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DONATIONS

• Bechtel is donating $10,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs to support the organization’s College Tours program. Each summer, dozens of high school students tour universities, community colleges, and technical schools across the Northwest to learn about different degrees and educational opportunities available to them. This summer, thanks to Bechtel’s support, more than 25 teens will tour eight colleges across Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Stops include Boise State University, Portland State University and Lewis & Clark College.

FUNDRAISERS
• The Junior Achievement Bowling Classic fundraiser raised more than $184,500. Costume contest winners were: Getaway fun winner: Don Persinger, Northwest CPA; Costume contest winner, Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, National Program Unicorns; Top fundraising company: Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, $20,000; Top fundraising team: Bechtel/team captain, Kent Ozkardesh, $3,695; Top fundraising individual, Kent Ozkardesh, $3,108.

AWARDS & HONORS

• Pasco City Television, or PSC-TV, earned the Alliance for Community Media’s Hometown Award for its extensive coverage of the Pasco City Council meetings. The ACM’s annual awards program celebrates and encourages community media and local cable shows aired on public, educational and governmental access cable television channels. PSC-TV has been serving the Pasco community since 2006. This award adds to a string of national programming awards won by PSC-TV in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
• Several drivers took home awards during Ben Franklin Transit’s annual “bus roadeo,” an obstacle course competition. In the category of Dial-A-Ride paratransit, Del Long placed first and Dale Engles placed second. In fixed route bus service, Gabe Beliz placed first, Nathan Miller placed second and Raya Phelps placed third. Beliz and Miller will go on to the state competition held as part of the Washington State Transit Association’s 2023 annual conference in August in Vancouver.
• Garrick (Rick) Redden was named the Alumnus of the Year for 2022-23 by Leadership Tri-Cities. Redden works as a manager in instructional System Design at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He was in Leadership Tri-Cities Class 17. He served as board chair of the leadership organization for more than half a decade.
• The recent graduates of Leadership Tri-Cities Class 26 are Jon Blodgett, Banner Bank; Becky Burghart, National Park Service; Elizabeth Burtner, Columbia Basin College; April Culwell, city of Pasco; Adrienne Fletcher, Academy of Children’s Theatre; Trish Herron, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Emilia Keener, Lifepoint: Trios and Lourdes Health; Jenna Kochenauer, Washington River Protection Solutions; Kristy Leitze, Lifepoint: Trios Health; Mariana Marquez, Sital Community Leader; Brooke Myrland, Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce; Jamie Ohl Turner, Providence Health System; Kendra Palomarez, Catholic Charities; Brady Quinton, Franklin County; Jet Richardson, Tri-County Partners Habitat for Humanity; Beau Ruff, Cornerstone Wealth Strategies; Shannon Sackett, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Alice Schlegel, Columbia Basin College; Meegan Tripp, U.S. Department of Energy; and Tracy Wilson, Pasco School District.
• The U.S. Department of Energy has chosen Washington State University Tri-Cities as one of six grand-prize winners in the final phase of its Inclusive Energy Innovation Prize. WSU Tri-Cities will use the $250,000 award to continue its Empowering the Future Energy Workforce plan, which includes developing an energy and environment certificate for students.
• Kennewick School District presented John Perkins, a community volunteer and advocate for public education, as this year’s Southeast Washington Association of School Administrators Community Leadership Award winner. He has been a sounding board for the district’s superintendents, administrators and school boards throughout the years. His leadership, perspective and decision-making has guided the district through the development of 22 capital projects which include four completely new elementary schools, one new middle school and 17 other schools that were either remodeled or replaced, including the new Kennewick High School.

APPOINTMENTS

• Trios Health has appointed three of its residents to serve as chief residents for the hospital system’s family and internal medicine residency programs. Dr. Candice Pollard has been selected as chief resident for the Family Medicine Residency Program, and Dr. Lexi Capers and Dr. Raymond Lam have been chosen as co-chiefs for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. The physicians were selected by their fellow residents and will serve as chiefs for one year, through June 30, 2024. Chief residents provide leadership within a medical residency program by teaching, facilitating conferences, supervising, scheduling, implementing policy, mediating and serving as role models for other residents. The residents are supervised by attending faculty and their program directors.
• Richa Sigdel is Pasco’s new deputy city manager, effective June 19. She previously served as the city’s finance director, revitalizing the finance department, spearheading numerous projects and helping to earn the department multiple recognitions from the Government Finance Officers Association, said a statement from the city. She also spent 10 years in the national laboratory system. Sigdel has a bachelor’s in accounting and a Master of Business Administration from Washington State University.
• Laurel J. Holland has been sworn in as the first federal prosecutor appointed to serve full time in the newly staffed U.S. Attorney’s Office in Richland. Holland will serve as assistant United States attorney in the Criminal Division, which handles federal criminal cases. She previously served as a deputy prosecuting attorney for Benton County from 2009-15 and again from 2019-23. In between, she served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Yakima, from 2015-18. From April 2022 until now, Holland served as a special assistant United States attorney, handling cases in both state and federal court. Throughout her career, Holland has been recognized for her work prosecuting cases involving the exploitation of young children.

