— Kymeta has appointed former CIA Deputy Director Elizabeth Kimber as chief growth officer.

Kymeta, a Redmond, Wash.-based mobile satellite communications company, is working to increase sales with the Department of Defense, the intelligence community and other organizations in national security.

Kimber had a 37-year career with the CIA, departing in 2022 as the agency’s deputy director for operations. She most recently worked as a vice president with Two Six Technologies and has served on Kymeta’s board of directors for two years.

— Alaska Airlines has named Amaresh Siva as its first chief information technology officer. Siva joins from CVS Health and has held technology leadership roles for more than two decades at companies including Lowe’s, Target and GE Money.

“Technology touches nearly every part of how we run our airline and serve our guests, and Amaresh will bring our technology and digital teams together under one leader,” said Ben Minicucci, CEO of Alaska Air Group, in announcing the news.

— Vijaye Raji, founder and former CEO of Bellevue, Wash.-based Statsig and now OpenAI’s CTO of applications, has joined the board of Amplitude, a digital analytics and product intelligence company. OpenAI acquired Statsig last year, and Statsig and Amplitude announced a strategic partnership in May in which Amplitude would build on Statsig’s brand and customers.

“Statsig continues as a platform and brand within Amplitude,” Raji said. “Joining the board is an opportunity for me to help carry that mission forward as Amplitude and Statsig build their next chapter together.”

Here are four departures and arrivals for Microsoft leaders:

— Vasu Jakkal has left her role as Microsoft corporate vice president of security, compliance, identity, management and privacy after more than six years. She has joined Armadin, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based cybersecurity company, as chief strategy and business officer.

Jakkal is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and previously held executive roles at FireEye and Intel. She praised Armadin’s mission, which she described as building “autonomous security to stay ahead of attackers and build a safer world for all.”

— Microsoft VP Hans Yang is leaving. The Los Angeles-based leader, most recently focused on AI transformation, product strategy and growth, was formerly a general manager for Microsoft for Startups and Microsoft Learn.

“I think my next hill to climb is helping companies capture real ROI from AI,” Yang said, adding, “If you know a company that is struggling to get started with AI, or has invested but is not yet seeing meaningful value, I would welcome any introductions.”

— Venky Chandrasekharan is returning to Microsoft for the role of general manager of Windows commercial category and investments. He left the company in 2021 after 12 years and worked at Qualcomm and Acuity Brands in the interim.

“Having spent some of my most formative years at Microsoft, there’s definitely a sense of familiarity — but I’m coming back with new experiences, a broader perspective, and a lot of excitement for what’s ahead,” Chandrasekharan said.

— Meg O’Conor Bannecker has left Microsoft after two years leading communications for the company’s Washington state team. Past roles include communications leadership at NanoString Technologies, Bannecker Public Affairs and Pier 70 Ventures.

— Patrick Miller has been appointed as global division president of real estate company JLL’s technology sector. Miller joins from Snap, where he served as senior director of global workplace services. He previously oversaw real estate operations for Amazon’s Seattle-area headquarters for more than three years and has worked for Facebook and DTZ.

“I’ve spent my career on the client side … so I know exactly what it feels like to need a partner who shows up, tells you the truth, and solves real problems,” Miller said.

— DigniFi, a Bellevue, Wash.-based fintech company providing repair financing for autos, RVs, ATVs and other motorized vehicles, has named Jefim Piekarz as chief product officer. Piekarz joins from Arch, and his past employers include Skylab74, Welo, Octane and Etsy. Launched in 2012, DigniFi has facilitated more than $575 million in transactions for automotive merchants in the U.S.

— Seattle-based global logistics company Tideworks Technology has named two C-suite leaders:

• Mark Traynor, chief product and technology officer, joins from Lynxis. He is an entrepreneur who has worked in port, rail and terminal logistics for more than 20 years.
• Guenter Schmidmeir, chief revenue officer, joins from Avlino and has decades of maritime leadership from Germany.

