MidAtlantic People: Construction business updates for August 2017
As part of a planned reorganization, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has appointed a new slate of leaders, naming Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary Leslie S. Richards as its chair. Richards has been serving on the five-member commission in her capacity as the state’s top transportation official. She began her career in civil engineering and project management and was named to head the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation in 2015.
Continuing as commissioners are: Pittsburgh businessman William K. Lieberman, who was named vice chairman; Secretary-Treasurer Barry Drew of Mechanicsburg, a former deputy secretary of administration in the state Dept. of Revenue; and Bucks County businessman and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Chairman Pasquale T. (Pat) Deon Sr. Joining the commission is former state Senator John N. Wozniak of Johnstown.
David Cross has purchased Mowery, a Mechanicsburg, Pa.-based construction company. Cross, who has been the company’s president since 2015, will continue in that role. He bought Mowery from the company’s former owner, Donald Mowery, who will continue to work with Mowery in a consulting, client relations and business development role.
Cynthia Chen has been named Dewberry’s chief financial officer. Chen, who joined the Fairfax, Va.-based company 13 years ago, was previously its corporate director of accounting and finance. She will oversee the accounting and finances of the 2,000-person firm. Chen began her career with investment bank Rothschild in Shanghai. She also worked for Ernst & Young’s risk management practice in New York City as a senior consultant. Chen succeeds Mark Reiner, who died earlier this year.
Dewberry also promoted Catherine Bohn to associate vice president in the Fairfax, Va., office. Bohn provides geographic information systems support to government agencies and helps them use tools to respond to natural disasters.
Virginia Tech professor Andrew McCoy has been named head of the department of building construction in the university’s Myers-Lawson School of Construction. McCoy, a faculty member since 2008, also is in charge of the Virginia Center for Housing Research in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies. His research focuses on how innovations in residential construction can make housing more affordable and sustainable. McCoy teaches courses on concepts, theories and applications of innovation in construction.
Stephen M. Wiltshire has joined the Associated Builders and Contractors as director of safety. He will focus on safety goals that ABC says can reduce incident rates by 87%.
Obituary
Carl A. Baumert Jr., Keast & Hood principal emeritus, died on July 11 in Delaware County, Pa. He was 88. Baumert joined the Philadelphia-based structural engineering firm in 1956 and served as a principal of the firm from 1963 to 1995. He continued as a senior consultant from 1995 until his retirement in December 2014. Baumert was known for his historic preservation work, including serving as the lead structural consultant on the restoration of Philadelphia’s City Hall, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and several other iconic buildings in the city. He also served on several committees for the American Society of Civil Engineers Philadelphia Section and was named the section’s 2011 Structural Engineer of the Year. In 2012, Baumert entered the Delaware Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. After graduating from the Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University) in 1951, Baumert served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1951-1953 at Fort Belvoir, Va., and in the Korean War.
