Advertising & PR

Dirk Robinson and Josh Smith have joined Mitchell + Palmer, a 4-year-old Boise advertising agency. Robinson is the chief financial officer, and Smith is a designer.

Robinson worked at Wieden + Kennedy in London and the Netherlands. He also served as finance director at several firms in Amsterdam, including 180 Amsterdam, Amsterdam Worldwide and The Reeves Agency, and he filled the role of interim chief financial officer at 72 and Sunny in Los Angeles.

A classically trained operatic tenor, he performs with Opera Idaho.

Smith has worked for the Walt Disney Co., MTV, VH1, HBO, Showtime, Nickelodeon and Snoop Dogg. He has degrees in music, business and technology.

Banking

Rob Carroll has been named branch manager of the Karcher branch of Home Federal Bank in Nampa. Belinda Sargent has been named branch manager of the Silverstone branch in Meridian.

Carroll supervises branch operations, expanding core deposits and loans and providing client service. With 13 years of financial industry experience, Carroll has been a personal banker, loan officer and sales manager. Carroll takes part in the Leadership Nampa Program.

Sargent has 20 years of management experience. She has been with Home Federal Bank for five years and has held several positions, including personal banker and branch manager. She attended San Diego State University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in marketing. Sargent is a member of the Boise and Eagle chambers of commerce and Business Network International of Southern Idaho.

Education

Howard Grimes has joined Idaho State University as vice president for research and economic development.

Grimes came from Washington State University, where he had been vice president for research, dean of the Graduate School and, most recently, director for the Center for the Environmental Research, Education and Outreach.

Grimes oversaw an interdisciplinary unit of 220 scientists examining the impact of climate change on living environments and agricultural ecosystems. Earlier he led the largest growth in grant funding in Washington State University history. He also coordinated a network of government agencies, universities and the private sector to bring university research to the market.

Grimes is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published on areas ranging from molecular biosciences to developing paradigms for fostering biotechnology development in the developing world. He earned his master’s degree in plant pathology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and his doctorate in botany from North Carolina State University.

Financial services

Nick Thiros has joined the Boise office of Eide Bailly LLP, a regional certified public accounting and business advisory firm, as a tax associate.

Thiros is a recent graduate of Boise State University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting. He previously earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Colorado State University with a minor in business administration. He has experience providing tax services to a variety of industries. He worked at Eide Bailly as an intern in the spring of 2011 and is working toward his CPA license.

Health care

Vicki Cutshall, Liz Salisbury and Brenda Bourn have joined St. Luke’s Humphrey’s Diabetes Center. Lisa Figgert has also joined as a physician business associate.

Law

Tom Arkoosh and Roy Eiguren, two of Idaho’s most experienced lawyers and lobbyists, have merged their practices to form Arkoosh Eiguren. A combined law and lobbying firm, Arkoosh Eiguren will consist of seven professionals and a support staff of three. The firm planned to open for business Dec. 3.

Arkoosh is an experienced litigator and lobbyist. He has tried commercial and criminal cases before judges and juries in state and federal courts of Idaho and Washington. Arkoosh is a practicing member of the Criminal Justice Act panel and chairs the board of directors of the Federal Defender Services of Idaho. He has personal roots in Idaho agriculture and has handled administrative issues related to water and use of Idaho’s natural resources, including practice before the Snake River Basin Adjudication Court and state agencies. Arkoosh is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Idaho College of Law and has served as the Gem County Prosecuting Attorney and general counsel for the Ida-Ore Development Corp.

Eiguren has 30 years of experience in public policy development and regulatory management. Eiguren is a director of Idaho Independent Bank. He has served as the special assistant to the administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration and as both a deputy Idaho attorney general and deputy secretary of state. Eiguren is included in the 2012 Top Rated Lawyers Guide to Energy/Environmental/Natural Resources Law, has attained Martindale-Hubbell’s highest rating for practicing attorneys in 2012, and was named to Best Lawyers in America and Who's Who in American Law. He earned his law degree from the University of Idaho and is a graduate of the executive management program of the Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business.

Arkoosh and Eiguren are the firm’s partners. Arkoosh Eiguren’s other professionals include:

• David Arkoosh, a lawyer, who focuses on commercial litigation, employment and corporate transactional law. He has a background in accounting and received his law degree from the University of Idaho.

• Nikeela Black, a lawyer, who specializes in mediation and family law and is completing her master’s degree in dispute resolution from Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine Law School. She received her law degree from the University of Idaho.

• William Jarocki, a lobbyist, with 12 years of experience in Idaho and Indiana. Jarocki served as the executive director of the Association of Idaho Cities.

