[TRU Research] Corporate research?

[Katie Wilson]

Thanks, Wes! Super helpful. Sounds like Continental Mills and Sabey are likely not our friends. I probably will reach out to Pop and Seattle Chocolates… endorsements may be unlikely, but I *think* a conversation before we go live could help to neutralize them...

> On Feb 11, 2022, at 1:47 AM, Wes Mills <wesmills at wesmills.com> wrote:
> 
> I gave it a shot, read a lot of press releases, and proved two things: web presences are very scrubbed, and/or I am very green at this. :)
> 
> Pop Gourmet - CEO recently changed, doesn't say who.  The founder, David Israel, has previously served a prison sentence (accessory to robberies, he denies involvement but pled guilty to put the lengthy process to an end) and said in media interviews as recently as 2019 that he intentionally hires people who were convicted of a crime as second chances.  Israel has become something of an angel or early investor.  His most recent investment is an estimated $4.5 million in Good PLANeT Foods, a vegan food subtitute company in the vein of Impossible or Beyond.  I can't find a social media or PR presence for him and he hasn't been full-time involved with Pop since 2019.
> 
> Seattle Chocolate Company - Owned by Jean Thompson who bought out the company in 2001 after the Nisqually earthquake.  She started a second chocolate company, jcoco, that donates a percentage of sales to groups fighting hunger.  In media interviews, she describes Seattle Chocolate Company and jcoco as small businesses.  Partnership with Girls Inc., a women- and girls-programming-exclusive non-profit specific to empowerment and removing challenges, and a very left-leaning group. 
> 
> Odin Brewing - Can't find anything specific about leanings but did see a couple of articles that say the company has moved to Tacoma.
> 
> Continental Mills - Hard to tell.  Their CEO, a member of the Heily family that's owned Continental Mills since about the beginning, has a $4.8 million mansion in Hawaii up for sale.  No information on union efforts at a company that size.  They have a very visible partnership with Union Gospel Mission.
> 
> Sabey Corporation - Thought this name sounded familiar, Sabey owns and operates several dozen datacenters (warehouses for computers, "the cloud" lives there) in a bunch of states.  David Sabey was born in Tukwila, is a property owner and developer himself, and has the usual litany of rich person philanthropy: Museum of Flight, universities (Sinegal Center for Science and Innovation at SeattleU), and the like.  In 2017, the Times published a Watchdog report describing allegations that Sabey tried to get doctors at Swedish Cherry Hill to stop publicly complaining about patient care and safety (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/swedish-healths-ambitious-seattle-plans-involved-a-developer-with-a-stake-their-success/ <https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/swedish-healths-ambitious-seattle-plans-involved-a-developer-with-a-stake-their-success/>), part of a broader investigation into Sabey's involvement with Swedish.
> 
> On Thu, Feb 10, 2022, at 22:54, Katie Wilson wrote:
>> Hey all,
>> 
>> Anyone want to poke around online and see if they can discover anything about the political leanings / values of the owners of these companies that are HQed in Tukwila? (Two others— BECU and Red Dot Corporation— I’m definitely going to reach out to b/c I think there’s a chance they’d endorse our campaign.)
>> 
>> Seattle Chocolates
>> Pop Gormet Foods
>> Odin Brewing Company
>> Continental Mills
>> Sabey Corporation
>> 
>> - Katie
>> 
>> Katie Wilson
>> General Secretary
>> Transit Riders Union
>> https://transitriders.org <https://transitriders.org/>
>> 206-781-7204
>> 
>> The Transit Riders Union is a democratic organization of working and poor people, including students, seniors, and people with disabilities, taking control over our own lives, and building up the power we need to change society for the good of humanity and of the planet. We will fight to preserve, expand, and improve the public transportation system in Seattle and beyond, so that every human being has access to safe, affordable, and reliable public transit.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.transitriders.org/pipermail/research/attachments/20220211/8c1b2e0a/attachment.html>