Oct 11, 2022

Gordon & Rees

Drew

Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani hired Kelly Drew as a partner in the firm's Spokane and Boise offices. She joins the Commercial Litigation, Professional Liability Defense, and Employment Law practice groups. She is a litigator who practices in the areas of employment law, education law, professional liability, premises liability, catastrophic personal injuries and other general litigation matters. She defends against single-plaintiff lawsuits, class actions and administrative charges. Drew regularly advises and presents trainings for employers and educational institutions on compliance with employment and education laws. She is also an ATIXA-certified hearing officer for Title IX matters. Drew is also vice president of the board of advisors for Gonzaga University School of Law and a member of the board of directors for the non-profit charity Family Promise. Drew is admitted to practice in Washington, California and Idaho. She earned her law degree from Gonzaga University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Gonzaga University. Founded in 1974, Gordon & Rees has offices and attorneys in all 50 states.

Shiftboard

Seattle-based Shiftboard, a provider of enterprise workforce scheduling software, hired Jennifer Kline Shernoff as vice president, customer experience and product marketing. In this role, she will spend time with customers to gain an understanding of the perceptions, expectations, and needs of Shiftboard users. Shernoff will also work closely with the customer success team. Shernoff joins the company's executive leadership team, reporting to Shiftboard's president and CEO, Sterling Wilson. Shernoff comes to Shiftboard with more than 20 years of customer experience and marketing experience at B2B and B2C technology companies. Most recently, she was senior vice president of product and design at Ada, a company that develops customer support automation software. Before Ada, Shernoff led teams responsible for go-to-market strategy and helped develop products that expanded customers' self-service options at LivePerson. She was also vice president of marketing and experience at Avvo.

Amazon

Amazon announced that it is hiring 150,000 employees throughout the United States in full-time, seasonal, and part-time roles across its operations network. Jobs in Amazon's operations network include stowing, picking, packing, sorting and shipping customer orders, and are available in hundreds of cities and towns across America. Sign-on bonuses ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 are available in select locations. While there are jobs available across the country, the states with the greatest number of available positions include Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Employees can earn, on average, more than $19 per hour based on position and location in the U.S. Interested candidates can see all the regions with open positions at http://www.amazon.com/apply.

Oct 07, 2022

Summit Bank

Summit Bank hired Zak Sundsten as senior vice president, business client advisor for the Central Oregon office. Sundsten brings over 25 years of commercial banking experience to Summit. His previous position was at Idaho First Bank as a commercial relationship manager. In addition, he has a wide array of lending knowledge ranging from commercial real estate, residential, commercial and industrial, and construction and consumer loans. Sundsten is a past board member of the Habitat for Humanity and current board member for the Economic Development of Central Oregon. Summit Bank has offices in Eugene, Central Oregon, and downtown Portland.

iGrafx

iGrafx, a worldwide provider of intelligent process management, has been named a Leader in Business Process Management software by tech marketplace, G2. This is the eighth quarter in a row that iGrafx has received the Leader quadrant distinction as showcased in G2's Business Process Management Grid Report. Through G2 customers reviews, iGrafx ranked higher in the market presence category than in previous reports. The G2 market presence score is a combination of more than 15 data points from G2's user reviews, publicly available information, and third-party sources. Through the acquisition of process mining specialist Logpickr and a strategic partner program including the recent addition of Zeitworks, iGrafx combines process mining and business process management with automated desktop data collection, AI, and real-time analytics. iGrafx is headquartered in Tualatin, Oregon.

Amazon

Amazon announced Amazon Catalytic Capital, a new initiative to invest $150 million in venture capital funds, accelerators, incubators, and venture studios that provide funding to entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds, primarily at the pre-seed/seed stage of venture capital funding. The company will invest in funds that focus on Black, Latino, Indigenous, women, and LGBTQIA+ founders. Amazon expects to support more than 10 funds and over 200 companies through the next year. In addition to capital, the companies in the funds' portfolios will receive mentorship from Amazon executives and gain access to resources to support their business and technical strategy. Amazon teams will also work with the startups to identify partnership and product collaboration opportunities that could accelerate their growth. Through this initiative, Amazon has invested in the following funds: Collide Capital; Elevate Future Fund; Share Ventures; and Techstars Rising Stars Fund. In turn, investors from the venture capital funds supported by Amazon have supported hundreds of underrepresented startup founders.

Oct 06, 2022

Hotel Ändra

Condé Nast Traveler announced the results of its annual Readers’ Choice Awards with Hotel Ändra in downtown Seattle named a Top 10 Hotel in the Pacific Northwest market. More than 240,000 Condé Nast Traveler readers submitted responses rating their travel experiences across the globe to provide a full snapshot of the top places they enjoyed this year and can’t wait to return to next. The Readers’ Choice Awards are among the longest-running recognition of excellence in the travel industry. Hotel Ändra is located at 2000 4th Ave. in Belltown, Seattle. Ändra, which means ‘change’ in Swedish, has transformed a historic 1926 building into a luxury hotel with 123 rooms and suites. Thanks to its partnership with Chef Tom Douglas restaurants, Hotel Ändra is home to his recreational cooking school Hot Stove Society, and Greek-inspired restaurant Lola. Also on property is Assaggio Ristorante, featuring the cuisine of central and northern Italy.

Neighbors

Neighbors, an enterprise-focused computing devices protection plan company, announced the launch of twelve new program offerings for laptops and tablets designed to increase workforce productivity and lower technology costs. The company has partnered with Fortegra, a global specialty insurer, to help design, support and back its products. Neighbors' products are currently available in 48 U.S. states. Founded by a team of consumer electronics, software and insurance experts, Neighbors, headquartered in Seattle, is an AI-powered digital-first platform. Fortegra and its subsidiaries underwrite and administer insurance products and protection plan solutions across the U.S. and around the world.

Itron

Itron, headquartered in Liberty Lake, has joined forces with Severn Trent Water to digitally transform Warwickshire, England into a smart water region. The collaboration is part of Severn Trent Water's Green Recovery Program and includes the deployment of Itron's advanced metering infrastructure solution, including Itron smart water meters equipped with Cyble multi-connectivity communication modules connected through Itron's partner, Connexin. Deployment of the solution is currently underway and will allow Severn Trent Water to gain a better understanding of water consumption on its network. Severn Trent Water is also taking advantage of Itron's Temetra, the next-generation mobile meter data collection and management solution, as a single meter data management platform to collect and manage meter data, whether via mobile meter reading or communication network. Itron enables utilities and cities to deliver critical infrastructure solutions to communities in more than 100 countries.