Midwest People: March 2026
Aaron Retherford has been promoted to president of St. Louis-based Kadean Construction. He will oversee enterprise strategy and organizational alignment while leading the industrial business unit and advancing Kadean’s business unit model. He joined Kadean in 2020 as vice president of business strategy. Kadean has aligned its nationwide health care business unit operations under the leadership of Travis Mulder, vice president. Mulder also will oversee the firm’s commercial business unit work in St. Louis and Kansas City. Jim Driscoll has been appointed vice president of industrial strategy to focus on guiding industrial clients through early decision-making, facility evaluation and long-term planning. Joe Kelley has been promoted to senior manager of business strategy. He will oversee internal sales coordination, pipeline governance and consistency in early client engagement across all business units.
Burns & McDonnell has made several promotions in its Kansas City, Mo., office. Chris Freeman was elevated to vice president and food and beverage leader for the global facilities group; Julee Koncak is now vice president of community relations and foundation; Mike Lombardo is vice president, transmission and distribution group; Andy Mashek is Dept. of Defense projects vice president in the aviation and federal group; Brad Schilhab is vice president of field operations in the construction group; Jim Swanski is vice president for corporate services; Shalis Winder is vice president for the oil, gas and chemical group; and Andy Wozniak is vice president for the Great Lakes region, based in the Chicago office.
Columbus, Ohio-based VanTrust Real Estate has promoted Anna Brown from development manager to director of development. In this role, she will focus on identifying, evaluating and executing both build-to-suit and speculative development opportunities. In addition, Alex Lord has been named director of development services. Prior to joining VanTrust, Lord spent more than a decade with The Opus Group in the Minneapolis and Phoenix offices.
Construction company PARIC, which has offices in St. Louis and Kansas City, has promoted Michael Picker to the new position of vice president of strategic growth. In his new role, Picker, who has more than 25 years of construction experience, will be responsible for growth strategy and development to maintain and enhance the company’s recent and current growth.
Nexus, an engineering, procurement and construction management firm headquartered in Cleveland, has promoted Jason Didion to senior engineering director and Steve Wilson and Gary Ventimiglia to engineering directors. The appointments reflect Nexus’ continued investment in leadership development and technical capabilities to support growth across its offices in Cleveland, Maumee and Midland, Ohio, and Oak Brook, Illinois.
Ellen Zimmer has joined Tarlton, a St. Louis-based general contracting and construction management firm, as chief financial officer and vice president to oversee the company’s financial strategy, accounting, treasury and long-term planning initiatives. Tarlton also has promoted Michael Trettel to senior vice president. Trettel will provide executive oversight and drive growth in the energy, industrial, water/wastewater and civil markets as well as in Tarlton’s self-perform and special projects groups. Trettel joined Tarlton in 2022 as director of strategic markets.
Messer Construction, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, has promoted seven employees: Brian Campbell to operations vice president in the Cincinnati office, Jason Brett to operations vice president in the Columbus office and Jim Glasener and Cole Perry to operations vice presidents in the Indianapolis office. In addition, Matt Barney has been named senior vice president and chief financial officer, Jason Aspinwall has been named craftforce development vice president, and Kyle Kingery and Bruce Tumlin have been named senior project executives.
