The Pacific Northwest is known for its ruggedly independent character and entrepreneurial spirit.
Nowhere are those qualities on better display than EY’s annual Entrepreneur of the Year program, and today the organizers announced the 21 regional finalists who will compete for the title of the Pacific Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year and go on to compete in the national competition.
Last year’s Pacific Northwest winners included Puppet CEO Luke Kanies, Elemental Technologies CEO Sam Blackman, Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer and Juno Therapeutics CEO Hans Bishop, among others.
This year’s regional winners will be announced at a special gala on Friday, June 9 at The Hyatt Regency in Bellevue, Wash.
Here are the 2017 Pacific Northwest finalists:
Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation | Chad Robins, President / CEO / Co-Founder, and Harlan Robins, Head of Innovation / Founder
Apollo Video Technology | Rodell Notbohm, CEO
BitTitan | Geeman Yip, Founder / CEO
Blue Star Donuts | Katie Poppe, Co-Owner / CEO
Bonanza.com | William Harding, CEO
Coding Dojo | Richard Wang, CEO
Digital Trends | Ian Bell, CEO
EnergySavvy | Aaron Goldfeder, CEO
Genoa, a QoL Healthcare Company | John Figueroa, CEO, and Mark Peterson, Chief Commercial Officer
Holland America Group | Stein Kruse, CEO
Hop Jack’s | Mark Eggen, Owner
Impinj | Chris Diorio, CEO / Co-Founder
NanoString Technologies, Inc. | Brad Gray, President / CEO
Outreach | Manuel Medina, CEO
Panopto | Eric Burns, CEO
Redapt, Inc. | Rick Cantu, CEO / Co-Founder, and David Cantu, COO / Co-Founder
Ruby Receptionists | Jill Nelson, Founder / CEO
Salt & Straw Ice Cream | Kim Malek, Co-Founder
Schmidt’s Deodorant Company, LLC | Jaime Schmidt, Founder / Chief Product Officer, and Michael Cammarata, Chief Global Strategy Officer
Vacasa | Eric Breon, CEO / Founder
Zipwhip | John Lauer, CEO / Co-Founder
[Editor’s Note: EY is a GeekWire sponsor, and GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop was a member of the panel of judges for the EOY Pacific Northwest awards this year.]
