Apr 12, 2024

Frye Art Museum

Vaughan

Supp

Graybeal

Gallo

Barnett

Williams

Potter

Goralski

Washington

The Frye Art Museum board of trustees has six new members: Lele Barnett, Vittorio Gallo, Lynne Graybeal, Daria Supp, Brandon Vaughan and Mark Washington. They join current members Gail Goralski, Jennifer Potter and Stuart Williams, expanding the number of trustees from six in the previous class to nine. Barnett is an art advisor, curator and producer based in Seattle with over 20 years of experience in the art world. She works with Meta Reality Labs and other corporate and private clients. Barnett has spearheaded creative initiatives for the Starbucks Art Collection, Microsoft Art Collection, and the Washington State Arts Commission. Gallo is the senior vice president and chief scientific officer at the Seattle Children's Research Institute, also serving on the institution's executive leadership team. With an extensive background in biochemistry and neurobiology, he has played a pivotal role in various institutions, including the National Institutes of Health and Children's National Hospital. Graybeal is a partner in Perkins Coie's Intellectual Property group and chair of the firm's Arts & Entertainment practice. Her legal practice focuses on art-related transactions and collection management issues, entertainment-related transactions, and protection and enforcement of trademarks and copyrights. Supp is the founder of Zoetrope Architecture Studio, a design and architecture firm in Seattle. Over her more than 20 years of experience, she has led a variety of projects spanning from residential to commercial. Vaughan is the global director of public relations at Slalom Consulting. He has experience in communications, brand management and marketing from top tech and consumer brands, including Microsoft, T-Mobile and OfferUp. Washington, an executive vice president at CBRE, brings over 15 years of experience in commercial real estate. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Washington. Founded in 1952, the Frye is located in an Olson Sundberg Kundig-designed building on First Hill.

Sustainable WA

The Washington wine industry announced a partnership between Sustainable WA, the state's sustainability certification for wine grapes, and Salmon-Safe, a U.S. regional eco-label focused on watershed protection. Following an 18-month development process, Sustainable WA is joining with Salmon-Safe in a certification partnership to enhance water quality protection, wildlife habitat conservation and climate resiliency. As part of the updated Sustainable WA standard, vineyards in the program now have the option of obtaining dual certification for both Sustainable WA and Salmon-Safe. Sustainable WA was launched in 2022 as Washington's first statewide certified sustainability program for wine grapes. It is a partnership between the Washington Winegrowers Association, the Washington State Wine Commission, the Washington Wine Industry Foundation, and the Washington Wine Institute, with oversight by an industry-led governance council and technical committee. Salmon-Safe works to keep urban and agricultural watersheds healthy for native salmon. More than 95,000 acres of farm and urban lands in the Pacific Northwest have transitioned to Salmon-Safe certification. For viticulture, the focus of Salmon-Safe is reducing vineyard runoff, water quality protection and enhancement of native biodiversity on vineyard sites. To achieve dual certification, growers must commit to sustainable viticultural practices and pass a third-party audit. Nearly a third of Washington's vineyard acreage is in the Sustainable WA program.

Apr 11, 2024

Wesley Homes

Dartt

Davis

Wesley Homes is expanding its leadership team with the addition of Heidi Davis, campus administrator of Wesley at Tehaleh in Bonney Lake, and Heather Dartt, health care administrator at Wesley Des Moines. Davis has a background in leadership and team building. In 2011, Davis transitioned from retail management to senior living. In her role as campus administrator at Wesley, Davis oversees independent living, Wesley's Catered Living program and memory care. Dartt brings six years of senior living administrator experience and over 20 years of hospitality management experience to her leadership role. Dartt is responsible for ensuring the standards of resident care, regulatory compliance and overall operational efficiency of the new 72-bed Wesley Des Moines Care Center. Wesley is a faith-based nonprofit with four Puget Sound senior communities: Wesley Des Moines, Wesley Lea Hill, Wesley Bradley Park and Wesley at Tehaleh.

ProbablyMonsters

ProbablyMonsters, an independent video game company, added a new development team, multiplayer game, and chief product officer. Adam Rymer was named chief product officer. Additionally, the company revealed Hidden Grove, a new development team led by Chris Opdahl. The Hidden Grove team is working on an original multiplayer adventure game using Unreal Engine 5. Leading all the ProbablyMonsters development teams is Rymer, a media and entertainment executive with expertise leading multi-functional teams across business segments including film, gaming, TV, digital, sports and music. At Legendary Digital Networks, he guided Nerdist and Geek & Sundry as innovators in new media through the Nerdist podcast network and the development of Critical Role. Previously, he was a senior executive at Universal Pictures, where his team partnered on strategic initiatives for the studio. Most recently, he was CEO of OpTic Gaming, an esports organization. Opdahl has over 20 years of experience as a game developer. He managed teams of 50 designers on Destiny 2, helped create and direct a multidisciplinary team of over 150 at Bungie, and contributed to multiple Halo titles as a designer and design lead. Opdahl founded Hidden Grove with two design directors, Raylene Deck and Grant Mackay, who worked closely together for years on Destiny. They're supported by a team of engineering and production veterans, including executive producer Lori Ada Kilty, art director Jedd Chevrier, senior engineering director Dean Johnson and narrative director Kate Welch. Founded in 2016, ProbablyMonsters is headquartered in Bellevue.

