Ash Kamath will lead the West Texas-New Mexico commercial division as operations manager. He was also named vice president.

Newly appointed vice president Cliff Pawelek has been elevated to operations manager of the Austin and San Antonio commercial divisions.

Bill Rees, operations manager of the commercial division in Central-South Texas, will also take on the role of vice president of productivity improvement for the firm.

Shane Hesters, business development director working within the Austin and Dallas-Forth Worth markets, was promoted to vice president of business development for the commercial group.

Jim Behrens, who has been serving as preconstruction manager, becomes vice president of commercial preconstruction.

Joining the company as vice president of the commercial division in Dallas-Fort Worth is Mark LaVoy.

The founder and president of EEA Consulting Engineers, Mike Hart, will retire as president at the end of the year and focus on his responsibilities as chairman of the board.

Todd Schmitt, the firm’s current vice president, will assume the position of president of the Austin-headquartered, employee-owned firm effective Jan. 1.

Dan Olson has joined Garver’s growing water team as Southeast Texas water team leader. He will be based in the firm’s Houston office. 

Tambra Clement has been named the new people services leader in Garver’s Little Rock office. She comes to Garver after leading Master Action Plan Consulting, which she founded after working for 32 years at Acxiom Corp.

Larry Rooney has been promoted to president of Manhattan Construction Group. He joined the family business in Manhattan’s Houston regional office in 2010, after working in Chicago for Turner Construction Co. He is the fifth generation of the Rooney family to work at the company.

 

Enprotec / Hibbs & Todd Inc. (eHT) announced new corporate officers for the firm. Jordan Hibbs and Sage Diller have been appointed as associate vice presidents, and Joshua Berryhill becomes the firm’s associate vice president and technical director.

 

Liz Schmitz has joined Stantec as a health care planner in the company’s Houston office. Schmitz has 12 years of experience in medical planning and project management services.

 

 

Jim Herbert has joined Cardno Inc.’s Austin office as a senior project manager. Herbert’s 15 years of design experience includes public and private land development and vertical mixed-use projects.

Sundt Construction Inc. recently added senior estimator Rick Howard to its transportation group in the Irving, Texas, office. Howard has 12 years of experience in the transportation sector.

 

 

James Dwyer has joined HDR’s water resources team as a senior groundwater engineer. Before joining HDR, Dwyer worked for CH2M as a project manager for production well fields in Texas and Oklahoma.

 

 

John Bush has joined Freese and Nichols Inc. as a senior aviation project manager in the firm’s Pearland, Texas, office. Bush will help to expand the firm’s airport engineering and construction portfolio across the nation.

 

 

Andrés A. Salazar, principal and managing director of Houston Hydrology & Hydraulics at Walter P Moore, was recently certified as a diplomate, water resources engineer of the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers, a subsidiary of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

 

HOK’s Dallas office has hired two design professionals. Ricky Martinez joins the architecture team, and Lauren Saab joins the interior design team. 

McKim & Creed Inc. has hired two employees to be part of its Houston geomatics (surveying) team. Corey Campbell has joined the firm as a geomatics project manager, and  Trey Davis joins as a senior CAD technician.

 

 

Brent Hanford has joined Kovach Building Enclosures’ Dallas-Fort Worth team as business development manager. He previously worked at National Panel Systems Inc. as a project manager.

 

 

Luis Ayala has joined Gensler as design director with the community studio in the Houston office.

Gerardo Gandy, a designer at Gensler, was recently elected to serve as the outreach commissioner for AIA Austin’s board of directors.

Austin Industries has made changes to its board of directors. Tom Leppert has been appointed to succeed Rhys Best as board chair, effective Nov. 1. Best will remain on the board until his scheduled retirement in 2018. Leppert was a partner at McKinsey & Co. and has been the CEO for several major companies and also served as mayor of Dallas. Leppert will step down as the chair of Austin’s audit committee, and Dave Scullin will take over those duties. Scullin currently serves as the president and CEO of Communities Foundation of Texas.

Philip Grice has joined Braun Intertec’s Gulf Coast operations in Texas City as principal and area leader. Most recently, Grice served as senior vice president of Tolunay-Wong Engineers.

Roderick August has been promoted to assistant project superintendent at Ryan Gootee General Contractors LLC.

 

 

Turner Industries chairman and CEO, Roland M. Toups, was recently honored with the Ed Steimel Achievement Award from the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry. Toups was honored for his long-standing membership and service to the association and to Louisiana.

 

Rashed Islam has been elected to the University of Texas at Austin’s Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Dept.’s Academy of Distinguished Alumni. He now serves as managing principal of HDR’s downtown Austin office and interim Central Texas transportation business group manager. Islam received a master’s degree in civil engineering from UT Austin in 1996.

 

Structure Tone Southwest’s Kelly Ioannou was named Outstanding Professional of the Year by the Regional Hispanic Contractors Association’s annual Luna Awards, which honor the achievements of women in the Texas AEC industry. She is a senior estimator in the Dallas office.