— Adaptiva, a Kirkland, Wash.-based company automating software updates across computers, has named Allison Armstrong VP of product marketing. She joined from Elemica and has worked for Transmit Security, Hopin, Qualtrics, Apptio and others.

— Smarsh, a Portland, Ore.-based company providing communications data and insights, has appointed Alessandro Silva as its first chief growth officer. He joins from ACI Worldwide, and his past employers include Western Union and Carlyle Group. Silva is also a board member for Teach for America.

— Seattle-based Yoodli has named Mike Mather as chief learning advisor. The startup recently expanded from helping people practice speeches, sales pitches and job interviews to providing corporate training across wide-ranging skills. Mather is CLO for the accounting firm KPMG US and was previously a partner at EY, IBM and PwC.

“For most of my career, the hardest part of [learning and development] was the gap between training and the moment someone actually has to perform,” Mather said. “Yoodli closes that gap.”

— DigiStor, a company with offices in Austin, Texas, and Vancouver, Wash., that offers secure data storage products, has appointed Peter Bell to its board of directors. Bell co-founded StorageNetworks and serves as managing partner at Stowe Capital, among other roles.

— Seattle-area tech leader Jake Varghese has been promoted to chief product and technology officer for Dayforce, a Minneapolis company providing HR, payroll and related technology. He previously worked for companies including Microsoft, ServiceNow, Tanium and ConnectWise.

— The Association of Washington Business Institute has appointed Meagan Darrow as executive director. Darrow is also an adjunct professor at Evergreen State College and was most recently executive director of the American Diabetes Association. The AWB Institute is the nonprofit research and education affiliate of the association, a longtime organization advocating on behalf of its 8,000 members.

— Five Seattle-area physicians were appointed to the National Academy of Medicine:

• Dr. Susan Stern, professor emeritus and founding chair of UW Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine
• Dr. Elizabeth Swisher, professor in the Fred Hutch Clinical Research Division and UW Medicine’s Division of Gynecologic Oncology, as well as deputy director of the Fred Hutch/UW/Seattle Children’s Cancer Consortium
• Dr. Leslie Walker, chair and professor of UW Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and chief academic officer at Seattle Children’s
• Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor in UW Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics, pediatrician at Seattle Children’s and chief health officer with Special Olympics International
• Dr. Christopher Longhurst, CEO of Seattle Children’s and clinical professor with UW Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics

Taylor Swift was pilloried online over the climate impacts of her private jet travel for the Eras Tour and to see Travis Kelce, now her husband, play in the 2024 Super Bowl. Her representatives said she paid to offset the tour-related emissions, but the uproar highlighted a bigger problem: Aviation is a serious source of carbon dioxide, and it’s tough to fix.

Flying accounts for roughly 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and that share is expected to rise as other sectors adopt cleaner power.

The trouble is that jet fuel is so good at what it does. It holds enough energy to fly a plane nonstop from New York to Singapore. Cleaners sources likes batteries can’t begin to match that range, and hydrogen fuel faces hurdles including fuel storage and transfer and the need for aircraft redesigns.

That leaves aviation with one top alternative for today: sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF.

Instead of pumping more oil from underground, SAF uses carbon already on the earth’s surface. Manufacturers — including two in the American West — are making the fuel from sources such as cooking oil, animal fats, oil-rich plants, farm and forestry waste, or even captured carbon.

“SAF really fits a need that we have today and long into the future,” said Ryan Spies, managing director of sustainability at Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines. “SAF is the answer because it’s a drop-in fuel. That means we don’t have to change our planes, we don’t have to change what’s happening at the airport.”

The fuel remains in limited supply and use — only 1% of Alaska Air Group’s fuel is SAF, for example — but efforts are underway to expand production and adoption worldwide.

Twelve’s captured-carbon approach

In tumbleweed country in central Washington, a startup called Twelve opened its AirPlant One facility last year and began commercially producing SAF from captured carbon dioxide this summer.

The site sits in an industrial stretch of Moses Lake in a largely agricultural area. Its neighbors include a fertilizer producer and battery materials manufacturer Sila. Low-cost, carbon-free hydropower has drawn businesses to the region, though data centers are creating competition for the energy.