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner

International law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) added Erin Ehlert to its Litigation & Investigation department. With more than 25 years of litigation experience, Ehlert's practice focuses on cases making their way to trial. She is a veteran civil and criminal litigator with success in defending clients in cases spanning product liability, torts, medical malpractice, wrongful death, personal injury and other areas. Ehlert spent two decades with the King County Prosecutor's Office and served as the Seattle assistant chief of the Criminal Division, later supervising the Homicide Unit. She helped lead criminal investigations involving more than 20 different law enforcement agencies and applied cutting-edge DNA technology to cold case files. Ehlert joins BCLP from Seattle law firm Corr Cronin, where she was of counsel. Earlier this month, BCLP announced the addition of a 12-lawyer litigation group, all joining from the firm Harrigan Leyh Farmer & Thomsen in Seattle.

Apr 10, 2024

Docutech

Docutech, a provider of document generation, eSign, eClose and print fulfillment technology, announced that its Solex platform was named a Top Innovation by the Progress in Lending Association at the organization's 14th annual Innovations Awards. Winners are chosen by Progress in Lending's executive team. Docutech was selected as one of 14 winners for helping transform the mortgage process with Solex's end-to-end digital mortgage capabilities. According to Progress in Lending, Solex represents a step forward in the mortgage industry by encompassing every stage of the mortgage process, from point-of-sale through post-closing. Solex was also highlighted for its ability to operate without the need for extensive infrastructure on the lenders' end. Docutech, part of the First American family of companies, is headquartered in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Mircosoft

Cloud Software Group and Microsoft announced they are deepening their collaboration through an eight-year strategic partnership agreement. The collaboration will strengthen the go-to-market collaboration for the Citrix virtual application and desktop platform, and support the development of new cloud and AI solutions with an integrated product roadmap. Additionally, Cloud Software Group will make a $1.65 billion commitment to the Microsoft cloud and its generative AI capabilities. The agreement will strengthen the alliance between Citrix, a business unit of Cloud Software Group, and Microsoft. Under the partnership, Citrix is the preferred Microsoft Global Azure Partner solution for enterprise desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) when collaborating with joint Azure customers. The companies will jointly support customer success, offer tailored solutions, expert guidance, and support. Additionally, Citrix will leverage Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud solution, providing Citrix customers with the benefits of the Citrix platform complemented by Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365. Further, the collaboration will create deeper paths to modern procurement options through Azure Marketplace. To increase collaboration and productivity, Cloud Software Group will transition all its employees to Microsoft 365. Composed of TIBCO, Citrix, NetScaler, and other business units, Cloud Software Group helps more than 100 million users around the globe across private, public, managed and sovereign cloud environments.

Apr 09, 2024

Digimarc

Digimarc, a global provider of digital watermarking technologies, named George Karamanos chief legal officer. Karamanos brings nearly two decades of legal leadership and experience advising technology companies including Google, X (formerly Twitter), Spotify, DataRobot and AppDynamics. Karamanos most recently served as CLO at ZipHQ, where he optimized the legal function for deal velocity and go-to-market acceleration. Digimarc also named Joel Meyer vice president of intellectual property and innovation strategy. Meyer previously served as Digimarc's chief legal officer. The company is based in Beaverton, Oregon.

The Standard

Butler

Portland-based Standard Insurance Co. (The Standard) hired Becky Butler as assistant vice president and actuary in Actuarial Transformation. In this role, Butler leads the strategic process, technology decisions and initiatives underway to reimagine and transform the actuarial functions across The Standard. Prior to joining The Standard, Butler led financial reporting, advanced analytics and data strategy for the group protection business at Lincoln Financial. She also has experience modernizing data platforms and leading strategic reporting transformation as well as actuarial, finance and data strategy expertise. Butler earned a bachelor's degree in actuarial mathematics and economics at the University of Michigan. She is also a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries.

Icertis

Bellevue-based Icertis, a global provider of AI-powered contract intelligence, received the 360-degree rating from MGI Research in the firm's latest Contract Lifecycle Management Buyer's Guide, earning the top position among CLM vendors. More than 20 companies were evaluated against criteria such as market visibility and growth, innovation, potential to disrupt the market, ability to deliver value, and demonstrated success via customer and partner references. In addition to earning the highest composite score, Icertis outpaced competitors in solution strength, go-to-market approach, overall strategy, and ability to handle complexity and volume.