Advertising & PR

Michelle Cole, state capitol bureau chief for The Oregonian, is joining Gallatin Public Affairs to become the firm’s first director of content and research. She will start Dec. 1.

Cole, who has worked as a capitol reporter in Salem and Boise, will provide content for government relations, crisis communications, digital communications and ballot-measure and issue-advocacy campaigns. She will be based in Portland and will serve Gallatin clients throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Cole has been a reporter with The Oregonian since 1999, covering the Legislature and state government along with environmental, energy and natural resource issues. Previously she worked at the Idaho Statesman, where she served as a business and political reporter, metro editor and editorial-page editor.

Cole’s knowledge of public-policy issues includes workers compensation, taxes, budgets, environmental policy and health care.

Cole began her journalism career in Twin Falls in 1987. She has won awards for her reporting and writing including the Bruce Baer Award, Oregon journalism’s top prize for investigative reporting; and several first-place awards from the Society of Professional Journalists.

She earned her master’s degree in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in British/American literature from Scripps College.

Construction & design

Will Chivers, Collin Hill and Jake Salinas have joined CSHQA, a Boise architectural firm.

Structural engineer-in-training Chivers was an engineering technician at Boise National Forest where he was involved with sanitary surveys for drinking-water systems and performed topographical surveys and line surveys for roads. He received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Boise State University and passed the Fundamentals of Engineering exam in 2012. He participated in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Steel Bridge Design Competition in 2011 and designed a manufacturing plant as team leader of his senior design project.

Hill, an archive-system support clerk, gained customer-service skills and construction experience at Ennis Fine Furniture in Boise and as co-owner of Hill Brothers Construction, Pocatello. He received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Idaho, Moscow and will receive his masters of architecture from the University of Idaho in Boise. Hill was the president of the Idaho State University Architecture Club in 2008-2009 and made the Dean’s List.

Salinas, an architectural student intern, has worked as a research assistant for University of Idaho’s Integrated Design Lab and a sales associate at Oconik Custom Eyewear & Apparel, Boise. He also has a background in construction. He received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Idaho and is pursuing his master’s of architecture. He was a finalist in a student-design competition in 2010, received a Hispanic Business Association scholarship and received of the Lewis & Clark Building Contractors Association scholarship in 2007.

Education

Aberdeen agribusiness leader Dirk Driscoll has been named to the Idaho State University Foundation board of directors.

As a managing partner of Driscoll Brothers Partnership, the brothers oversee the farming of more than 20,000 acres of potatoes, wheat, sugar beets and corn. They own and operate Driscoll Potatoes Inc., a plant in American Falls that packs and ships fresh potatoes throughout the United States.

The family also owns and operates a trucking company, a truck repair and service center, a wholesale and retail oil-and-fuel company and a grain elevator.

Health care

Dr. Teresa D. Boyd, D.O., has been appointed chief of staff of the Boise VA Medical Center.

Boyd was born and raised in Texas and received her doctor of osteopathic medicine degree from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Worth in 1986. She completed an internship in Osteopathic Medicine at Brighton Medical Center in Portland, Maine, in 1987. Boyd worked as a staff attending physician at the Brighton Medical Center from 1987 to 1996. She then became the trauma director and medical director of the Emergency Medical Service at the Concho County Hospital in Eden, Texas.

From 1997 to the present, Dr. Boyd has served in several physician leadership positions, including chief medical officer for the largest primary-care clinic in the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, and subsequently the chief of the Emergency Department at the system. She was the deputy chief of staff for the STVHCS from 2009 to 2011, overseeing clinical operations. She recently served as the physician and director of systems redesign at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.

Dr. Boyd is a diplomat of the American Osteopathic Board of Family Physicians. She has attended various VA training seminars and received numerous certifications, including System Wide Ongoing Assessment & Review Strategy (SOARS) consultant training and Administrative Investigation Board (AIB) Training. Dr. Boyd is a participating member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, the American College of Physician Executives and Mensa.

Dr. Janeen Richins has joined Anesthesia Associates of Boise. Her expertise is in pediatric and regional anesthesia.

