New York and New England People: July 2023
Gilbane Building Co. named Adam R. Jelen as CEO, effective Jan. 1, to succeed Thomas M. Laird Jr., who will become chairman of the Gilbane Building Co. Jelen has been the firm’s chief operating officer since last year.
Skanska says Kerim Evin and Anita Nelson will serve as regional executive officers, the former in New York and New Jersey and the latter for its integrated solutions team. Nelson also is chief strategy officer. Skanska also promoted vice president Daniel Patarozzi to account manager in the two states.
CDM Smith hired Jennifer Prescott as senior vice president and chief digital and information officer, succeeding Dave Neitz, who has retired. She had been CIO at Kleinfelder.
Hudson Meridian Construction Group, New York City, says Steven Calicchio, who returned to the CM firm in 2021, now is senior vice president. Walter Haass is senior vice president, risk management, and Deborah Jordan and Matt Izzo are vice presidents.
Michael Luciani and Matthew Sarver have joined STO Building Group, New York City—the former as senior vice president of strategic market growth and the latter as regional operations executive. Luciani was senior vice president of strategy and growth at AECOM. Sarver is formerly a vice president at Gilbane Building Co.
The American Society of Civil Engineers elected Feniosky A. Peña-Mora as president for the 2024-2025 term. He is a professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia University in New York City and executive director of its Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space.
John Dalton, who was program manager for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s recently completed Green Line extension project, now is senior vice president at STV and named senior project director for the Gateway Trans-Hudson Partnership. He is leading the consortium of consultants delivering the Hudson Tunnel Project – a 10-mile, two track rail tunnel under the Hudson River from Manhattan to Newark, N.J.
Marian Barth is STV Boston area manager, elevated from operations director. She has worked on city projects such as the Fanny Appleton Pedestrian Bridge.
AECOM named Executive Vice Presidents John Kovacs and Eric Reid as co-leads of its AECOM Tishman unit’s New York City-based region. Jay Badame also is transitioning from president of AECOM’s construction management business, which includes AECOM Tishman, to become executive adviser to Bob Hart, who is elevated to CM unit president from COO. Badame has been president since AECOM bought Tishman Construction in 2018.
HNTB has hired James Starace as vice president and project director. Based in Newark, N.J., he was chief engineer of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Also joining, as director of tunnel resilience and rehabilitation in Boston, is Henry Russell. He is a former Mott MacDonald vice president.
Prashanth Emmanuel, Christopher Grillo and Paul Smith join Tighe & Bond, Westfield, Mass., as water and wastewater senior project managers. Brian Nereson now is principal engineer in its geotechnical group in Portsmouth, N.H.
OBITUARY
Richard Ravitch, 89, who led HRH Construction, New York City, and co-chaired the New York Building Congress post-Hurricane Sandy Task Force, died on June 25. As Metropolitan Transportation Authority chair, he helped build Metro-North Railroad and rescue the New York City subway system from financial collapse in the 1970s. Ravitch also was lieutenant governor of New York in 2009 and was a Parsons Brinckerhoff board member.
