New York City real estate development and management company Silverstein Properties has hired Katie Kurtz as chief financial officer. She had been an executive vice president at AR Global.

Craig Schwitter, who founded the first North American office for engineering and multidisciplinary consulting firm Buro Happold more than two decades ago, has been named senior partner and global board chair. The firm also promoted former chief financial officer James Bruce to CEO.

New York City-based structural engineering firm Hatfield Group has made two key hires. Named a principal, Rebecca Jones had been a senior associate at Thornton Tomasetti. New associate principal Cori Kwitkin held the same title at that firm. 

Gus Maimis has joined STV as a senior vice president and business development director of its Eastern region construction management practice in New York City. Most recently, Maimis was an executive vice president at Lehrer Cumming, a project and cost management and owner advisory firm. He also is a visiting professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.

Venetta Amory has joined Lendlease in New York City as vice president and director of diversity, equity and inclusion for the firm’s Americas region. She had been director of diversity and inclusion at international law firm Kelley Drye & Warren.

Emily Gallo has been promoted to director of infrastructure and mobility equity from director of government relations for HNTB’s Northeast division, based in New York City. Ana Maria Ruiz Jimenez joined the firm’s national tunnel practice, also based there, as principal engineer and associate vice president. Previously, she worked with CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, in Switzerland.

Thornton Tomasetti managing principal John Abruzzo and senior principals Elisabeth Malsch and Peggy Van Eepoel have been elected to the firm’s board of directors for two-year terms. With their addition, the board now has 13 members.

Syska Hennessy has hired Rich Nowak as its national director of business development and associate vice president, based in the firm’s New York City office. Previously he was at Siemens, where he served as segment head, smart buildings and building automation, North America.

Brian Sipsey has joined AECOM to lead its Strategy + Consultancy group for the New York metro region. He had been a strategic performance manager at Skanska.

Colin Montoute has been named director of architecture at New York City-based multidisciplinary design and planning firm WXY architecture + urban design. He was an associate principal and senior design architect at AECOM.

Arup promoted Ron Ronacher Jr. to principal in its New York City office. He is the firm’s resilience, security and risk leader for the Americas. His experience includes protective intelligence and security requirement analysis, physical and electronic security design and development, construction administration and peer reviews, supporting owners and designers.

Maureen Usifer is the first woman elected to the board of directors for South Burlington, Vt.-based contractor PC Construction. She is a former chief financial officer of Seventh Generation, which makes environmentally friendly disinfecting products, and was also a longtime vice president of investor relations for Church & Dwight, a consumer products company. Usifer currently serves on the boards of BlackRock Capital Investment Corp. in New York City, Liberty All-Star Funds in Boston and Healthy Living Markets in Burlington. She was also appointed by Vermont Gov. Phil Scott in 2017 to the state’s Green Mountain Care Board, which oversees and budgets insurance rates and capital expenditures for hospitals in the state. 

Clara Wineberg and Bryan Irwin have been named to lead Solomon Cordwell Buez’s new Boston office. Wineberg is the Chicago-based architect and planning firm’s executive director and principal. She is a commercial sector specialist specializing in large-scale multifamily residential, office, life sciences and mixed-use developments. Irwin, a former principal at Sasaki, leads the firm’s campus environments studio.

Charlie Wear has joined Hancock Associates as engineering manager for the land surveying, civil engineering and wetland science services firm, serving offices in Danvers, Mass., and Newburyport, Mass. Prior to joining the company, he was president and director of engineering at Meridian Associates Inc. J. Dan Bremser, senior project Manager in Hancock’s Marlborough, Mass., office, has been named president of the Massachusetts Association of Land Surveyors and Civil Engineers. 

Andrew Clarke has been named a senior project manager at Meridian Associates Inc. in its real estate development and community bike path sector. He previously worked for WSP USA Inc. as a civil engineering project manager. Headquartered in Beverly, Mass., Meridian Associates operates in New England and offers civil engineering, aerial and mobile LiDAR and renewable energy services. 

Tina Bianco, Dawn Borden and Chris Therrien have joined construction management firm Structure Tone, based in Boston. Bianco joined as senior project manager after working as a construction manager at Ajax Consulting Services LLC. Borden, also a senior project manager, was a senior project manager at FacilitiesPM. Therrien, an assistant project manager, is formerly an assistant project manager at Wood Partners and Suffolk.

Vincent Rossi, president of Rossi Electric Co., and senior leadership will maintain their roles at the Cranston, R.I.-based electrical contracting firm after its acquisition by New York City-based E-J Electric Group. The sale closed on May 14 for an undisclosed price. Rossi Electric also retains its name and logo. 

GeoEngineers USA, an affiliate of GeoEngineers Inc., hired Stan Sadkowski to its national geotechnical design team as principal geotechnical engineer in the firm’s Boston office. Sadkowski’s experience includes geotechnical and environmental engineering for urban and suburban development. Sadkowski previously worked as a senior vice president at Sanborn, Head & Associates in Boston.

Obituary 

Laurence E. French, 78, co-founder of French & Parrello Associates, died May 6 of cancer, said an online obituary. After transitioning ownership and leadership roles in 2014, he stayed active in the firm as chairman emeritus. A scholarship in his name is being created at Wall Township High School in New Jersey for seniors who plan to pursue engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.