Executive Profiles
The 2014 Executive Excellence Awards: Debra Music
Debra Music, Cofounder and Vice President Sales and Marketing, Theo Chocolate Most marketing executives struggle to boost their companys message, but Debra Music finds the public tours of Theo Chocolates factory in Fremont make it easy. When you have a captive audience and youre feeding them chocolate, she notes, theyre going to be listening to…
The 2014 Executive Excellence Awards: Leonard Garfield
Leonard Garfield, Executive Director, Museum of History and Industry For a man who runs a resource dedicated to Seattles past achievements, Leonard Garfield thinks a lot about the citys future. Some of that future is about his own Museum of History and Industry, or MOHAI. Garfield oversaw the recent move from the museums longtime home…
The 2014 Executive Excellence Awards: Shelley Rotondo
Shelley Rotondo, CEO, Northwest Harvest Shelley Rotondo has had a remarkably focused career, fighting hunger in the state of Washington for 23 years. I guess Im pretty lucky, she says about trying to make a difference, because thats been a thread throughout my whole life. As the CEO of Northwest Harvest since 2001, she has…
The 2014 Executive Excellence Awards: Dan Price
Dan Price, Cofounder and CEO, Gravity Payments Dan Price fuels the growth of his credit card payments company from the same passion that drove him to launch it. Community businesses, he saw, were poorly served by most competitors, who offered little service and whose transaction fees could rise without notice. The industry, he observed, was…
The 2014 Executive Excellence Awards: Sunny Singh
Sunny Singh, Founder and CEO, Edifecs When Edifecs founder and CEO Sunny Singh first took a look at the way the health care industry managed its information, he and his team saw a system that often made simple things more complex. From their experience developing electronic data interchange tools for other industries, Singh says, We…
The 2014 Executive Excellence Awards: Sue Anderson
Sue Anderson, Vice President/ General Manager, CenturyLink Puget Sound For a sign of future prospects at communications company CenturyLink, regional Vice President Sue Anderson only has to look at the number of construction cranes amid Seattles skyline. Her task for the national company is to develop a localized approach to the market here. Puget Sound…
The 2014 Executive Excellence Awards: Dean C. Allen
Dean C. Allen, CEO, McKinstry As a young man, Dean Allen worked for his fathers mechanical contracting company, emptying garbage cans, vacuuming floors and digging ditches. Working at age 16 as a janitor to earn money for his first car, he was impressed by the firms employees. So, even though he graduated from the University…
The 2014 Executive Excellence Awards
The Executive Excellence Awards began last year with a class of 14 luminaries. We follow up this year with 13 more a group that is at once eclectic yet linked by its relentless pursuit of the exceptional outcome, be it bottom-line performance, employee engagement or social awareness. Congratulations to the recipients of the 2014 Executive…
Executive Q&A with Harley Franco
Harley Francos Seattle-based holding company runs a fleet of tugboats and barges that deliver oil by sea to ships in harbors across the country. By building what he says is the safest, cleanest, greenest marine services company in the region, Franco has garnered a huge share of the oil delivery business of the large oil…
Executive Q&A: William J. Ruckelshaus
Bill Ruckelshauss varied career as a consultant, PepsiCo executive and Silicon Valley investment banker prepared him well for the task of taking InfoSpace, a survivor of the dot-com bust, and reinventing it as Blucora, which now has a diverse portfolio of online companies with estimated 2013 revenues of $477 million, more than double its 2011…
Executive Q&A: Dwayne Clark, Aegis Living
YOUTH: I was the baby of the family. The greatest gift my mother gave me was confidence. We were dirt poorshe worked as a short-order cookbut she would say things like, Were just like the Kennedys. Were Catholic and theyre Catholic. Were Irish and theyre Irish. It took the mystique out of it. VULNERABILITY: There…
Executive Q&A: Robert Donegan- President, Ivar’s
During his 15-year tenure as president, Bob Donegan has doubled sales at Ivars, the Seattle-based seafood outlet that celebrated its 75th birthday in August. The company now has 850 year-round employees and sales of close to $80 million annually. As chair of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and a member of the design committee…
Executive Q&A: Joe Wang, CEO of WatchGuard Technologies
Born in China and educated at some of that nations top universities, Joe Wang has become adept at managing the American way. He has turned around several companies, including WatchGuard, a provider of internet security solutions and network security appliances, which he has transformed since taking over as CEO six years ago. EARLY DAYS: I…