Retirements

• Julie Richardson, the city of West Richland’s city clerk, retired in July after 19 years of service. She began her career with the city as an administrative assistant in the police department and was promoted to city clerk in 2006. She plans to spend time with her family and grandchildren.
• Charles McElligott of Rabo AgriFinance has retired as Northwest regional managing director, a position he held for a decade.

Awards & Honors

• The Tri-Cities Cancer Center in Kennewick has been selected by Modern Healthcare as one of the 2020 Best Places to Work in Healthcare. The award program identifies and recognizes outstanding employers in the health care industry nationwide. Modern Healthcare partners with the Best Companies Group on the assessment process, which includes an extensive employee survey. The cancer center will find out its ranking on the Best Places list Oct. 8.
• The Tri-Cities was selected as the host destination for TBEX North America 2021, a conference and networking event for travel content creators from throughout North America and beyond. The conference is Aug. 16-19, 2021, at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick. It’s expected to attract about 600 travel bloggers, online journalists, new media content creators, travel brands and industry professionals.
• Visit Tri-Cities was recognized for earning the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program accreditation with “distinction” at the Destinations International Virtual 2020 annual convention on July 15. DMAP is a recognition of Visit Tri-Cities’ commitment to industry excellence and meeting the industry standard for performance and accountability of destination organizations around the world.
• Chenoa Meagher of Sage Crest Elementary School in Kennewick was named the 2020 Washington State Regional Teacher of the Year for Educational Service District 123. She was chosen as the 2020 Crystal Apple Award winner from the Kennewick School District and was recognized for excellence alongside educators from other school districts within ESD 123. She’ll now be considered, along with finalists from the state’s eight other ESDs, for 2021 Washington State Teacher of the Year.
• Bill Mich, a Lourdes Health pharmacist, was recognized as the hospital’s 2020 Mercy Award winner. He has worked at Lourdes for more than 30 years and goes out of his way to make his work family and co-workers feel special, including cards on Mother’s Day and for their birthdays. He gives the employees a gift card for National Pharmacy Tech Day. Each Christmas season, he can be spotted riding around town on his motorcycle in his Santa suit. As Santa, he visits kids who are part of Lourdes’ Children’s Day program, an intensive mental health treatment program for children to develop skills for coping with emotional and behavioral problems at school and home, to help them feel the Christmas spirit.
• Matthew Riesenweber at Cornerstone Wealth Strategies in Kennewick has been recently recognized as one of Forbes 2020 Next-Gen Advisors. Featured advisors are all under 40 and represent the future of the wealth management industry.
• Columbia Riverkeeper’s Hanford Art Contest, held in partnership with Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration Waste Management Program, has announced its winners. Artists were invited to create a piece that reclaims Hanford’s nuclear legacy through art. The winners are Jazmine Cabaluna, first place with “An Impact on All;” Julia Waters, second place with “Confluence of the Spirit;” and David Kitcher, third place with “Nuclear Wasted.” Winners received cash prizes.
• Benton REA and CoBank donated $20,000 to feed local families. The recipients are the Tri-City Food Bank in West Richland and Benton City ($12,000), Sunrise Outreach Food Banks ($4,000) and Jubilee Ministries Food Bank ($4,000). CoBank provided a $10,000 matching grant.
• Lamb Weston donated 20,000 disposable masks for student and employee use at Washington State University Tri-Cities for when in-person learning resumes on campus. The masks will be used by students, faculty and staff to ensure a safe return to operations for in-person learning experiences and services on campus.

Scholarships

• Caitlyn Hickman, a Columbia Basin College student, received a $130 scholarship to cover the cost of the pharmacy technician certification exam fee from Walgreens and Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. She is one of 35 students selected to receive the award.

New Hires

• Matt Backlund joined Kennewick-based Community First Bank as chief lending officer. Over the course of his career, he has worked in retail banking, private banking and, most recently, in commercial banking, with more than 18 years of experience in the banking industry.
• Bill Shibley has joined Kennewick-based Community First Bank and HFG Trust as a senior agricultural officer. He has 24 years of agricultural lending experience across Eastern Washington, with expertise in row crops, vineyards and wineries, tree fruit, hay and wheat. He is a graduate of Oregon State University where he earned a degree in agricultural and resource economics. He is also board secretary/treasurer for the Washington Wine Industry Foundation and a MyTri2030 agriculture steering committee member.
• Petersen Hastings has hired Cameron Ridgeway as an associate wealth advisor. Ridgeway will be part of a team assisting lead advisors in serving our clients’ planning and investment needs through a fiduciary standard of service. He was born and raised in Tri-Cities and graduated from Eastern Washington University in June 2020 with a bachelor’s in finance. He interned with the Kennewick-based company in 2017 and 2019.
• Jesse Buchholz has been hired to be the Richland School District’s director of online learning. He is working with administrators and teachers to launch Richland Virtual School for the 2020-21 school year. The K-12 program will be based on the model used by Spokane Public Schools’ Spokane Virtual Learning. It will provide an online, teacher-directed learning experience for students and families looking for an alternative to traditional in-person instruction. He spent the past seven years at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho, where he taught educational technology, developed a robotics curriculum and conducted professional development for other educators across the region, including Richland teachers. Buchholz was also the university’s chief administrator of Canvas, a learning management system also used in Richland schools.
• Jennifer Retana has been named manager of STCU’s Queensgate Financial Center in Richland. Retana brings more than 27 years of banking and lending experience, most recently at US Bank.
• New U Women’s Clinic and Aesthetics in Kennewick has hired board certified general surgeon Dr. Mikki Seagren. She has sub-specialty fellowship training in breast surgical oncology and breast reconstruction. She completed her fellowship at the University of California San Francisco.
• Lt. Col. Rick Childers is now commander and district engineer of the Walla Walla District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He oversees more than 800 engineers and professionals from various functional backgrounds and is responsible for civil works, interagency programs and the operations of Corps projects and activities for Eastern Washington, all of Idaho and portions of Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming and Utah. Childers hails from Port St. Lucie, Florida, and was commissioned into the Army as an engineer officer following graduation from Georgia Military College in 1999.
• Brian Sims has been hired as Good Shepherd Health Care System’s next president and chief executive officer. He starts at the Hermiston health system on Oct. 1, succeeding current president and CEO, Dennis Burke, who announced his intent to retire last October after more than 31 years leading Good Shepherd. Sims brings years of executive leadership experience, leaving his recent appointment of CEO for five years with Lucas County Health Center Chariton, Iowa.
• Orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Adrian Obuch has joined the Astria Health Center in Grandview and Astria Health Center in Zillah. Obuch, with more than 20 years experience, is able to offer a full range of orthopaedic and sports medicine injury care.
• Jan Pieter “JP” van Oosten is the new eastern territory general manager of Rabo AgriFinance, leading the company’s business in the eastern third of the country. He has 12 years of experience with Rabobank in the Netherlands. Nathan Thomsen, former eastern territory general manager, returned home to the West as the managing director of the Northwest region to lead the lending teams in northern Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. In the last four of his 17 years with Rabo AgriFinance, he’s led the growth of the company’s business in the eastern third of the country.

Promotions

• Jan Pieter “JP” van Oosten is the new eastern territory general manager of Rabo AgriFinance, leading the company’s business in the eastern third of the country. He has 12 years of experience with Rabobank in the Netherlands. Nathan Thomsen, former eastern territory general manager, returned home to the West as the managing director of the Northwest region to lead the lending teams in northern Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. In the last four of his 17 years with Rabo AgriFinance, he’s led the growth of the company’s business in the eastern third of the country.