Business beat

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Architecture

Bernardo|Wills Architects hired Kimberly Erzen as a BIM/CAD technician. Erzen has nine years of drafting experience and was previously with Elkay Foodservice.

Culinary

Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza will open a location at 926 N. Division St. in September. For more information, visit www.blazepizza.com.

A new deli and espresso, Slice and Grind, has opened at 2103 E. Diamond Ave.

Education

Alyson Blum joined Washington State University Health Sciences Spokane as a clinical assistant professor for the doctor of pharmacy program. Blum earned her doctor of pharmacy degree at WSU and is an obstetrics specialist.

Finance

Ian Anderson joined Mountain West Bank as a mortgage loan originator at the Spokane Valley branch. Anderson has more than five years of experience in the mortgage and banking industry.

DepositAccounts.com, a bank comparison website, named Idaho Independent Bank to its 2015 edition of the Top 200 Healthiest Banks in America. The website evaluated banks in the areas of capitalization, deposit growth, and loan to reserve ratios.

Rich Lentz, director of consumer lending at Spokane Teachers Credit Union, recently graduated from the Western CUNA Management School with highest possible honors. Lentz is only the seventh individual in the credit union league school’s 54 year history to achieve this honor. He joined STCU as a consumer loan manager in 2005.

Health care

Tracy Robinson joined the professional subspecialist radiology team at Inland Imaging. Robinson recently completed fellowship training in body imaging at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. Previously, he was with Seattle Radiologists.

April Tweedy earned the designation of Best Friends Master Trainer after completing training in a method of care for individuals living with Alzheimer’s and dementia that emphasizes respect, empathy, support and trust. Tweedy is a registered nurse and memory care supervisor at Touchmark on South Hill.

Insurance

Ali Stevens joined Fidelity Associates as an account manager. Stevens was previously a employee benefits account manager with Manuel Lujan Insurance Agencies in Albuquerque.

Law

Super Lawyers magazine named Robin Lynn Haynes, Michael Kapaun and Nathan Smith as 2015 Washington State Rising Stars in the fields of business litigation, banking and real estate, respectively. Haynes, Kapaun and Smith are attorneys with Witherspoon Kelley P.S. Several partners with the firm of Lee & Hayes have earned recognition as top intellectual property professionals. Lewis Lee and Brett Nelson have been named to the IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists and IAM Patent 1000: The World’s Leading Patent Professionals guides. Dave Divine, Bea Koempel-Thomas and Rob Hartman were also named to the IAM Patent 1000:

Inland Northwest Community Foundation named three new directors to its board as follows: Carla Altepeter of Numerica Credit Union; Robert A. Blume of Washington Trust Bank Wealth Management and Advisory Services; K. Collins Sprague of Avista Corp. In addition, the foundation named board officers as follows: chairman, Robert P. Bishopp of Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co.; vice chairman, Dale N. Schuman of Columbia Bank Trust and Investment Services; secretary, Shelley L. Bennett of Palouse Commercial Real Estate.

Realty

Tomlinson Beutler Group of Companies has been ranked No. 46 among more than 1,000 real estate brokerage firms nationwide in RISMedia’s 27th Annual Power Broker Report. The ranking is based on a national survey of residential real estate brokerage firms according to closed transaction numbers and closed sales volume.

Retail

Etailz hired Clint Bosma as an inventory clerk and Macee Baker as a lead generation associate.

Utilities

Avista Corp. announced that, upon the retirement of Christy Burmeister-Smith on Oct. 1, Ryan Krasselt will take on the duties of vice president, controller and principal accounting officer. Avista also named Ed Schlect as vice president and chief strategy officer, effective Sept. 8. Krasselt has been with Avista for 14 years and currently serves as the director of risk management and assistant treasurer. Schlect was previously the executive vice president of corporate development with Ecova.

Steve Helmbrecht has joined the advisory board for APANA. Helmbrecht is the president and chief executive officer of Lakeside Capital Group. Prior to that, he served as the chief financial officer of Itron from 2005 to 2014.