Richins was born and raised in Idaho Falls. She attended Brigham Young University and Utah State University as an undergraduate. She earned her medical degree from the University of Utah School of Medicine and completed her residency in anesthesiology at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. She completed a regional anesthesiology fellowship at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and a pediatric anesthesiology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She is married with two young children.

Law

U.S. Judge Mikel H. Williams and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence G. Wasden have earned the Idaho State Bar’s Professionalism Award.

Williams, of Boise, was recognized for his dedication and commitment to the profession and his work on the Idaho Academy of Leadership for Lawyers.

Wasden, of Boise, earned the award for his professionalism, integrity and work on behalf of the everyday people. He is also active in numerous national organizations including having served as the past president of the National Association of Attorneys General.

Boise lawyers Robert M. Meek, Gary G. Allen, Keely E. Duke and Susan M. Moss have been honored by the Bar for their pro bono work to help people who cannot afford to pay for legal services. Meek works at Boise Inc. Allen is a partner at Givens Pursley LLP. Duke is with Duke, Scanlan & Hall PLLC. Moss is at Banducci Woodward Schwartzman PLLC.

Seiniger Law Offices of Boise has been named to “Best Law Firms” in the newly released rankings from U.S. News Media Group and Best Lawyers. The firm has been given a Tier 1 rating, the highest rating awarded. The firm was chosen for its reputation in both workers’ compensation and personal-injury litigation.

Manufacturing

Boise Inc. has given $45,000 to help Boise State’s College of Business and Economics (COBE) and its Centre for Creativity and Innovation fulfill their mission to be a place for creative community collaboration, learning and problem-solving.

The fund will provide group facilitators for The Gang, a group of eight Boise organizations that collaborate on problem-solving. It also will support speakers for the Creative Edge Workshops, yearly gatherings on creativity and innovation, and building the knowledge base of students and faculty members on organizational creativity and innovation through case studies, surveys and other approaches.

Boise Inc. also will underwrite the center’s inaugural publication of “Business Aha! Tips,” a series of concise, easy-to-read books written by Boise State faculty to help managers apply creativity for themselves and their organizations. Boise Inc. President and CEO Alexander Toeldte will write forewords for two of the books.

Nonprofits

Kelly Parker and Betsy Appelgren have joined United Way of Treasure Valley as relationship and development manager and an office administrator.

Parker assists in the creative development, design, implementation and evaluation of fundraising strategies. Other duties include building relationships with companies and individuals as part of United Way of Treasure Valley’s year-round community-impact work.

Previously she worked for Bank of the Cascades for seven years. She held various titles, including branch manager at the Eagle office and later at the Meridian office. She also served as a personal relationship banker and a credit analyst.

Parker earned bachelor’s degrees in management and decision sciences at Washington State University, graduating in 2002. She also is a former loaned executive at United Way of Treasure Valley.

Appelgren is responsible for coordinating office operations and procedures to ensure organizational effectiveness and efficiency.

Appelgren most recently served as an account manager at ITG Division of Corporate Technologies LLC in Boise for two years. Appelgren has extensive experience in marketing, advertising, public relations and project management.

Appelgren has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and business administration from Northern Arizona University.

Marcy Flansburg has been elected to serve as a board member of the Idaho Nonprofit Center board of directors. Flansburg is the assistant vice president and branch manager at D.L. Evans Bank’s Cole and Emerald Branch in Boise, and has 30 years of experience in the banking industry.

Flansburg has been extensively involved with the center, which aims to represent the interests of Idaho’s 4,800 nonprofit organizations, 48,700 employees and 400,000 volunteers. The center’s mission is to build strong and accountable nonprofits and rally support for the nonprofit sector.

Flansburg is an ambassador for the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce and volunteers with the Idaho Humane Society.

Other businesses

Grand Teton Vodka, in Driggs, was awarded 94 points by the Chicago-based Beverage Testing Institute and won a gold medal in the International Review of Spirits Competition. It was also rated as a best buy.

The distillery is new, having just started production in August. This is its first competition.

The distillery is a small craft distillery that produces its vodka from scratch, from raw product to bottling, using Idaho potatoes and water drawn from a deep well on the property.