Promotions

• Heritage University’s  new director for its Tri-City branch campus

at Columbia Basin College is Martín Valadez. He was the director of

workforce education at Heritage. The former Tri-City director, Marisol

Rodriguez-Price, had expressed a desire to return to the professorate within

the College of Education.

Valadez will report to David Wise, the vice president

of admissions, marketing and advancement; Valadez, Wise and Admissions Director

Gabriel Pinon will form a team focused on recruitment and admissions at the CBC

campus where Heritage offers five baccalaureate degrees: accounting, criminal

justice, elementary education, psychology and social work, as well as a Master

in Teaching graduate degree.

Valadez is involved in both the academic and business

communities in the Tri-Cities, where he has lived since 2006. Valadez has

extensive higher education experience as both a professor and an administrator.

His most recent higher education work was at CBC where he served as a professor

of history and intercultural studies and then as the vice president for

diversity and outreach. He also has strong business connections through his

work as the former chief executive officer of the CBC Foundation. Valadez

recently returned to the role of president of the Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber

of Commerce, where he has served in various roles for more than 10 years. He is

also board chairman with Communities in Schools Benton-Franklin; a board and

executive committee member with the Tri-City Development Council; a trustee and

vice chairman for Mid-Columbia Libraries; and a member of the Washington State

Complete Count Committee.

Valadez will continue his work in workforce education

through a period of transition. Rodriguez-Price will transition back into the

College of Education, where much of her work will continue to be in the

Tri-Cities.

• Baker Boyer

Bank has announced the promotions

of Jolene Riggs, Kain Evans, Vesna Dodge, and Rob Blethen to

executive vice president and executive committee member.

Baker Boyer’s

Board of Directors voted in December to expand the bank’s Executive Committee

from five members to nine. This change reflects two key factors: it elevates

the representation in strategic areas to help strengthen the bank’s future

growth and success, and it acknowledges the leadership and impact of the

individuals being promoted.

Riggs was promoted

to executive vice president/chief financial officer. She will be working

closely with Mark Hess who had the combined titles of chief financial officer

and chief operating officer. Hess will remain on the Executive Committee as

chief operating officer. Riggs started at Baker Boyer in 2006 as controller and

became vice president a year later. Prior to joining the bank, she was chief

financial officer for Blue Mountain Action Council in Walla Walla for more than

21 years.

Evans was promoted

to executive vice president/chief information officer of Baker Boyer. He leads

the bank’s overall technology infrastructure, ensuring reliability, safety, and

security of digital information. Evans joined Baker Boyer in 2013 as director

of information technology and is a 21-year veteran of the technology industry.

Dodge will become

was promoted to executive vice president. She leads the growing Asset

Management division, including investments, financial planning and trust

management.

She joined Baker

Boyer in 2010 as a trust advisor assigned to the Tri-Cities office. In 2017 she

transitioned to the role of vice president/regional manager and currently leads

the teams in both the Tri-Cities and Yakima. She also holds a designation as

certified trust and financial advisor. Prior to Baker Boyer, Dodge practiced

law as an estate planning attorney.

She sits on the

board of Tri-City Development Council and is also a member of the Tri-Cities

Estate Planning Council.

Blethen was

promoted to executive vice president of D.S. Baker Advisors. He leads the

bank’s client relationship strategy, working closely with bank leaders and

advisors across all offices to elevate Baker Boyer’s team approach of

empowerment for the benefit of its clients.

He also is

responsible for marketing the bank’s unique client experience. Blethen joined

the bank in 2016 after a 20-year career in business and nonprofit leadership,

which included serving as the publisher of the Walla Walla Union Bulletin and

general manager of the Yakima Herald-Republic. He is a certified financial

planner.

New Hires

• Tiffany Janikowski

has joined Paragon Equity Management in Richland as a property manager.

She has been a property manager for 13 years.

• Franklin PUD has hired Mike Gonzalez as the new senior manager of public affairs. He will be responsible for advocating Franklin PUD’s policy positions, developing and maintaining positive customer relationships, and identifying and promoting priorities important to the electric industry. Gonzalez was most recently a news anchor at the NBC affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona. He also has strong ties in the Tri-Cities, where he was the news director and evening anchor at KAPP/KVEW ABC, managing daily operations, branding and marketing for the news department in the Tri-Cities and Yakima bureaus. He spent nearly seven years at KXLY ABC in Spokane where he was a morning and evening news anchor. He also held executive producer and managing editor roles in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he worked at WNCN NBC.

• Joey Toews has been hired as a project architect and brings more than six years of architectural experience to Architects West, which has offices in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. He previously worked for ZBA Architecture in Spokane. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Architecture and his Master of Architecture degrees from the University of Idaho in 2013. He is licensed in the states of Washington and Idaho and he is AIA certified. His experience includes multi-family residential, civic, and commercial projects. He is skilled in all phases of design, project management, and construction administration. He is based in the Coeur d’Alene office. Some of his current projects include Hermiston City Hall, Hermiston Library and the Richland wastewater lab renovation.

• The Three Rivers

Community Foundation hired Abbey Cameron as executive director, and

she began in early December. She joins the foundation from the Walter Clore

Wine and Culinary Center, also a nonprofit, where she had been executive

director.