To manufacture SAF, Twelve takes delivery of carbon dioxide that’s captured as a byproduct of ethanol production. The greenhouse gas is stored in a giant white tank. From there it’s pumped through insulated silver pipes that carry it through devices that remove oxygen and add hydrogen taken from water, producing the hydrocarbons that serve as fuel. The largely outdoor facility is shiny and new, with equipment stretching skyward.

The startup’s technology can make a variety of low-carbon products, including naphtha, a plastics precursor also produced at AirPlant One.

The site is designed to make up to 50,000 gallons of SAF, which is branded as E-Jet. The company is ramping up to that volume, said Nicholas Flanders, CEO and co-founder of Twelve.

“Even when we’re at that full capacity, there’s a lot more customer demand than we can make at AirPlant One,” he said. AirPlant Two, a much bigger facility that would make tens of millions of gallons a year, is already in development. Flanders did not provide a timeline or location for the site.

Old refinery finds a new purpose

About seven hours east of Moses Lake by car, Montana Renewables is producing SAF with a different approach. It makes the fuel at a century-old oil refinery that has been partially converted to renewable fuel and naphtha production.

“That’s the most economical way to to produce renewable fuels like SAF,” said Matt Upmeyer, vice president of commercial for Montana Renewables.

The facility uses feedstocks including used cooking oil, beef tallow from rendering plants and camelina, a lesser-known cover crop that helps farmers restore soil and also produces an oily seed.

Montana Renewables began making SAF in 2023, and by the next year was the largest SAF producer in North America, Upmeyer said, “which is a pretty cool stat.”

The company can produce 60 million gallons of SAF a year in Great Falls, Mont., and aims to reach 200 million gallons by the end of 2028.

That growth is significant, but the need is much higher. The U.S. government set a goal a few years ago of producing 3 billion gallons of SAF annually by 2030. A recent academic study involving researchers at Washington State University estimates the country could potentially reach 2.1 billion gallons by then. That total counts SAF from all U.S. producers, including Phillips 66, World Energy, Neste and LanzaJet.

By comparison, U.S. airlines use about 20 billion gallons of fuel a year, and that number is rising.

Cleaner fuel carries a premium

Cost is arguably the biggest hurdle to SAF adoption. The fuel is more expensive than traditional jet fuel, but the gap fluctuates because geopolitics moves oil prices. It should get cheaper as production scales, though demand will remain high.

Spies offered rough estimates for price comparisons. SAF made from fats, oils and greases — the most common form today — trades at less than double the price of jet fuel, he said. SAF from captured carbon, like Twelve’s, has the greatest environmental benefit, Spies said, but is “multiple times more expensive.”

Policy can help close the gap. The U.S. has used “carrots” such as a tax credit of up to $1.75 per gallon, created in 2022, but that was cut to $1 with President Trump’s return to office. Europe has opted for “sticks”: a requirement that 2% of jet fuel be SAF starting last year, which rose to 3.6% in the United Kingdom this year.

Customers are signing fuel purchase agreements, which can lock in prices and create demand that encourages more production. Alaska Airlines and Microsoft partnered with Twelve in 2022 to support its fuel’s development and use, helping create demand for the Moses Lake plant’s output.

Getting customers to sign these long-term deals “is really important for securing project financing,” Flanders said.

Measuring SAF’s climate benefits

While SAF is the best near-term fuel for reining in aviation emissions, it still produces carbon dioxide when burned. But unlike petroleum-based jet fuel, which releases carbon that would otherwise stay trapped underground, SAF recycles carbon already in circulation in plants, animals and the atmosphere.

And there are other strategies for curbing aviation’s impacts that can compliment SAF, including designing more efficient planes, preventing contrail formation, and using flight plans that reduce emissions.

Most SAF produced today provides an 80% reduction. By Twelve’s calculations, if a plane used straight E-Jet, it could slash the flight’s carbon emissions up to 90% compared with jet fuel (there are some carbon costs for production and transportation).

