Aug 12, 2022

NAVEX

Mair

NAVEX, a risk and compliance management software firm, announced Julia Mair has been named the company's chief marketing officer, reporting directly to CEO and president, Sean Thompson. A business-to-business marketing veteran, Mair joins NAVEX from Clarivate, a publicly held information services company based in more than 40 countries, where she served as chief marketing, communications & sustainability officer. She also held the CMO role at Sterling, a publicly held background and identity solutions company, and served in various senior leadership roles at The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, and LexisNexis. NAVEX is headquartered in Portland.

UnitedHealthcare

UnitedHealthcare is awarding $1 million in Empowering Health grants to four community-based organizations in Washington state to expand access to care and address the social determinants of health for uninsured individuals and underserved communities. In total, UnitedHealthcare is donating $11 million in grants through its Empowering Health program across 11 states. The grants will assist individuals and families experiencing challenges from food insecurity, social isolation and behavioral health issues, and support local health promotion and health literacy efforts. Grant recipients in Washington include: University of Washington School of Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training Center in partnership with the Richland and Medical Lake School Districts; The American Indian Community Center, Goodheart Behavioral Health, Spokane; Perinatal Support Washington, statewide; and National Alliance on Mental Illness Yakima, Yakima, Wapato and Toppenish.

Alaska Broadband Grant

More than 1,000 rural Alaskans in five communities along the Yukon River will receive affordable, high-speed internet for the first time thanks to a tribal broadband grant funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The collaboration between Doyon, Limited and Alaska Communications will connect one of the most underserved regions in the United States with a fiber-optic cable that will be the foundation for expanding broadband to communities in the region. The communities served include Fort Yukon, Beaver, Stevens Village, Rampart, and Tanana. Alaska Communications will deploy a fiber-to-the-home network in each community, offering up to Gigabit speed service at affordable rates. The network will connect to the Alaska Communications' core fiber network in Fairbanks, Alaska. The project is part of the Alaska FiberOptic Project, a larger collaboration between Calista Corporation, Doyon, Limited, Gana-A Yoo Limited and Alaska Communications to connect up to 20 communities along the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers with fiber-optic cable. This segment is the first of three segments to get funding. Alaska Communications will begin the permit and construction process as quickly as possible. Headquartered in Fairbanks, Doyon has more than 20,100 shareholders and was established under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Doyon has subsidiaries in oilfield services, government contracting, and tourism, is also the largest private landowner in Alaska and one of the largest in North America.

Aug 11, 2022

Starbucks

Starbucks, in partnership with Volvo Cars, announced the first Starbucks stores where new electric vehicle chargers, powered by ChargePoint Holdings, will be available to customers and members of the public. Four charging stations have been installed at the first Starbucks location in Provo, Utah, and additional places to charge will be positioned along a 1,350-mile route that winds through national forests and major community hubs from the Colorado Rockies to the Starbucks Support Center in Seattle. By the end of the year, up to 60 fast chargers will be installed at up to 15 Starbucks stores approximately every 100 miles along the route. While drivers of any EV equipped with a standard receptacle will be able to use these stations for a fee, drivers of Volvo cars will have access to these stations at no charge or at preferential rates. Planned EV charger-enabled Starbucks locations along the route include stores in Seattle, Issaquah and Yakima.

Accelalpha

Bellevue-based Accelalpha, a portfolio company of Century Park Capital Partners, has completed the acquisition of Frontera Consulting, a provider of implementation and management of Oracle Cloud applications. The combination expands the reach of both firms' services. Founded in 2008, Frontera was one of the first Oracle Partners to focus on Oracle Cloud applications. Kevin Beyer, managing partner at Frontera, will continue to lead the Frontera operating unit within the Accelalpha family. Frontera is headquartered in New York. Accelalpha leverages its expertise in end-to-end enterprise solution implementations to help companies build integrated logistic capabilities, optimize sales processes, modernize the supply chain, and realize benefits of the cloud. Century Park Capital Partners is a Los Angeles-based private equity group established in 2000.

Pacific Power Group

Motor Services Hugo Stamp has acquired Pacific Power Group, a provider of products, parts and maintenance, repair, and overhaul services (MRO) for marine, energy, commercial and industrial equipment. Both PPG and MSHS will maintain their current brand names. Additionally, the acquisition strengthens PPG's and MSHS's geographic footprint through the addition of PPG's nine facilities across the Western United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Gulf of Mexico, which are supplemented by MSHS's facilities across the Eastern United States, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific Northwest. PPG is headquartered in Vancouver. Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, MSHS is an independent MRO services provider for marine, defense/government, and power generation applications.

Smartsheet

Bellevue-based Smartsheet has appointed Dennis Durkin to its board of directors. He will also serve on the board's Audit Committee. Durkin is the former chief financial officer of Activision Blizzard and chief operating and financial officer of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business. During his tenure at Activision Blizzard, including over seven years as CFO, he helped grow the company's enterprise value from approximately $10 billion to more than $70 billion. Prior to that, Durkin spent nearly 13 years at Microsoft, where he was most recently the CFO and COO of the Interactive Entertainment Business, which included the Xbox, Xbox Live and Games businesses. Durkin holds a BA in Government from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Aug 10, 2022

Department of Corrections

Secretary Cheryl Strange has named Chris Wright as communications director for the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC), effective August 17, 2022. Wright has a background in television, Washington state government and media relations. He joins the DOC from the Washington Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), where he spent the last seven years working as a media relations manager. During his time there, Wright served as spokesperson for DSHS, including the juvenile rehabilitation system, the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, vocational rehabilitation, and the state's long-term care system. During the pandemic, Wright was selected to represent DSHS at the Joint Information Center to help coordinate the state's response to the first COVID-19 deaths in the nation. Prior to DSHS, Chris spent a decade as a local TV news reporter and anchor. His media career included stints at stations in Missouri, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Oregon.

Alaska Communications

Alaska Communications will provide home internet to educators, students and families in 10 villages in the Lower Yukon School District (LYSD) using hybrid satellite technology. In addition to providing middle mile satellite connectivity, Alaska Communications is collaborating with New Horizons Telecom to design and install the equipment needed to deliver internet access directly to students' homes in their villages in western Alaska. The communities served include Alakanuk, Emmonak, Hooper Bay, Kotlik, Marshall, Mountain Village, Nunam Iqua, Pilot Station, Russian Mission and Scammon Bay. These are some of the most remote and hard-to-serve communities in Alaska. Most of this project is funded by the Emergency Connectivity Fund, a FCC program to help schools and libraries support remote learning in underserved communities. LYSD applied for and received the funding with Alaska Communications as its chosen service provider. Service will be available at no cost to students, school staff and library patrons in the school district's service area through June 30, 2023. Service will be available this fall. Eligible residents will sign up for their home internet service directly with LYSD. Alaska Communications also provides fiber connectivity to LYSD's Kusilvak Career Academy in Anchorage. This academy provides an opportunity for rural students to receive career tech courses through a partnership with the Anchorage School District. Alaska Communications, an affiliate of ATN International, provides advanced broadband and managed IT services for businesses and consumers in Alaska.

Go-Tek Automation

Verus Associates acquired Go-Tek Automation, an industrial automation firm based in the Seattle area. Verus is an automation, engineering and consulting firm specializing in industrial automation, control systems, electrical engineering and digital manufacturing. With the addition of Go-Tek, Verus now has offices across the Northwest. Verus is headquartered in Concord, CA.