BOECKMAN COOK

Bonita Boeckman Cook
Applies background in health care and the military to her design work
37, Job Captain
JSA Inc.
Portsmouth, N.H.

Cook has a personal connection to her work. Born into a family of health care professionals, she didn't pursue a medical career but instead channeled her understanding of healing environments into a career that includes designing medical facilities. Cook also served five years in the U.S. Army Reserve as a light-wheel vehicle mechanic repairing Humvees and 2-1/2-ton vehicles. When JSA became involved with designing both housing and community centers on military bases, she got involved. Cook was part of the design team that created a net-zero prototype home for military bases across the country. The 537-home project at Midway Park on the Camp Lejeune U.S. Marine Corps base is the largest neighborhood in North Carolina comprised of all LEED-Gold homes as well as the first LEED-Gold Certified neighborhood on a Marine base. She combined a passion for health care and military projects on the Northeast Rehabilitation Hospital at Pease Air National Guard Base in Portsmouth, N.H., an in-patient facility for patients adapting to brain and spinal cord injuries.

DESIDERIO

Sarah Desiderio
Proven asset on award-winning work throughout New England
34, Structural Engineer
JSN Associates Inc.
Portsmouth, N.H.

Less than a year into her first engineering position, Desiderio was back in the classroom for three more years, juggling her full-time job with a master's degree program in structural engineering at the University of New Hampshire. Eight years later, she is a proven asset on projects throughout Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire—coordinating design, construction administration, requests for information and site visits on multiple projects at any given time. Among her notable projects, Desiderio was the structural engineer for Carter Collections Center at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth. The project, which earned a Preservation Achievement Award from the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, includes state-of-the-art building systems and innovative construction techniques in a building designed to mimic an 18th century house on the museum grounds. Other notable work includes the Peter and Cécile Morgane Science Hall at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine; RiverWoods at Exeter in New Hampshire; and Frisbie Hospital's Rochester Hill Family Practice in Rochester, N.H.