Friedman (UW photo via Patch.com)

Rob Friedman has been named the new director of University of Washington Tacoma’s Institute of Technology. The New Yorker — who arrives at the organization from the New Jersey Institute of Technology — replaces Orlando Baiocchi, reports Patch.com. Friedman says he plans to boost federal funding for the institute, noting that he’ll be “working with faculty to gin up as many proposals as we can.”

David Poston, a former executive at Corixa, Honeywell and Todd Shipyards who most recently served as CFO at Seattle biotech AmpliFi, has joined the The Allen Institute for Brain Science as chief operating officer. He replaces Elaine Jones, who is stepping down as planned after serving in the COO for the past seven years. The organization, bankrolled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, employs more than 170 people.

Klustner

Kevin Klustner, the former president and CEO of Verdiem and former COO at WRQ, has taken over the CEO post at Powerit Solutions. He replaces Matthew Schiltz, who left the Seattle company in June to become CEO of Symform. Verdiem and Powerit share some commonalities, with both developing technologies to help businesses better manage their energy consumption.

“Powerit Solutions has very successful businesses in North America within the metals/foundry and industrial food processing sectors. Our goal now is to take this proven product, expand our partner network, leverage our Scandinavian operations to expand internationally, and further enhance our product road map and long-term strategy,” said Klustner in a statement.

Dave Olsen, the co-founder and former senior vice president of culture and leadership development at Starbucks, has joined the board of Atigeo. Meanwhile, Christopher Burgess has been named to the position of chief security officer and president. Atigeo is developing a new business intelligence product called xPatterns.

DeSantis

Seattle electronic signature startup DocuSign is expanding operations in Europe, establishing a new office in London under the direction of Bob DeSantis. DeSantis has served as vice president of U.S. sales and will relocate to London to become managing director of Europe. The company also has hired Marc Carlson — who previously worked at Microposite, Ariba, Rasna and General Motors — to take on the role of vice president of North American enterprise sales.

Trulia is following in the footsteps of Zillow, yet again. The San Francisco real estate company has hired Dr. Jed Kolko as the company’s chief economist. That’s a position that Zillow has filled through Stan Humphries who just so happened to be testifying in front of the Senate this week on the topic of  “New Ideas to Address the Glut of Foreclosed Properties.”

Kolko

In a blog post, Trulia notes that Kolko will advise the company on the roll out of Trulia Estimates, a product which mirrors Zillow’s home valuation tool known as Zestimates.

“We believe Jed’s long-term point of view on housing issues is exactly what consumers need to help them understand the health of the economy in the long run rather than another short-term crystal ball prediction about the real estate market,” said Trulia CEO Pete Flint in a blog post.

SETU Software Systems, a company incubated at IIIT campus in Hyderabad, India, has named Srini Koppolu as chairman. Koppolu — who spent 21 years at Microsoft — is the former corporate vice president and managing director of the Microsoft India Development Center. “There is a clear alignment between my passion and SETU‘s vision,” said Koppolu.

The Summit Power Group, which is developing low-carbon electric power projects, has named Sasha Mackler as vice president of the Seattle company’s new carbon capture and sequestration enterprise.

Mackler

“Sasha was an integral part of the Bipartisan Policy Center Energy Project, helping shape the organization’s vision for a secure and clean energy future,” said James L. Jones, current co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Energy Project. “We’ll miss Sasha at the BPC, but I expect his ongoing contributions to our country’s clean-energy future to be significant in his new capacity at Summit.”

 

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