Sibling collaborations and long-term tech bets were just a couple of the storylines at EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards ceremony in Bellevue, Wash., Friday night — recognizing winners across seven categories in the Pacific Northwest regional finals of the national business competition.
Seattle-based RFID technology company Impinj won the technology category, as CEO Chris Diorio recounted the company’s 16-year journey to its IPO last year. “Today it’s a beginning of us realizing our vision of connecting every item in the everyday world to the Internet,” he said.
Meanwhile, two of the other winners were teams of brothers: Rick and David Cantu of systems integrator and cloud services company Redapt of Redmond, Wash., and Chad and Harlan Robins of Seattle’s cancer-fighting Adaptive Biotechnologies in the life sciences category.
“First of all, I feel like a member of the lucky sperm club. I’ve been asking my brother for 20 years to invent something that I could commercialize,” joked Adaptive CEO Chad Robins about his brother, Harlan Robins.
“I’m just the arm candy,” deadpanned Harlan Robins, the company’s head of innovation who also leads the Computational Biology Program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Others winners were Jill Nelson of Portland based Ruby Receptionists in the services category; Rodell Notbohm, CEO of Bothell, Wash.-based Apollo Video Technology in the media, entertainment and communications category; Jaime Schmidt and Michael Cammarata of Portland-based Schmidt’s Naturals in consumer products and retail; and Stein Kruse, CEO of Seattle-based Holland America Group, in real estate, hospitality and construction.
The winners now go on to compete at the national Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. Nine of the finalists are based in the city of Seattle, and six in the Seattle region, while six were from Portland. Here’s the full list of finalists. Continue reading below for video clips and more pictures from the evening.
- 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, Founder
- 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 Naturals | Jaime Schmidt, Founder / Chief Product Officer, and Michael Cammarata, Chief Global Strategy Officer
- Vacasa | Eric Breon, CEO
- Zipwhip | John Lauer, CEO / Co-Founder
[Note: EY is a GeekWire annual sponsor, and GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop was a judge for the awards.]
Excited to be at the @EYnews #EOYPNW awards! Just a quick peek at the festivities… pic.twitter.com/9ajADStqSp
— GeekWire (@geekwire) June 10, 2017
First #EOYPNW award goes to @SchmidtsNatural! Congratulations….?? pic.twitter.com/KJF3iMohjL
— GeekWire (@geekwire) June 10, 2017
Winner of Media, Entertainment, and Communications category at #EOYPNW is…. @ApolloVideo pic.twitter.com/9SldWBmlOv
— GeekWire (@geekwire) June 10, 2017
The winner of #EOYPNW award for "Services" is @JillNelsonPDX, founder/CEO of @callruby, who likes to "Practice Wow-ism!" pic.twitter.com/zbDZPeAzKq
— GeekWire (@geekwire) June 10, 2017
"…unbelievable opportunity of a lifetime." –Chad Robins, @adaptivebiotech
"I'm just the arm candy," –Harlan (biotech wiz). #EOYPNW pic.twitter.com/iFVCLsHknz— GeekWire (@geekwire) June 10, 2017
"Wow. …I could just stop there," —@Impinj CEO/co-founder Chris Diorio. (Presented by @matt_oppy, former winner.) #EOYPNW pic.twitter.com/0NdFbkts23
— GeekWire (@geekwire) June 10, 2017
Congrats to brother-duo, David & Rick Cantu, of @redapt for winning "Enterprise Technology" #EOYPNW category. Short joke and all… pic.twitter.com/n31aqTrvzn
— GeekWire (@geekwire) June 10, 2017
"The difference is in the follow through," #EOYPNW awards emcee @KaciAitchison says. (After a spelling lesson: "entrepreneur".) pic.twitter.com/U3eQIZKfb6
— GeekWire (@geekwire) June 10, 2017
"This award is for 65,000 people that I have the privilege of working with," @HALcruises CEO Stein Kruse says on accspto g #EOYPNW award. pic.twitter.com/W3KBAlOuNZ
— GeekWire (@geekwire) June 10, 2017