RESIDENCY

• Trios Health welcomes the Trios Health Residency Class of 2026. The new residency class joined Trios Health earlier this month for their respective three-year residency programs and includes four new family medicine resident physicians and five new internal medicine resident physicians.

The Trios Health Residency Class of 2026 includes:

Dr. Eseoghene Adun, family medicine, Meharry Medical College. Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee.

Dr. Rachel Donaldson, internal medicine, American University of Antigua College of Medicine. Hometown: Dawson Springs, Kentucky.

Dr. Matthew Lee, internal medicine, Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Hometown: Moreno Valley, California.

Dr. William Mortell, internal medicine, University of Pikeville, Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine. Hometown: Lake Tapas, Washington.

Dr. Costina Papatheodorou, family medicine, Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine. Hometown: Bay Area, California.

Dr. Nicholas Sanseri, family medicine, Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine. Hometown: Redmond, Oregon.

Dr. Cody Sellers, internal medicine, Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dr. David Van-Thai, family medicine, McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Hometown: Houston, Texas.

Dr. Ryan Wertz, internal medicine, Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine. Hometown: Altoona, Pennsylvania.

The Trios Health Family and Internal Medicine Residency Programs are 36 months in duration and include both inpatient and outpatient experiences. One-on-one training is provided by faculty who work at Trios Health and in the community. Both programs are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

NEW HIRES

• Mark Rhoads has joined the Hanford Vit Plant as the new maintenance and technical staff training manager, reporting to Owen Peters. He brings a wealth of the knowledge, including 26 years of submarine nuclear Navy experience and more than 30 years of instruction experience. Most recently, he served as a training specialist at HAMMER Federal Training Center, where he held a variety of training responsibilities, including managing the conduct of the operations training program and creating the remote switching operator course. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in workforce education and development from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale.
• Daniel Mendoza has been hired as the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant’s employee concerns program and ethics and compliance (E&C) manager. He reports to Heather McMurdo. Mendoza brings over 20 years of experience in leadership and management to his new role. Most recently, he served as a project specialist in E&C and a senior human resources specialist with Washington River Protection Solutions, where he developed new initiatives to continually improve the effectiveness of the E&C programs and conducted numerous E&C and employee relations investigations.
• Brian Cable is the Hanford Vit Plant’s new senior legal counsel. He takes over as WTP senior legal counsel for Leslie Droubay, who will be taking on other responsibilities with Bechtel. The transition will be completed over the next few months, with Droubay retaining primary responsibilities for a few special projects through the remainder of the year. Cable joins the team with more than 22 years of experience in law. Most recently, he served as associate general counsel at Battelle at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Washington State University and earned his Juris Doctor degree from Lewis & Clark Law School.
• Heartlinks hired finance director Michael Dunlop to its leadership team. Dunlop brings financial experience to Heartlinks from previous work with both for- and not-for-profit health care organizations specializing in medical device manufacturing, privacy laws compliance, grant writing, as well as strategic business planning. Before joining Heartlinks, he had retired as the chief financial officer and director of special projects at Columbia Industries in Kennewick. He holds a Master of Business Administration from California State University, a Bachelor of Arts in Music Education from Walla Walla University and is a former Washington State Certified Public Accountant.
• Angie Brotherton joins the Hanford Vit Plant team as the deputy communications manager, reporting to Staci West. She replaces George Rangel, who left the project earlier this year to lead communications at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Brotherton most recently served as the assistant vice president of community relations and impact for Gesa Credit Union, the state’s second largest credit union. In this role she managed publicity for the construction and opening of new branches across the state, employee communications, statewide charitable giving and partnerships and executive communications. She worked in Gesa’s marketing and communications department for nearly 18 years. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Washington State University in digital technology and culture, with a minor in business administration. She serves on the board of the American Red Cross serving Central and Southeastern Washington.
• Alane Wilkerson is the new marketing and communications supervisor at Chaplaincy Health Care. A Tri-Cities native, she studied at Eastern Washington University. Her previous experience includes working as the public relations manager at Visit Tri-Cities.
• Dr. Jacobo Rivero has been hired to provide occupational medicine services full time at Prosser Memorial Health’s Prosser Clinic. He has been with the Prosser health system for more than a decade, serving as the chief medical officer from 2017-20. He served as the site occupational medical director for Medcor at Bechtel since 2020. Rivero earned his medical degree from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City and completed his residency at Family Medicine Spokane, a program affiliated with the University of Washington. He is board-certified in family practice and is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He’s also a certified medical examiner by the Federal Motor Safety Carrier Administration and a member of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.