New York and New England People: February 2024
Gilbane Building Co. in Providence elevated Heidi DeBenedetti to chief operating officer. She is a nine-year firm veteran. It also promoted Michael O’Brien to senior vice president and New England division leader and named Justin MacEachern vice president and Massachusetts and northern New England leader. He was construction director at Boylston Properties. Adam R. Jelen is now the contractor’s CEO.
The Moles, a New York City-based heavy construction professionals group, named James C. Maxwell and Gary A. Almeraris its 2024 achievement award recipients. Non-member Maxwell is chairman of Hub Foundation Co., a Chelmsford, Mass., firm that does geotechnically complex drilling projects. Almeraris, operations vice president of Skanska USA Civil, is a 50-year tunneling veteran and past Moles president. Awards were presented on Feb. 8 in Manhattan.
Neil Cahalane is elevated to president of Ellenzweig, a Cambridge, Mass., architecture and planning firm. He succeeds Michael Lauber, a principal who continues his project work. Cahalane joined the firm in 1985.
The LiRo Group, Syosset, N.Y., has hired as senior vice president, Michael Wallace, former Port Authority of NY & NJ chief of construction in its construction management division. Craig Ruyle also joined the firm as a vice president. He was a regional director the New York State Dept. of Transportation.
Holly Marrone has joined Remington & Vernick Engineers, Cherry Hill, N.J., as vice president of human resources. She was executive director and chief people officer of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.
The New York Building Congress named STV President and CEO Gregory A. Kelly as chair. In the roles at the New York City-based firm since 2020, he also was president and CEO of WSP USA. Named Building Foundation chair is Elizabeth Velez, president and principal of Velez Organization.
Engineer firm Sanborn, Head & Associates, Bedford, N.H., has elevated to senior vice president Christopher Finnegan, Heather James, Seth Soos and Stephen Wright and named Michael Potter a vice president.
HNTB Corp. elevated Phil Brake to design-build president, based in Chelmsford, Mass. He succeeds Keith Hinkebein, who retired. Brake was a division president.
Vineyard Offshore, a Boston unit of clean energy developer Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, named Alicia Barton as CEO. She leads installation of the 800-MW, 62-turbine Vineyard Wind offshore wind project, owned by the parent firm and Avangrid. The first such U.S. commercial-scale project to be permitted, it began sending power to the grid in January. Barton was CEO of First Light Power, Northfield, Mass. She succeeds Lars T. Pedersen.
Colleen Moore joins HDR as vice president in Boston after the recent purchase of program management firm City Point Partners, of which she was founder and president.
OBITUARY
Chien Chung “Didi” Pei, 77, a noted architect and co-founder of what is now PEI Architects, died on Dec. 12 in New York City. His major projects included the UCLA South Campus and 1-million-sq-ft Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and Suzhou Museum in China. Pei also contributed to key projects of I.M. Pei & Partners, the firm founded by his father, I.M. Pei, at which he worked for 20 years.
