When Ted Zoli and 2010 Award of Excellence winner John Hillman discussed the format for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association's initial TransOvation educational workshop last September, they agreed on the need to do something different.
CREAMERJ. Fletcher "Fletch" Creamer Sr., who grew his father's coal-hauling business, J. Fletcher Creamer & Son, into a road and utility contracting giant in New Jersey and nearby states, died on March 30 at age 85. The Hackensack firm says he died of natural causes. Creamer was president and CEO from 1970 to 2006, when he became chairman. Named to the Utility and Transportation Contractors Association Hall of Fame in 1997, he "always set the benchmark for first-class road and bridge construction," says Phillip Parratt, a former carpenters' union business rep in New Jersey. The firm ranks at No.
GRAYLois H. Gray, co-founder of what is now Gray Construction Co., a major family-owned industrial design-builder in Lexington, Ky., died on March 19 in that city. She was 91 and suffered from complications of Alzheimer's disease, says the firm. After the death of her husband, James, in 1972, Gray and her sons helped steer the contractor into a lucrative niche working for Japanese and European manufacturers. She was chairwoman from 1972 to 2000. The firm ranks at No. 182 on ENR's list of the Top 400 Contractors. Gray also was a director of the Federal Reserve Bank in St.
SMULLNeil H. Smull, the president emeritus of architect-engineer CSHQA who helped the Boise firm evolve from its one-architect roots into a western U.S. regional player with 85 employees and $8.5 million in revenue, died there on March 18. The firm's last surviving partner, he died of natural causes at age 90, says a spokeswoman. A landscape architect, Smull joined the firm in 1961, lured to Boise from Kansas by co-founder Glen E. Cline. As principal architect, Smull began to incorporate energy-efficient design elements in the 1970s. He retired in 1986. Smull became a Fellow of the American Institute of
Robert V. "Bob" Whitman, who pioneered geotechnical research in soil dynamics and earthquake engineering beginning in the early 1960s, died in Lexington, Mass., on Feb. 25, at age 84. The cause of death was not released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he retired as professor emeritus in 1993. WHITMAN"Bob's technical and policy contributions lie at the very foundation of much that is now state of knowledge and state of practice in earthquake engineering," observed James K. Mitchell, a University of California engineering professor emeritus, in a 2009 oral history for the West Coast-based Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.
Virginia Tech Univ. Holly Matusovich Potential gaps between how faculty teach and how students learn engineering concepts is the subject of a new study by a Virginia Tech University assistant professor. Holly Matusovich will focus her five-year research on thermal dynamics classes in chemical and mechanical engineering, but the results "will unlock secrets to conceptual learning that will apply across all fields," she says.On the faculty of the Blacksburg, Va.-based school's engineering education department, Matusovich will use a $438,000 National Science Foundation grant to study the gap between what faculty think they are teaching and what students say they are
ULLICO Inc. Related Links: AFL-CIO statement on Death of Mark Ayers Electrical Workers' Union Shows Muscle In Choice for New Building-Trades Chief Laborers Returning to Trades But Total Harmony Still Elusive Trades Vow To Keep Political Status Quo Mark H. Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Dept. (BCTD), died suddenly early on April 8 in Washington, D.C., a department spokesman has confirmed. Ayers, who had been in the role since 2007, was 63 years old.No details were released on the cause or circumstances of his death, but according to an industry group official with ties to the
ORIENTMark Orient has joined Tishman Construction Corp. as senior vice president, based in Washington, D.C. He formerly held the same title at Tompkins Builders Inc., a Washington-based unit of Turner Construction Corp. Tishman, acquired by AECOM in 2010, also promoted Steve Dimond and Ken Harris to first vice president and Vince Giganti to vice president of mechanical-electrical-plumbing services.CNH Global N.V., a Netherlands-based global construction and agricultural equipment manufacturer and distributor, has enamed Mario Gasparri to be president of its U.S. construction equipment unit in Burr Ridge, Ill., effective April 1. He replaces James McCullough, who retires March 31. Gasparri
Ivan Viest Ivan M. Viest, an immigrant Slovak engineer who pioneered research in composite construction, earthquake resistance and load and resistance factor design (LRFD) of buildings and bridges, died on Feb. 11 in Bethlehem, Pa. He was 89. The cause of death was not released.Viest's research at the University of Illinois in the 1950s led to acceptance of composite design criteria for steel bridges. Research he then championed for the National Academy of Sciences expanded the knowledge of fatigue and fracture and led to advances in LRFD use.Viest added to his body of work while a manager for Bethlehem Steel
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