Melissa Kollitides has been promoted to executive vice president, marketing and advertising at Collette Vacations. more

Karl E. Hoffman has been appointed an account executive for the Metalform division of ATW Cos. In this role, Hoffman will provide an interface between the company and the firearm enthusiasts it hopes to attract. more

Kyle Zambarano has been appointed counsel at Adler Pollock and Sheehan, where he specializes in litigating and resolving disputes between competing businesses, employers and former employees implicating trade-secret law and non-competitive provisions. more

Julia Techentin has been appointed counsel at Adler Pollock and Sheehan. more

Alan M. Shoer has been appointed shareholder at Adler Pollock and Sheehan. more

Alison Albanese has been appointed counsel at Adler Pollock and Sheehan, where she concentrates on commercial real estate law. Albanese represents commercial developers in the acquisition, disposition, leasing, financing, permitting and development of commercial projects. more

Mark P. Sweeney has been named vice president of Aon PLC’s Providence office. more

Andrea Marcotte, vice president, chief medical officer and chief operating officer of WellOne Primary Medical and Dental Care, was recently named a Rural Health Champion by the R.I. Department of Health. Marcotte was recognized for her efforts to improve the supply, distribution, diversity and quality of the state’s health workforce, and to increase access to health care in medically underserved areas. She has worked for WellOne since 1997 and is the immediate past board president of the Northern Rhode Island Area Health Education Center. Marcotte is a family nurse practitioner and a gerontological nurse practitioner. She holds undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate degrees from Rhode Island College, Simmons College and George Washington University. more

(Updated, 3:50 p.m.) Rhode Island’s unemployment rate fell to 9.9 percent in December 2012, dipping below 10 percent for the first time in almost four years, according to annually revised data released Thursday by the R.I. Department of Labor and Training. more

Dr. Dwight Rouse, a specialist in the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, was recently selected to join the editorial team of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Also known as “The Green Journal,” Obstetrics and Gynecology has more than 46,000 subscribers worldwide. Rouse’s research and clinical work are focused on clinical obstetrics, particularly labor management. He holds a medical degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago, in addition to a master’s degree in public health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. more