Rich Simmonds
As managing partner of the Seattle-based family business consulting firm, Simmonds Associates LLC, Rich Simmonds assists northwest based universities with the planning and development of university based events for business owners and their families. Mr. Simmonds is involved with university based student curriculum development, as well as, university based family business research. He led the 2007 Laird Norton Tyee- Family to Family survey of 643 family business CEO’s, as well as, the 2008 Northwest Family Business Survey. With over 25 years of experience, he advises and consults with families on potential solutions to the inherent challenges they face as a family business.
Mr. Simmonds co-founded Tyee Asset Strategies in 1995, serving as chairman until it merged with Laird Norton Trust Company in 2003. The newly formed company, Laird Norton Tyee, is majority-owned by the seventh-generation Laird, Norton and Clapp families and offers wealth management services to family business owners and their families as well as to individual investors. Mr. Simmonds sold his interest in Laird Norton Tyee to the Laird Norton Company and Laird Norton family members in 2008. Before co-founding Tyee, Mr. Simmonds was president of Sheppard, Simmonds and VanHousen, a wealth management company acquired by U.S. Bancorp in 1988.
He currently serves on the boards of the Family Enterprise Research Council, Gonzaga Family Business steering committee, Oregon State Austin Family Center, and is the Seattle University Family Business-Entrepreneur in Residence. He earned marketing and finance degrees from Central Washington University.