January 17, 2022

AZ Big Spotlight: Equality Health Foundation, Sundt, AudioEye, Lewis Roca

Equality Health Foundation adds new board members

The Equality Health Foundation (EHF) welcomed five new board members elected during the board’s annual meeting held December 23. Board members include Maria Harper-Marinick, Paul Luna, Chris Camacho, Todd Sanders and Tony Astorga.

The Equality Health Foundation is a new non-profit organization that aims to level the healthcare playing field in culturally diverse and under-resourced communities. Their goal is to expand access to care, accelerate health education, and eliminate healthcare inequalities so that everyone has an opportunity to lead longer, healthier lives.

“We welcome and are thankful for our new board members,” said Tomás León, Equality Health Foundation president. “Their diverse background and breadth of expertise will create new opportunities and result in a real impact for the individuals and communities we serve.”

New board members join the Equality Health Foundation board from a variety of professional backgrounds:

Dr. Maria Harper-Marinick is a national leader in higher education and a strong advocate for access to opportunity, equity, and student success. She served the Maricopa Community College District, one of the largest community college systems in the nation, for almost 30 years in a variety of leadership roles, most recently as Chancellor.

Paul Luna is President and CEO of Helios Education Foundation, an organization that is dedicated to creating opportunities for individuals in Arizona and Florida to succeed in postsecondary education. Luna is responsible for guiding the strategic direction of the organization, cultivating strong community relationships and initiating strategic partnerships in Arizona and Florida for the Foundation.

Chris Camacho serves as the President and CEO at the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. During his tenure, GPEC has led the attraction of more than 230 companies creating 38,881 jobs and $2.9 billion in capital investment.

Todd Sanders is currently President and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. Prior to assuming his current role, he represented the interests of the business community in the State Legislature as Vice President of Public Affairs for the Phoenix Chamber.

Tony Astorga retired in 2011 from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona where he served for over 22 years as the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

“We believe everyone should have access to resources that enable and encourage healthy living,” said Frank Placenti, board chairman. “A vision like this cannot be accomplished alone and requires a passionate group of community leaders like our newest board members to make a sustainable and transformative change.”

Sundt Construction promotes 5

Sundt Construction promoted Sarah Owen, Curtis Smith, Justin Gillies, Josh Anderson and Nicolas Chavez in its Building Group in Phoenix.

“Each of these employee-owners has done excellent work during their time at Sundt,” said Chad Buck, senior vice president for Sundt’s Southwest District of its Building Group. “Each of them brings a different skill set and I am excited to see them take on larger roles at the company.”

Owen, who has worked for Sundt for four years, previously served as a business development representative in Phoenix for the Building Group. In her new role as a business development manager, she will be responsible for managing key client relationships and strategic pursuits for the Southwest District.

Smith has been promoted to project controls manager. He has been in the industry for 18 years and recently served as the project manager for Sunstate Equipment’s Timothy J. Meenk Training Center project in Phoenix.

Gillies has been with Sundt for 14 years as a project superintendent and has transitioned to project manager. He has worked on many projects across the region, such as Canopy by Hilton Tempe, Chandler City Hall and the New Mexico State Veterans Home.

Anderson has been promoted to project executive. He has been with Sundt for 16 years and has worked on many projects across the region, including several data center projects.

Chavez has been promoted to senior virtual construction engineer. He has worked for Sundt on several different projects using building information modeling and artificial intelligence to optimize pursuit efforts and assist field execution efforts.

Sundt has been building critical infrastructure across Arizona for more than 90 years. Headquartered in Tempe, the company continually ranks in the top five of ENR Southwest’s Top Contractors. Sundt’s current work in the Valley includes the recently completed expansion for Gila River Hotels & Casinos – Wild Horse Pass and the current expansion on the Royal Oaks Community.

Lewis Roca announces Phoenix partnership Class 2022

Lewis Roca has promoted the following Phoenix lawyers to join the firm’s partnership effective January 1, 2022.

Nicholas S. Bauman (Litigation, Phoenix)

Bauman, a member of the firm’s Litigation Practice Group, is a trial court litigator whose practice focuses on commercial litigation, including disputes within companies, breach of contract, business torts, breach of fiduciary duty, and bankruptcy proceedings. He has experience in a variety of industries, including financial services, health care, real estate, and agriculture industries.

