— General John Hyten, a 40-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, was named executive director of Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future. Hyten was also appointed as strategic advisor to senior leadership at the Seattle-area space company founded by Jeff Bezos.
Hyten, who recently retired, was the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation’s second highest-ranking military officer.
“We are deeply honored to have General Hyten apply his tremendous leadership skills and space expertise to Blue Origin and Club for the Future. His knowledge of the space industry and his passion for inspiring the next generation make him a natural fit for these roles,” said Bob Smith, CEO of Blue Origin, in a statement.
— Laure Rudelle Arnaud, previously head of people for NFT startup LaCollection.io, joined Sendinblue as chief people and impact officer.
Sendinblue, which sells marketing and sales tools to businesses, is based in Paris but has its U.S. home in Seattle where it employs 40 people.
Sendinblue recently joined 68 other companies in France promising to increase gender equity at startups, a move championed by Arnaud since joining the company in May. Arnaud will be based in Paris.
— University of Washington professor of industrial and systems engineering Thomas Furness retired. Furness, known as Seattle’s “grandfather” of virtual reality who founded the UW’s Human Interface Technology Lab, will remain a professor emeritus.
In a LinkedIn post Furness noted his last lecture to students in an entrepreneurship course. “I remind them that they need to have fun in their work and life, to never lose the kid inside, and always be grateful for all they have been given,” he said.
— Thomas Madden is a new entrepreneur-in-residence at Washington Clean Energy Testbeds. The University of Washington endeavor provides lab space and other support to researchers and entrepreneurs developing zero-emission technologies.
Madden was previously CTO at BenAn Energy and Aquion Energy, where he worked on developing saltwater batteries. He currently is principal at Madden Echem concepts, a 6-employee battery technology developer based in Hartford, Conn.
Other personnel changes across the Pacific Northwest tech industry:
- Barney Silver, previously VP of finance and operations for BitTitan, joined cloud services company Skytap as CFO.
- Gavriella Schuster, formerly corporate VP, One Commercial Partner at Microsoft, has joined Seattle DEI startup Included as an advisor.
- Josh Kerns is joining Pallet Shelter as its public relations director, moving on from work as a communications consultant.
- Joseph Sunga left his position as staff product manager at autonomous vehicle company Aurora. In a LinkedIn post he said he is “looking forward to the next adventure.”