• Daniel A. Nevala, a lawyer with a MBA, has 10 years of litigation experience in business, construction, real estate, natural resources and employment law. He earned his MBA and law degree from Gonzaga University.

Æ Gloria Totoricagüena, Ph.D., has 20 years of experience in research and project management in education, international politics, local and federal procurements and the development of public policy domestically and internationally. As president of Transnational Initiatives consulting firm, she researches, designs and manages public-private partnerships. Totoricagüena is also the coordinator for the Idaho Council of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, a regional economic and political alliance including public and private sector leadership from the United States and Canada. She holds a Ph.D. in comparative politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Arkoosh Eiguren clients include Amalgamated Sugar, iSchool Campus, the Northwest Grocery Association, U.S. Ecology Corp. and Verizon Communications.

The firm will be headquartered on the 9th floor of the Hoff Building in Downtown Boise at 802 W. Bannock St. Suite 900, Boise, ID 83702, phone 343-5105.

J. Walter Sinclair has been appointed as the newest lawyer representative for the U.S. district and bankruptcy courts in the District of Idaho. He will serve a three-year term, replacing outgoing Lawyer Representative Thomas High.

Sinclair joins current lawyer representatives Trudy Hanson Fouser and Bruce Anderson.

Lawyer representatives typically represent the bar to advance opinions and suggestions for improvement, assist the court in implementing new programs and procedures, serve on court committees and develop curriculum for training programs.

Sinclair is a partner in Stoel Rives firm in Boise. He has practiced law since 1978, developing a trial practice with an emphasis on business, corporate and complex litigation matters associated with agricultural product liability, antitrust, class action, complex commercial litigation contract disputes, mass tort, probate disputes, product liability, real estate and securities litigation.

Sinclair graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in economics and received his law degree from the University of Idaho in 1978. He is admitted to practice in federal and state courts in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, including the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Sinclair has been a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He received the “Local Litigation Star” by Benchmark Litigation and has been named in Top 75 Mountain States Super Lawyers; “America’s Leading Lawyers for Business” by Chambers USA and Boise Bet-the-Company Litigator of the Year by Best Lawyers. He is listed in Best Lawyers in America.

Real estate

Jody M. Hinton with Windermere Richard B. Smith has been awarded the Seniors Real Estate Specialist designation by the Seniors Real Estate Specialist Council of the National Association of Realtors.

Hinton joins more than 16,000 real estate professionals in North America who have earned the SRES designation after completing a course in the needs and goals of real estate buyers and sellers ages 55 and older.

Technology

Jenny Whitehead, Andy Slagle, Missie Taylor and Larry Little have joined Fisher’s Document Systems, a provider of copiers, printers, and electronic document management software.

Whitehead joined Fisher’s as a records management associate and will work full-time on site for a local client. She graduated from Boise State University with a degree in English literature and has a background in banking and finance.

Slagle is an account manager. He comes from the health-club industry with 16 years of sales and customer-service experience.

Taylor is a mail room associate and will work full-time on site for a local client. Taylor has many years of customer service experience.

Little is a production specialist. He has worked in the industry for 30 years.

Verizon has made a HopeLine grant of $15,000 to the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence, a nonprofit organization serving Idaho families affected by domestic violence. Verizon Wireless’ HopeLine program supports domestic violence prevention and awareness programs in Idaho and nationwide.

The HopeLine program collects no-longer-used wireless phones, batteries and accessories from any wireless carrier. Phones that can be refurbished are sold for reuse. Those without value are disposed of in an environmentally sound way. Proceeds provide wireless phones and cash grants to local shelters and nonprofit organizations that focus on domestic violence prevention and awareness.

Phone donations are accepted at all Verizon Wireless Communications stores.

Transportation

Lotwick Reese, a Boise resident for the past 40 years, was recently awarded the Mark Miles National Hydraulic Engineer Award at the Federal Highway Administration-sponsored National Hydraulic Engineering Conference in Nashville, Tenn.

This conference comprises the hydraulic engineers from state transportation departments, Canadian Provinces, the Federal Highway Administration and its consultants, and universities.

Lotwick is state hydraulics engineer for the Idaho Transportation Department in Boise, a position he has held for 25 years. Two years ago he received his 45-year service award from the department. Last year, he received the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Region 4 Design Award. The region comprises 16 states west of the Mississippi River.

Lotwick graduated from Brigham Young University in 1969 with a five-year bachelor’s degree in engineering, with honors in the hydraulics program. He and his wife, Kathryn, have seven children, 27 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.