Michael Charles Brown (Litigation, Phoenix)

Brown, a member of the firm’s Litigation Practice Group, is an experienced litigator whose practice focuses on construction, securities, and real estate disputes. Brown represents owners, general contractors, subcontractors, and material suppliers on all aspects of construction projects, from inception to well beyond completion, including scope issues, risk allocation, delays, changes, design and construction defects, payment issues, mechanic’s liens, and licensing issues. In his securities litigation practice, he represents broker-dealers, registered representatives, and registered investment advisers concerning customer suitability and supervision claims, securities fraud, and licensing matters. Brown’s real estate litigation experience includes foreclosures, agreements for sale, easements, deed restrictions, quiet title actions, and landlord/tenant disputes.

Tyler Carrell (Business Transactions, Phoenix)

Carrell, a member of the firm’s Business Transactions Practice Group, focuses his practice on real estate transactions, commercial finance, and general corporate law. He has significant experience in all aspects of corporate law representing real estate developers, lenders, non-profit organizations, and borrowers. He has handled matters including the acquisition, financing, leasing and disposition of retail, office, residential, and mixed-use developments. Carrell also represents financial institutions in commercial finance transactions including real estate and asset-based equipment and warehouse lending. Additionally, he has managed enforcement of loan agreements, real estate leases, guaranties, contracts, real estate purchase agreements, commercial contract guarantees, and deficiency, and loan default matters.

Molly A. Magestro (Business Transactions, Phoenix)

Magestro, a member of the firm’s Business Transactions Practice Group, focuses on corporate and real estate transactions providing comprehensive representation and legal consulting services to corporate clients in the real estate, construction, property management, and finance industries. She represents institutional clients in a variety of corporate and real estate transactions involving development, financing, acquisition and sale of luxury multifamily, retail, office and industrial projects on a national, regional and local scale, and other business matters. Her experience includes the development of custom contracts and related legal instruments for complex business and real estate transactions, strategic negotiation, advising clients about transactional and regulatory requirements in the areas of business formation and reorganization, statutory and regulatory compliance, and due diligence.

Rachel A. Nicholas (Intellectual Property, Phoenix)

Nicholas is a member of the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group and partners with clients on trademark, copyright, publicity rights, and social media matters. She helps clients overcome the challenges found in selecting, clearing, registering, and enforcing their trademarks and copyrights in the U.S. and internationally. Nicholas represents clients of all sizes and across a variety of industries, including one of the world’s top hotel chains, and a major league sports team as well as fitness and wellness influencers. She also provides counsel to local nonprofit organizations and startups.

Adam Reich (Litigation, Phoenix)

Reich, a member of the firm’s Litigation Practice Group, focuses his practice on commercial litigation, insurance coverage, business and personal injury torts, and construction litigation. He has represented clients in state and federal courts throughout the United States, including at trial. He has been recognized as a Southwest Super Lawyers Rising Star in the area of general and business litigation since 2017. He was also recognized in the “Ones to Watch” category in the area of commercial litigation by The Best Lawyers in America in 2021 and 2022.

AudioEye appoints David Moradi as CEO

The Board of Directors of AudioEye, Inc. (NASDAQ: AEYE), an industry-leading digital accessibility platform delivering website accessibility compliance to businesses of all sizes, has appointed David Moradi as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective January 13th, 2022.

David Moradi has served as the Company’s interim CEO over the last 18 months, a period of significant progress in the Company’s transition to a highly scalable platform with industry-leading gross margins and considerable improvements in the Company’s product, technology, and go-to-market.

Executive Chairman Carr Bettis said, “Over the past two years, David has skillfully, tenaciously, and tirelessly led AudioEye’s transformation into a higher margin and more scalable enterprise with a truly differentiated product that brings transparency to the issues of web accessibility. He sets the tone with his relentless pursuit of excellence and his passion for eradicating all barriers to digital accessibility, and he has assembled an extremely strong leadership team to help achieve this mission. We value not only his strong leadership and commitment but also the significant personal financial investment he has made in AudioEye, which we believe strengthens the alignment of interest between management and other shareholders.”

AZ Big Spotlight is sponsored by PNC Bank. Do you have an item about an Arizona business or business leader you’d like to see featured? Email it to michael.gossie@azbigmedia.com for consideration.