APPOINTMENTS

• Kenneth Cole, a licensed clinical psychologist, has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Washington State Psychological Association for a three-year term. He provides a wide variety of forensic assessments and psychological services for individuals, government agencies, law enforcement agencies and fire districts. His practice is located at the Center for Psychological Services in Kennewick.
• Gov. Jay Inslee appointed Nichole Banegas of Kennewick to the Environmental Justice Council. The term ends in July 2023.

NEW HIRES

• Franklin PUD has hired Victor Fuentes as its new engineering director. He brings extensive experience in the field of electric utility engineering, previously working for the Hanford site electric utility services group as design authority and most recently at Umatilla Electric Cooperative as the superintendent of technical services. He received his bachelor’s of science degree in electrical engineering from Washington State University. Fuentes will lead the engineering group at Franklin PUD.
• LifeCenter Northwest has named Santokh Gill as its new president and CEO, effective March 1. Gill joins the region’s organ procurement organization with more than 25 years of health care, organ transplantation and senior leadership experience, most recently serving as vice president of patient care services at Virginia Mason Medical Center. He holds a master’s in health administration and a bachelor of science in microbiology and immunology from the University of Washington.
• Dr. Nickisha Naulie Berlus has joined Tri-Cities Community Health, 515 W. Court St. Walk-In Health Center in Pasco, as a board-certified family medicine provider. She completed her residency in family and social medicine with Montefiore Medical Center in New York. She attended Rutgers University: Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Camden, New Jersey.
• MacKay Sposito, which has a Pasco office, is adding to its leadership and technical staff with two new hires: Christine Selk, director of business development, and Juanita Rogers, landscape architecture manager. Selk comes to MacKay Sposito from C-TRAN, where she served as director of communication and customer experience. During her six-year tenure there, she served on the project management team for The Vine bus rapid transit project and as project manager for the Fisher’s Landing Transit Center Feasibility Study. She also led marketing and communication efforts on a number of initiatives, including bus-on-shoulder and The Current, the agency’s new rideshare service. Rogers has 25 years of professional experience in master planning, urban design, parks and recreation, trail planning and landscape architecture. She has extensive experience as a project manager on significant and award-winning projects with a special interest in bicycle-pedestrian-focused planning, sustainable designs, and recreation planning. She comes to MacKay Sposito from WSP USA (formerly JD White Co. and Berger/ABAM).
• Ben Franklin Transit Board of Directors has hired Ed Frost as the agency’s interim general manager, effective Feb. 1. He is filling the position after former director Gloria Boyce’s retirement. Frost was one of the founders and a longtime employee of BFT, overseeing the Dial-A-Ride, vanpool, planning, and marketing departments prior to his retirement in 2009. This is his second stint as interim general manager for the agency. The first was during 2014. Frost will serve in this capacity while the board of directors conducts a search for a permanent general manager.
• Tri-Cities Community Health welcomed the return of Dr. Cheryl Hipolito to the family medicine group. She completed her medical education at the University of the Philippines and her family medicine residency at the University of Illinois in Rockford.

PROMOTIONS

• Goodwill Industries of the Columbia’s Board of Directors has selected Jeff Maddison as its next executive director. Maddison succeeds Ken Gosney, who moved to Sacramento, to be the president and CEO of Goodwill Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada after six and a half years leading our organization. Maddison first joined Goodwill Industries of the Columbia in 2015 as the director of operations. Prior to joining Goodwill, Maddison spent five years at Lamb Weston and finished his time there as the project leader of business operations. He assumed his new role on Jan. 1.

DONATIONS

• Twenty Rotary clubs and individual Rotarians raised $36,430 to aid a school dormitory destroyed by fire in Kenya. The Mid-Columbia Rotary Clubs of Pasco-Kennewick, Columbia Center, Columbia Daybreak, Richland Riverside, Richland and the two Walla Walla clubs, Noon and Sunrise, made financial contributions to assist Saint Benedict High School in Bidauang’i, Kenya. Students lost personal possessions and most educational materials. In addition, students lost a safe place to sleep. The students’ dining facility was converted to a temporary dormitory, students shared mattresses and 973 students were required to eat meals outside. Fundraising was so successful that the dormitory was scheduled to be completed by end of January 2022. The building was initially started by the Kenyan Ministry of Education and abandoned for lack of funding.
• Teens across Benton and Franklin Counties have greater access to a life-changing leadership program thanks to a generous donation from Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS). HMIS recently donated $15,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Benton and Franklin Counties to support the organization’s Youth of the Year program, a leadership and recognition program for club teens. Throughout the winter, teens write essays and speeches explaining how the club has positively affected their lives and how they plan to give back to their community as a youth leader. Teens share their stories with judges who select local, state, and regional winners, before the National Youth of the Year Event is held in the spring. Three teens from Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser have been selected as youth of the Year Finalists for 2022: Wendy Juarez of Kennewick, Angelina Salinas of Pasco and Aaron Price of Prosser.

AWARDS & HONOR

• Matt Potter, Pasco High School boys’ soccer coach, received 2020-21 Northwest Section Boys Soccer Coach of the Year Award by the National Federation of State High School (NFHS) Coaches Association. Honors were selected based on performance in the 2020-21 school year, lifetime community involvement, school involvements and philosophy of coaching. The Pasco Bulldogs varsity boys’ soccer team finished the 2021 season with a 10-3 record which included an eight-game winning streak.
• Don Britain was named a “Friend of the Port” for 2021. The Port of Kennewick presents the annual award to recognize outstanding service to the port and the community. The commission recognized that Britain worked to foster and a partnership with port that led to renovations of the port’s Oak Street Industrial Park buildings, creation and development of the Columbia Gardens Urban Wine & Artisan Village, restoration of Clover Island’s shoreline, and redevelopment of Vista Field from a general aviation airfield into a master-planned urban town center.
• Rhonda Wellner, director of quality for Astria Health, recently received her master of science in nursing leadership and management degree, as well as the certified professional in health care quality designation. Wellner began pursuing her master’s degree at Western Governor’s University in 2019, right before the Covid-19 pandemic. She started working for Astria Health in June 2005 as a nurse tech II while working toward her bachelor of nursing degree from Washington State University. She works with Astria Sunnyside Hospital and Astria Toppenish Hospital to provide administrative support for their respective quality improvement councils.
• HAPO Community Credit Union became one of 1,333 financial institutions certified as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on Jan. 17. HAPO is one of only 15 CDFI-certified credit unions in Washington state. A CDFI certification can be earned by a financial institution that offers fair and affordable financial services and continually works to transform the lives of the underserved populations in its community. CDFIs invest in their local communities by providing important funding resources.

BOARDS

• The Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing, the benchmark for specialty certification across the emergency nursing spectrum, has announced its 2022-23 board of directors and recognized outgoing board members. Roger Casey, MSN, RN, CEN, TCRN, FAEN, charge nurse, Kadlec Freestanding Emergency Department in Kennewick, is a member at large. Board members serve a two-year term.