Michael Cortese has joined Structure Tone New Jersey as an aviation senior project manager in Woodbridge, N.J. He was senior project manager at VRH and has led numerous projects at Newark Liberty International Airport for aviation sector clients.

HNTB named Julie Green as transit and mobility group director and a vice president, based in New York City. She was a global director at Hatch for its New York region. Mahesh Patel also joined the firm as a senior project manager and associate vice president based in Princeton, N.J. He was a New Jersey Dept. of Transportation project manager for replacement of the Route 35 Victory Bridge over the Raritan River.

Jeffrey S. Hofmann has joined Hancock Associates, a Danvers, Mass., surveying, civil engineering and wetland science services firm, as senior project manager in Newburyport, Mass. He had previously owned a survey services firm.

Ozlen Ozkurt has joined Arup in New York City as a principal and Americas East water business leader. She was senior vice president and Northeast water business development lead at WSP USA. Ozkurt also is an adjunct engineering professor at Farmingdale State College.

North Reading, Mass.-based construction management firm Columbia has elevated Shawn Gallant to a new chief operating officer position. He was senior vice president with a focus on operations.

Albany, N.Y.-based CHA Consulting Inc. has promoted Sean Sweeney, senior vice president, to business line director for project and construction management, based in Boston. Previously he led the project and construction management practice in higher education, health care and public sector sectors.

Obituary

John L. Kolaya, 76, former president and chief operating officer of Yonkers Contracting Co., Yonkers, N.Y., and a longtime regional construction leader, died April 24 of complications of Parkinson’s disease, said his family. 

In a 45-year industry career, the graduate civil engineer managed heavy construction projects, including major East River bridges, complex building foundations— and rescue, cleanup and reconstruction after the World Trade Center Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in lower Manhattan.

“We came down the West Side Highway with a dozen pieces of equipment ready to go to work,” Kolaya told an online publication, noting they were offered from the firm's nearby projects. He also was aong geotechnical expert volunteers who assessed collapse risks of slurry walls lining the “bathtub,” the foundation basin of the twin towers that held off Hudson River flooding. 

Kolaya was a past president of heavy construction professionals group The Moles, as well as a National Academy of Construction inductee and was active in ACE Mentor Program.

Active on the Parkinson’s Foundation regional board since his 2011 diagnosis, he "always found a way to motivate people around him to care about important issues and do more to address them,” said his children Lauren and Tim Kolaya in announcing his death. 

Details of a memorial service were being finalized.