Two CEOs Depart Amid Board Differences
Also, a former Caterpillar CEO and CH2M VP are dead
CEOs of Dutch-based engineering giant Arcadis NV and large Minneapolis building contractor Adolph & Peterson Construction exited their firms last month in apparent corporate strategy disputes with their respective boards of directors. Arcadis on Oct. 27 announced the departure of Neil McArthur “because of a difference of opinion” with the firm’s supervisory board. While he was firm chief, since 2012, Arcadis grew into a company of more than $3.7 billion in revenue and 27,000 global employees, Chairman Niek Hoek said, “It is the right time for a new leader.” The board named Chief Financial Officer Renier Vree interim CEO while it seeks a permanent replacement among internal and external candidates. The change comes as Arcadis posted third-quarter results last month, with revenue down 7%, to $868 million, and earnings off by about a third, to $42 million. The firm partly attributed the falloff to the weaker British pound following the June Brexit vote, continued difficulties in Brazil and intense competition in North America, says U.K.-industry publication Building.
Adolfson & Peterson (A&P) on Oct. 5 announced that Rick Whitney, CEO since 2014, has stepped down “to pursue other opportunities.” Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Hansen was named to fill the added role as the contractor searches for a permanent CEO. Whitney also was CEO of M+W U.S. Inc. Kirstin Adolfson, a board member and third-generation A&P owner, noted in a statement Hansen’s “understanding of [the firm’s] family culture.” He has been CFO since 2012. A&P ranks at No. 92 on ENR’s list of the Top 400 Contractors, with $807 million in revenue last year. It ranked at No. 77 on last year’s list. Whitney “was frustrated with the board,” says an industry executive with knowledge of his situation.
Amec Foster Wheeler has named Philip Luna as senior vice president of business development for its Houston-based Americas oil-and-gas business. He is formerly CEO of design and project management firm UniversalPegasus International and, since a 2014 acquisition, also serves as executive vice president of its parent, Huntington Ingalls Industries. Luna also had been a vice president at Jacobs Engineering and at CDI Engineering.
Dwayne Miller, chairman of JBA Consulting Engineers Inc., a Las Vegas MEP and fire protection firm, has joined professional services firm NV 5 Global Inc., in an undisclosed corporate executive role, the latter firm confirms. The change follows NV 5’s Oct. 26 purchase of JBA, which it says has revenue of $33 million, for an undisclosed price. NV 5 also announced its preliminary third-quarter revenue of $62 million and $3.4 million in earnings, with final results to be reported on Nov. 3.
San Diego-based engineer Kleinfelder has named John A. Murphy as executive vice president and chief financial officer and Patrick Schaffner as senior vice president and human-resources director. Most recently, Murphy was president and CEO for the Europe, Middle East, India and Africa division of WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff. Schaffner was that firm’s senior vice president and global mobility director. Both held similar roles at Parsons Brinckerhoff, which WSP acquired in 2014. George J. Pierson, named Kleinfelder CEO in September, had been president and CEO of PB before its purchase by WSP for $1.35 billion.
HS2 Ltd., the entity building a planned high-speed railway to link London and northern U.K. cities, has named CH2M Hill European Managing Director Roy Hill as interim CEO, effective in November. HS2 Ltd. says it hopes to have a permanent CEO by next summer to replace Simon Kirby, who is leaving in December.
OBITUARIES
Glen Barton, a former chairman and CEO of Caterpillar Inc. who pushed the equipment maker into lucrative mining markets in the early 2000s and oversaw its deployment of Six Sigma business practices, died on Oct. 25 in Peoria, Ill., at age 77, said the firm. No cause of death was released. Barton’s term in the top role between 1999 and 2004 capped a 43-year company career. He joined Caterpillar as a trainee in 1961, with a civil engineering B.S. degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and rose through the ranks of its sales and product support divisions, eventually becoming a group president in 1990. Barton was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame in 2012.
Richard E. “Rick” Nelson, a vice president and Kansas City, Mo.-based global director of conveyance and infrastructure at CH2M who also was an American Society of Civil Engineers committee chair and co-chaired the group’s 2016 pipeline technology conference, died on Sept. 1 in that city at age 65. The cause of death was complications of throat cancer, says an online obituary. Nelson was an early member of ASCE’s Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute, its newest specialty group, and chaired that unit’s pipeline asset committee. He also previously served as infrastructure planning director at engineer-contractor Black & Veatch.
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