Twelve’s Flanders put the benefits in perspective.

“To have 90% lower emissions when you fly, that would mean taking a domestic flight would have the same emissions per passenger mile as taking the London Tube,” he said. With flying on par with taking the train, “it really can change the impact of aviation on the environment.

Sources and references

Interviews:

• Nicholas Flanders, CEO and co-founder of Twelve
• Ryan Spies, managing director of sustainability at Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines
• Matt Upmeyer, vice president of commercial for Montana Renewables
• Cody McNaughton, plant manager for Twelve’s manufacturing facility
• Michael Donaldson, director of environment, health and safety at Twelve’s manufacturing facility

Sources:

• “Sustainable aviation fuel is taking off. What is it, exactly?“, Canary Media, Nov. 21, 2024
• “Pragmatic assessment of meeting the 2030 U.S. sustainable aviation fuel goal,” Biomass and Bioenergy, March 2026
• “Europe Widens Its Lead Over US, Asia in Switch to Cleaner Jet Fuel,” Bloomberg, Aug. 13, 2026

NEW YORK — With 2.8% profit margins and the harsh reality of aviation physics, Alaska Air Group needs to be strategic when betting on low-carbon technology. That includes partnering with Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures on sustainable aviation fuel and backing companies developing fuel-efficient aircraft.

Those were two takeaways from Ryan Spies, Alaska Air’s managing director of sustainability, speaking Wednesday at Bloomberg Green New York.

Aviation contributes 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, but can account for up to 5% of global warming due to additional atmospheric effects, experts say.

Currently, the primary strategy for curbing emissions is using sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. Made from sources such as used cooking oil, agricultural waste, forestry waste and captured carbon, SAF can be blended with conventional jet fuel. The trouble is that production comes nowhere near matching demand, supplying less than 1% of aviation fuel today.

To address the shortage, Seattle-based Alaska Air Group — parent company of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines — partnered last year with other carriers and Breakthrough to create a $150 million fund backing SAF innovators. The fund relies on Breakthrough’s experts to identify the most viable feedstocks, smartest chemistries, and strongest economics.

And while SAF has typically been much more expensive than conventional fuels, the Iran War and its impacts on international oil shipping is changing that math.

“Six months ago, sustainable aviation fuel was absolutely more expensive than jet fuel,” Spies said at the event, which is part of Climate Week NYC. “If you went to a producer of SAF today, you can get a pretty competitive price compared to jet.”

The market volatility has also heightened interest in SAF as a tool for U.S. energy independence, rather than just an environmentally friendly alternative.

In January, Pacific Northwest officials from organizations including Alaska Air, Amazon, Boeing, SkyNRG and government representatives launched the Cascadia Sustainable Aviation Accelerator to establish the region as a SAF hub. Startup Twelve is already producing fuel in Moses Lake, Wash., and Montana Renewables has emerged as a sector leader.

While SAF is being deployed today, Alaska Air is also eyeing next-generation aircraft designs. Two years ago, the airline announced an investment in JetZero, a company developing a blended-wing body aircraft that aims to slash fuel use in half. JetZero hopes to fly a prototype next year and begin carrying passengers in 2030, the Seattle Times reported Sunday.

“An aircraft that can carry “200 plus passengers that can reduce fuel usage by 50% through better aerodynamics — that’s a game-changing development,” Spies said.

Alaska Air has also backed Ampaire, a startup Spies called “the Prius of aviation” due to its hybrid-electric drivetrain. The system is currently designed for smaller, eight-seat aircraft, and Spies said the company was excited to bring Ampaire to Hawaii.

Although a blended-wing aircraft would be a noticeable departure from today’s flying experience, climate-related changes coming to the aviation over the next decade will be less obvious as the fuel changes and incremental advances are made.

Advancing aviation sustainability remains a slow process and one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize, Spies said, “because of pure physics.”

Editor’s note: Story updated 9/25 to state that Alaska Air Group’s profit margin was 2.8% last year. The industry on average is about 2.5%.