Kat Sims Email & Phone Number

Seattle, Washington, United States

Fikso Kretschmer Smith Dixon Ormseth is a Seattle law firm specializing in real estate, construction, and business transactions.

Greater Seattle Area

The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBAKS) is the nation's oldest and largest local homebuilding association because it provides significant value to its members. This mission-driven organization has the goal of providing every Puget Sound resident a place to call home. Under my leadership, MBAKS sponsored the largest Association Health Plan in the State of Washington, providing ACA-compliant health insurance at highly competitive rates. MBAKS is also home of the Built Green green building certification program.

Greater Seattle Area

Following merger of Plum Creek and Weyerhaeuser, recruited to lead in inaugural role spanning multiple, newly-merged functions (including environmental compliance and certification, sustainability, communications, government affairs, philanthropy, and health and safety) with geographically-dispersed team and annual budget of $20M. • Led post-merger integration of all corporate affairs teams, budgets and functions for this Fortune 500 company with special focus on accelerating cultural integration, reducing risk, realizing synergies and enhancing trust in and across teams. • Built team of 18 professionals from two publicly traded predecessor entities to manage newly constituted environmental compliance program at 50 manufacturing facilities, 20 active remediation sites (including several Superfund sites) and nearly 28M acres of sustainably certified timberlands in the U.S., Canada and Uruguay.

Seattle, Wa

• Developed and executed federal and state government affairs strategy to maintain key relationships and inform and influence decision-makers in highly regulated industry.• Supported all C-suite interaction with federal and state elected officials and regulators.

Greater Seattle Area

• Built business case for and steered cultural shift through politically-diverse 19 state operating area to embrace sustainability as strategy which would enhance brand, financial objectives and industry standing. Drove initiative to develop an enterprise sustainability vision, strategy, goals and messaging to build shareholder value and manage significant reputational risk. • Researched and documented best practices and annually evaluated corporate performance against key metrics. Reframe traditional sustainability objectives into P&L metrics that were meaningful to business leaders and their customers. Collaborated with manufacturing and timberlands businesses to improve practices and quantify reductions in chemical use, energy consumption, and waste generation. • To advance industry leadership, chaired the Green Building Strategy Group, a coalition of dozens of industry, federal agency and ENGO partners charged with developing, quantifying, and promoting the case for advancing wood as the green building solution. Obtained funding for research and guided production of a technical white paper and policy recommendations. These recommendations were adopted, in part, by the White House Center for Environmental Quality and were utilized to educate members of Congress, thought leaders, and ENGO partners.

Seattle

As in-house counsel representing one of the largest U.S. landowners, with 8M acres in 19 states:• Developed and implemented corporate processes for new-to-market REIT-compliant land sale and development program. • Navigated highly complex community planning and rezoning project, spanning 380K acres in two counties to entitle 3 resorts, industrial and commercial uses, and 1K+ home sites in 10 development areas with separate development standards. The work protected more than $250M in value. • Led critical 3-year community engagement initiative to develop strong relationships with community stakeholders and government agencies which enabled conservation sales of 300K acres for $500M.

Law partner with a sophisticated, boutique law practice. Provided strategic legal advice to some of the PNW's most well-known developers, owners and lenders. Negotiated key legal and business terms, lead critical path planning and project managed complex commercial real estate transactions from concept to closing. Projects included acquisitions, dispositions, financing, leasing, and ground up development of industrial, commercial/office, hospitality, multifamily, and master planned communities.

As member of firm’s highly respected real estate practice, provided broad range of transactional services to publicly traded and privately held landowners, developers, lenders and tenants.

Aligning Sustainability With Business Performance

Executive Education

Juris Doctor

Activities and Societies: Cum Laude

B.A., Political Science

Activities and Societies: Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude