TERS plan, are available at cityoftacoma.org/retirement.

Jul 14, 2022

MultiCare

James Lee has joined MultiCare Health System as executive vice president of population-based care and chief financial officer. Bringing 30 years of experience in health care, Lee will lead MultiCare's population-based care strategy and oversee financial performance. For 17 years, Lee served as executive vice president and chief financial officer for Adventist HealthCare in Gaithersburg, Maryland, before transitioning to the role of chief strategy and growth officer. While at Adventist, Lee introduced employee wellness programs that aimed to identify health issues early and facilitate timely care. Lee also worked for more than a decade to bring a new hospital to a Maryland community in need of a modern health care facility. Prior to Lee's tenure at Adventist, he focused on improving operations at several hospitals and health systems by reducing length of stay and enhancing provider practice management. Lee's educational background includes a bachelor's degree from the Sao Paulo School of Business Administration in Brazil and master's degrees in public health and health administration from Loma Linda University in California. MultiCare is a not-for-profit health care organization with more than 20,000 team members, and is the largest community-based, locally governed health system in the state of Washington.

ZoomInfo

Vancouver-based ZoomInfo, a software, data and intelligence firm, has hired Bryan Law as chief marketing officer. Law will lead ZoomInfo's marketing organization and will prioritize driving demand and supporting company growth, enhancing ZoomInfo's brand awareness, and expanding ZoomInfo's thought leadership. Law brings two decades of leadership experience from his time at Salesforce, Tableau, Rackspace, Google, and Monitor Deloitte. Most recently, he served as senior vice president, marketing and general manager of eCommerce at Salesforce, which he joined through the company's acquisition of Tableau. He held a similar role at Rackspace after initially leading strategy and serving as chief of staff to the CEO. Law began his career in strategy, first as a consultant and then as part of the leadership for Google's central strategy team focused on sales, marketing and partnerships.

Rent-A-Center

Rent-A-Center is opening a new store at 1620 Plaza Way in Walla Walla. The grand opening will be on July 16, with Randal Whitsitt as store manager. As a part of Rent-A-Center's mission to give back to those in need, the new store will contribute $1,000 to Blue Mountain Action Council, a local organization dedicated to delivering services and support to poverty-stricken neighbors in Southeast Washington and building stable and thriving communities. Rent-A-Center operates 36 locations in Washington. Rent-A-Center is a provider of technology driven, flexible, no debt obligation leasing solutions that offer underserved consumers access to and potential ownership of durable goods including furniture, appliances, electronics and computers.

SeekOut

Bellevue-based-SeekOut, an enterprise talent optimization platform, has hired Claire Fang as chief product officer. Fang was recently the chief product officer for the EmployeeXM product line at Qualtrics. Throughout her career, she has held various product leadership positions in the tech industry, including leading the business platform product team at Facebook, building and growing Microsoft's cloud platform Azure, consulting experience at McKinsey, and overseeing all product development efforts at a drone startup, eHang. In her new role, Fang will be responsible for product strategy and leading teams to deliver the full suite of talent optimization offerings, including talent acquisition and internal talent solutions. SeekOut has spent the past few months investing in expanding its leadership team. The company has brought on Sam Shaddox as VP of legal, Dailah Lester as VP of revenue operations, and Jana Morrelli as VP of customer success.