PACE Announces New Board Members, Elects Officers
Contact:
Cheryl Engstrom, for PACE, 425.487.0682, 
BELLEVUE, WA (June 21, 2007) – At its annual meeting, the board for the Performing Arts Center Eastside (PACE), elected five new members, bringing the total board tally to 29 members. The newly elected members are: Alka Badshah, Sally Gray, Brad Smith, Kathy Surace-Smith, and Randy Talbot.
In addition, it approved a new slate of officers for the PACE Board, which include: Chair, Peter Horvitz; Vice Chair, Janine Florence; Second Vice Chair, Carl Behnke; Secretary, Kathy Surace-Smith; and Treasurer, Dennis Conrad.
New Board Member Background:
Alka Badshah has over 20 years of experience in management, consulting, and product development in the IT industry with a focus on designing user-centered technology solutions. She worked at Microsoft for 11 years in various management and consulting roles related to User Interface. She left Microsoft two years ago as a Group Manager. Before Microsoft, she worked for several high tech companies. She is an alumna of MIT's media lab and has an undergraduate degree in architecture. Badshah worked with renowned architect Moshe Safdie on a competition to design the Beverly Hills Civic Center.
Badshah has been involved in various endeavors including mentoring young people, angel and other investing, and being active in social causes, serving on the Advisory Board of the South Asia Center at the University of Washington and supporting efforts around child development in Washington State and India. She has also been involved with furthering education in the field of math, science, and business by coaching and judging for organizations like DECA andPS (Future Problem Solving).
Sally Gray currently serves as Vice President / Financial Consultant of RBC Dain Rauscher, an investment firm. Gray is a former District Governor of Rotary 5030, Past President of Bellevue Rotary, and a former Chair of the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce, the Eastside Business Roundtable, and Bellevue Community College Foundation Board. She has served terms as a board member on a number of area nonprofit organizations including United Way of King County, Overlake Medical Center, and the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra. Among her honors is the 1993 Eastside Woman of the Year.
Brad Smith is Microsoft's senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary. He leads the company's Department of Legal and Corporate Affairs which is responsible for all legal work and for government, industry, and community affairs activities. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, where he received the Class of 1901 Medal, the Dewitt Clinton Poole Memorial Prize, and the Harold Willis Dodds Achievement Award, the highest award given to a graduating senior at commencement. He was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar at the Columbia University School of Law, where he received the David M. Berger Memorial Award. He also studied international law and economics at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.
Kathy Surace-Smith is vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary of SonoSite, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed medical device company specializing in high-performance, hand-carried ultrasound technology, based in Bothell, Washington. From 1996 to 2002, she was general counsel of a publicly traded telecommunications equipment provider in Redmond, Washington. Prior to relocating to the Seattle area, Surace-Smith served as international counsel with Alcatel NV in Paris, France, as counsel with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London, England, and was in private practice for six years with the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in New York, Washington, and London.
Ms. Surace-Smith graduated from Princeton University and received her law degree from Columbia University School of Law. She is the vice chair of the board of trustees of The Overlake School, a private coeducational school for grades 5–12 in Redmond, Washington, and serves on several committees of the YWCA of King County. She also previously served on the boards of Overlake Hospital Medical Center Foundation in Bellevue and the Children's Museum in Seattle.
Randy Talbot is the President and Chief Executive Officer of SymetraSM Financial, a company that provides people with retirement plans, employee benefits, annuities, and life insurance through a network of independent distributors nationwide. The company has a 50-year history in the Pacific Northwest, and began as an independent corporation in August 2004. The company is headquartered in the Symetra Financial Center located in downtown Bellevue.
In addition to leading SymetraSM Financial, Talbot is a former Board member of the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and is currently on the Board of the American Council of Life Insurers, and the Washington Roundtable, a nonprofit public policy organization that affects positive change on critical policy issues in Washington state.
"We enthusiastically welcome these new members to the board of PACE," said Skip Rowley, 2006 chairman of the PACE board. "They bring a fresh perspective and new energy that will help propel us forward in our mission to bring the finest performance hall in the region to the Eastside."
The 2007 PACE Board now includes the following 29 members: Alka Badshah, Maxine Barnard, Carl Behnke, Dennis Conrad, James Doud, Jr., Janine Florence, Richard Foley, Betty Freeman, Kemper Freeman, Jr., Sally Gray, Cathi Hatch, Jim Hebert, Peter Horvitz, Sally Jarvis, Charles Lytle, Karen Lytle, John Matheson, Christine Miller, Susan Neumann, Sally A. Nordstrom, Skip Rowley, Craig Shrontz, Alex Smith, Brad Smith, Ron Smith, Ed Springman, Kathy Surace-Smith, Randy Talbot, and Scott Wallace.
About Performing Arts Center Eastside:
Performing Arts Center Eastside is envisioned as a 2,000-seat premier regional center for the performing arts. Its mission is to enrich cultural life with a wide diversity of live entertainment, arts, and education. PACE will stimulate the arts region-wide; attract new audiences; heighten arts awareness and education; provide a performance home for select area arts organizations; and serve as a cultural center for the Eastside.
PACE plans to open in 2010 and it will be located in downtown Bellevue on the corner of NE 10th Street and 106th Avenue NE. The Campaign For PACE has raised over $20 million.