Banking
Cheryl Clark and Stacie Bernhart have been appointed as real estate loan officers at the Coeur d’Alene branch of Idaho Independent Bank. Chris Noland has been appointed real estate loan officer at the bank’s Hayden branch.
Clark has 14 years of mortgage lending experience. She is active with the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors and the Women’s Council.
Bernhart has 15 years of mortgage lending experience. She graduated with an associate degree in general studies from Green River Community College.
Noland has seven years of mortgage lending experience. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Whitworth University and is working on his master’s degree in business from the University of Idaho. Noland is an Idaho Drug Free Youth board member.
All three previously worked for other local financial institutions.
Education
Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff, Concordia University School of Law director of legal research and writing, was selected by the Legal Writing Institute to serve on a teaching resource committee.
The committee’s responsibility is to work with the website and listserv committee to create a database of FAQs for legal research and to collect and disseminate resources on teaching legal writing.
Fordyce-Ruff’s background includes serving as visiting professor of legal research and writing at the University of Oregon School of Law. She also wrote “Idaho Legal Research,” a textbook designed to help legal professionals and students. After law school, Fordyce-Ruff clerked for state District Judge Joel D. Horton in Boise. She writes a monthly column on legal writing for the Idaho State Bar’s Advocate.
Fordyce-Ruff earned her J.D. from the University of Oregon School of Law and received her B.A. (with honors) in international studies from the University of Wyoming. While in law school, she served as the managing editor of the Oregon Law Review (2003-04).
The Legal Writing Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving legal writing by providing a forum for discussion and scholarship about legal writing, analysis, and research.
Financial services
Higgins & Rutledge, one of Idaho’s oldest and largest independent insurance agencies, has formed a strategic partnership with Kash Browne & Co. LLC, a Boise agency specializing in employee benefits, human resources, risk management and employee-protection services.
The TitleOne Golf Classic golf tournament raised $10,000 each for The First Tee of Idaho, the YMCA’s Camp at Horsethief Reservoir and Camp River Run. The tournament has raised nearly $300,000 since its inception in 2001.
TitleOne partnered with AuctionFrogs.org, an Idaho online charitable fundraising company, for the second year to hold its golf tournament silent auction online. The auction raised more than $7,500.
Health care
Dr. Emma Campbell has joined Cornerstone Psychological Associates PLLC.
Campbell has been practicing psychology since 2005. She has worked in hospitals, community counseling centers, schools, nursing homes and prisons. Her expertise is in marital and family counseling. Campbell works with couples, families, adults, teens and children ages 6 and up.
She earned her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Wheaton College near Chicago. She is married with two young children and has just moved to Boise from Illinois to be closer to family.
Sally Jeffcoat, president and CEO of Saint Alphonsus Health System, was named one of 120 Women Hospital and Health System leaders to know by Becker’s Hospital Review.
The honor recognizes executives who demonstrate leadership in the hospital and health care industries. The women were chosen based on management and leadership skills, including oversight of hospital or health system operations, financial turnarounds and quality-improvement initiatives.
Law
John Stegner, the administrative district judge in Idaho’s Second Judicial District, and Viki Howard, the statewide coordinator for Children and Families in the Courts, have been selected to receive awards by the state’s judiciary.
Stegner is the 2012 recipient of The Granata Award, which is presented annually to the Idaho trial court judge who best exemplifies the professionalism of the late Idaho District Court Judge George G. Granata Jr.
Stegner, a University of Idaho Law School graduate, has been a district judge since 1997. He is serving for the second time as the administrative district judge in the Second District and has served on judicial committees and commissions, including the Idaho Criminal Justice Commission. Since 2002, Stegner has presided over the Latah County Drug Court. He frequently lectures at the University of Idaho Law School.
Howard is the recipient of the Kramer Award, presented annually since 1999 to the person who best displays excellence in judicial administration. Howard has devoted a quarter century to working with families in the courts as a mediator, case manager, educator and administrator.
Howard was among the first to pioneer the use of mediation, parent education and case coordination services in Ada County child custody cases. All those approaches are now applied statewide.
The Kramer Award is named for the late Idaho District Judge Douglas D. Kramer. It has been presented annually since 1986.
Alan K. Hull, Brian K. Julian and Michael P. Stefanic of Anderson Julian & Hull LLP were selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2013.
Hull was named the Lawyer of the Year for employee benefits (ERISA) law. Julian was named Lawyer of the Year for litigation — labor and employment. Stefanic was named Lawyer of the Year for product liability litigation — defendants.
