They include engineers, contractors, owners, architects, professors, risk managers, researchers and scientists. They work in transportation, energy, buildings, the environment and other sectors. All have gone above and beyond to serve the best interests of the construction industry and the public.

For ENR’s annual Top 25 Newsmakers program, editors look back over the stories they have written in the past year and nominate individuals who have given back. The 2016 class of Newsmakers, profiled in the following pages, ranges from an architect who worked to make schools more secure to a contractor who is pioneering mixed reality on the jobsite to a project director using a public-private partnership and an array of other innovations on a bridge replacement.

The editors have chosen just one of the 25 to win ENR’s Award of Excellence—the subject of the cover story in our upcoming April 17-24 issue. All 25 Newsmakers and the Award of Excellence winner will be celebrated at a black-tie gala on April 13 at a new location—the New York Hilton Midtown, in Manhattan. Joining in the honors that night will be ENR’s “Best of the Best” winning project teams, which will be announced on ENR.com at the end of January.