She joins Associate

Director Rozanne Tucker as staff support to the 13 board members and two

emeritus board members of the foundation. Board members include Susan Taylor,

board chair; Kathy Ruggles, vice chair; Candice Jones, secretary; Jay Freeman,

Bob Hightower, Kathleen Lawrence, Colleen Lloyd, Samson Martinez, Rella

Reimann, Sharon Rhodes, Deena Smith, and Cara Thomas. Emeritus board members

include Tim Anderson and Dale Burgeson.

A community foundation

is a collection of many separate endowed funds established by individuals,

families, and charitable organizations. These funds are pooled and invested and

the income from these investments is distributed back into the community of nonprofit

organizations according to the wishes of fund holders or through an annual

grantmaking process.

Grants

• The Three Rivers

Community Foundation awarded grants totaling nearly $83,000 to area

nonprofits through its 2018 awards program. 

Grants were presented

in December at a ceremony sponsored by Washington Trust Bank. 

Funds are generated by

unrestricted gifts to the community foundation. The 2019 recipients

were: 

Academy of Children’s

Theatre, The Arc of Tri-Cities, Columbia Industries, Combat Veterans Motorcycle

Association (Vets Helping Vets), Washington DECA (Distributive Education Clubs

of America), Domestic Violence Services Benton & Franklin Counties, Elijah

Family Homes, Family Learning Center, Forge Youth Mentoring, Fort Walla Walla

Museum, Heartlinks Hospice Palliative Care, Knights Community Hospital Lend

Program (KC HELP), Master Gardeners Foundation of Benton and Franklin Counties,

Mid-Columbia Ballet, Mid-Columbia Mastersingers, Modern Living Services,

Partners for Early Learning, Eastern Washington University Foundation Project

HOPE 

Rebuilding

Mid-Columbia, Senior Life Resources Northwest, Inc., Skyline Adventures,

Special Olympics Washington, The Chaplaincy 

The IDEA Project,

Three Rivers Folklife Society, Wheelhouse Community Bike Shop, Women Helping

Women and YMCA of the Greater Tri-Cities. 

For information about

contributing to the foundation or setting up a fund to support local nonprofits

in perpetuity, contact Executive Director Abbey Cameron at

509-735-5559.  

• STCU, the

Spokane-based credit union with a sizeable presence in the Tri-Cities,

presented more than 100 organizations with $157,000 as part of its holiday

Season of Giving campaign.

Recipients included

the Benton-Franklin Humane Society in Kennewick, Edith Bishel Center

for the Blind and Visually Impaired and libraries throughout the region.

It also presented

checks to more than 150 schools and organizations where STCU employees volunteer their services.

Awards

• The American

Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys has recognized the exceptional

performance of personal injury attorney Richard Gierth of Gierth Eddy

Law Offices in Kennewick as “2019 10 Best Personal Injury Attorneys for Client

Satisfaction.”

The American Institute

of Personal Injury Attorneys is a third-party attorney rating organization that

publishes an annual list of the Top 10 personal injury attorneys in each state.

Donations

• Maverick

Cares, the philanthropic arm of Maverick Gaming that is managed by

its employees, delivered free holiday meals at its locations throughout

Washington state on Dec. 23. Maverick Gaming’s 19 locations in Washington state

delivered meals to 3,800 families statewide. Maverik Gaming’s Coyote Bob’s

in Kennewick and Crazy Moose in Pasco participated.

Qualifying

families were identified by community organizations in partnership with each

respective location.

•

The second annual Festival of Trees fundraiser for United Way of Benton and

Franklin counties raised more than $93,000 was raised to fight

hunger and homelessness in Benton and Franklin counties.

• Hanford

vitrification plant employees raised nearly $13,000 overnight to donate to

the Marine Corps Reserves’ Toys for Tots campaign after learning of a

toy shortage in the area. In total, employees and Bechtel donated $39,000 to

the Toys for Tots and Local 598 pipefitters’ Bikes for Tikes campaigns. Local

Toys for Tots coordinator and former Marine Glen Carter was at the vit plant to

accept the donation.

Vit

plant employees’ overnight push for the extra donations was added to the

$12,000 they had raised over the past month. The total Toys for Tots donation

was $25,000. An additional $9,000 was donated to Bikes for Tikes. Bechtel

followed up with a donation of $2,500 to each campaign. Donations to Bikes for

Tikes helped buy and build 2,000 bikes for the community, including 350 that

are designated for Toys for Tots.

In

2019, the vit plant team donated more than $425,000 to area organizations,

campaigns, and programs, such as United Way of Benton Franklin Counties, Second

Harvest and Junior Achievement. Employees also logged thousands of volunteer

hours, teaching Junior Achievement classes, participating in DiscoverE, sorting

food for Second Harvest, and assembling bikes for Bikes for Tikes.

Elections

• Printing Industries of America announced the

election of its 2020 slate of officers and board of directors. Skip

Novakovich was inducted as a new board member at the installation ceremony

conducted at the PIA fall administrative meetings held in Houston, Texas.

Novakovich was introduced to the printing industry at

the age of 7 when his parents taught him how to hand-feed a small letterpress

in a North Dakota weekly newspaper plant. In 1989 Novakovich and his wife,

Shannon, founded Esprit Graphic Communications Inc. in Kennewick. Novakovich

has been serving the past 10 years as a Port of Kennewick commissioner. He is

also a retired Army lieutenant colonel.

• The Port of Benton Commission swore in re-elected

commissioner Roy D. Keck during its Jan. 8 meeting. Officers also were

selected. The new commission president is Jane F. Hagarty. The new

commission vice president is Robert D. Larson and commission secretary

is Keck.