Eight attorneys from the Boise office of Stoel Rives LLP were selected by their peers for inclusion in the 2013 edition of The Best Lawyers in America 2013. They are:
Kevin J. Beaton, environmental law, litigation-environmental, and water law.
Paul M. Boyd, corporate law, and mergers and acquisitions law.
James C. Dale, employment law-management, and litigation-labor and employment law.
Mark S. Geston, commercial litigation.
Quentin M. Knipe, real estate law.
Krista K. McIntyre, environmental law.
Kris J. Ormseth, corporate law, and mergers and acquisitions law.
J. Walter Sinclair, bet-the-company litigation, commercial litigation, litigation-antitrust, litigation-securities, and litigation-trusts and estates.
The legal guide annually publishes lists of selected attorneys based on a comprehensive survey in which thousands of the top lawyers in the U.S. confidentially evaluate their peers.
Natural resources
Randy Buffington, senior vice president of operations at Coeur d’ Alene Mines Corp., will be appointed to senior vice president and chief operating officer effective Jan. 1. Buffington will succeed K. Leon Hardy, who will retire.
Buffington has 28 years of experience in the precious-metals mining industry, providing operational and technical support to large-scale operations in the United States, South America and Africa. His expertise includes senior-level technical and strategic planning, mine start-up, operating efficiency and optimization, and safety and environmental leadership.
Before joining Coeur d’ Alene Mines, Buffington served in general management roles with Barrick Gold Corp., including managing director of Barrick’s Lumwana copper project in Zambia and general manager of the Goldstrike mine complex in Nevada. At Barrick, Buffington also was general manager of the Ruby Hill and Bald Mountain operations in Nevada. From the late 1980s to 2003, he held senior roles with Cominco American and Placer Dome Inc.
Nonprofits
The City Club of Boise has entered into an agreement with Association Management Group of Meridian to handle day-to-day organizational activities. AMG will work with the board of directors in carrying out the policies and coordinating activities for the organization.
The principal owner of AMG is Rick Waitley, who founded the company 30 years ago. AMG primarily handles association management and lobbying for agriculture groups in Idaho and the Northwest. AMG represents more than 35 clients. The staff serving City Club of Boise will be Waitley, the executive director; Kendra Waitley, manager; and Kyra Gibson, event marketer.
The club holds 14-16 lunch forums on a variety of topics and offers salons and tours around the Valley.
Retail
R.C. Willey celebrated its grand reopening and 13th year in the Treasure Valley with a gift of $5,000 and 1,000 backpacks to support the Idaho Foodbank’s Backpack Program.
The $5,000 gift will supply 21 children with weekend food for a school year. The 1,000 backpacks will be distributed to those among the 2,000 children enrolled in the program who need new ones.
Services
Brent Blackburn has been named manager of the Metro Express Car Wash in Boise.
Blackburn has been a Metro Express employee for six years. His responsibilities include customer relations, maintaining equipment, overseeing a staff of seven, and overall management and profitability of the site. Blackburn is working toward a radiology degree at Boise State University.
Metro Express is a car wash provider in Ada and Canyon counties with locations in Boise, Meridian and Nampa. Founded in 2004, Metro Express has won awards for its environmental and community outreach programs. Its fundraisers have contributed nearly $24,000 to local charities in the past two years.
Technology
Michael Rayfield has joined Micron Technology as vice president of the Wireless Solutions Group.
Rayfield will manage all aspects of the group, which provides digital memory products, including multichip packages, to the global mobile-device market.
With 15 years of executive management experience and nearly 30 years in the industry, Rayfield worked for the past seven years as the vice president and general manager of NVIDIA Inc.’s mobile-business unit, where his team created advanced computer-on-a-chip technology and won mobile-industry reference designs.
Rayfield’s background also includes executive sales, business development and operations roles at Stretch Inc., Reshape Inc., Cisco Systems, Growth Networks and Texas Instruments. He began his career in technical-sales roles with Texas Instruments.
Rayfield holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Vermont.
Crucial.com, an online retailer specializing in computer-memory upgrades and solid-state drives, was named the recipient of the 2012 Bronze Stevie Award for excellence in computer hardware websites at an awards gala hosted by The American Business Awards.
The Stevie Awards were created to honor and generate public recognition of the achievements and contributions of organizations and business people worldwide.
Crucial.com also won the Silver Stevie Award for excellence in customer service at The American Business Awards in New York earlier this year.
Crucial.com was founded to make computer-memory upgrades easy for the everyday consumer. It is owned by Micron Technology Inc.
