Alexander A. “Sak” Sakhnovsky, a pioneer of test methods for curtain-wall stability, died of heart failure at age 84 on June 19 in Miami. SAKHNOVSKYWhile running a housing research laboratory at the University of Miami, Sakhnovsky was among the first to perform window testing, in 1954. A trained chemist, he was instrumental in developing, in the 1960s, the American Society for Testing Materials' static water- leakage test. It remains virtually unchanged today. Sakhnovsky bought the lab and launched Construction Research Laboratory Inc. (CRL), Medley, Fla., in 1968.CRL is considered the world's first and largest curtain-wall test facility, with 40 test
MCLAUGHLINTimothy L. “Timmy” McLaughlin was set to step down on June 30 as president of the national American Subcontractors Association Inc., but his term ended unexpectedly on June 9 when he suffered a fatal heart attack in Charleston, S.C. He was 62. Active in the Alexandria, Va.-based specialty contractors advocacy group for more than 20 years, McLaughlin was also general manager of Austin Construction Co. Inc., a site and utility contractor in Summerville, S.C. His successor at the 4,500-member ASA is Kerrick Whisenant, president-elect and pre-construction director of Cornerstone Detention Prod-ucts Inc., a Tanner, Ala., detention equipment and security electronics
BENNETTJames P. “Jim” Bennett twice turned down invitations, dating back to 1973, to join Canada's PCL Construction Enterprises Inc. He finally came aboard 15 years later, in 1988, as vice president of its Denver building unit, eventually leading its U.S.-based operations in building and civil construction, which included the contractor's push overseas. A former president of two PCL units, Bennett died on June 9 in Georgetown, S.C., at age 74 of a massive stroke, says the firm. A former vice president of J.A. Jones Construction Co. and president and CEO of Rogers Construction Co., Bennett became PCL Construction building unit
Timothy L. “Timmy” McLaughlin was about to step down June 30 as this year’s president of the American Subcontractors Association Inc., (ASA), but his term came to a more abrupt end when he suffered a fatal heart attack on June 9 in Charleston, S.C. He was 62. MCLAUGHLIN McLaughlin, active in the Alexandria, Va.-based specialty contractors advovcacy group for more than 20 years, also was general manager of Austin Construction Co. Inc., a site and utility contractor in Summerville, S.C. Immediately succeeding him is Kerrick Whisenant, ASA president-elect, who was to have assumed the 4,500-member group’s top role on July
Photo courtesy of Fluor Corp. Les McCraw led the contractor into new markets and pushed safety, the firm says. Leslie G. “Les” McCraw, who expanded Fluor Corp. into a global diversified powerhouse in the 1990s as chairman and CEO but whose forays were costly and prompted successors to shed non-core businesses, died on May 25 in Greenville, S.C., at age 75.He suffered from cancer since 1997, when he stepped down from the construction giant.McCraw rose quickly through the Fluor executive ranks after its purchase of Greenville-based Daniel Construction in 1977. He was named Daniel CEO and joined the Fluor board
FUSILLI Donald P. Fussilli Jr., who rose from assistant engineer to CEO at Michael Baker Corp., Pittsburgh, and then took a chief executive role at David Evans Marine Sciences Inc., died on May 17 in Adams Township, Pa., of complications related to brain cancer. He was 59. Fusilli, who also served as Michael Baker's general counsel, went on to lead the firm's energy group's expansion into Asia and South America in the 1990s. He became corporate president in 2000 and CEO in 2001, leading a company restructuring. Fusilli was named to head the David Evans Associates' subsidiary in 2008 and
VICK Ed Vick Jr., former chairman of transportation engineering firm Kimley-Horn and Associates, Raleigh, N.C., died on May 13 in Durham, N.C., after a brief battle with cancer. He was 76. Vick, who co-founded Kimley-Horn in 1967, was its president from 1972 to 1992 and chairman until 2000. The firm is the industry's 40th largest engineer on ENR's current Top 500 Design Firms list, with $320.9 million in 2010 revenue. It now works internationally with a 1,500-person staff. “Ed was an amazing visionary,” says Mark Wilson, the firm's current chairman. “He always pushed for excellence.” In 2007, Vick was inducted
Leslie G. “Les” McCraw, who expanded Fluor Corp. into a global diversified powerhouse in the 1990s as chairman and CEO but whose forays were costly and prompted successors to shed non-core businesses, died on May 25 in Greenville, S.C., at age 75. He suffered from cancer since 1997, when he stepped down from the construction giant. N/A Les McCraw led the contractor into new markets and pushed safety, the firm says. McCraw rose quickly through the Fluor executive ranks after its purchase of Greenville-based Daniel Construction in 1977. He was named Daniel CEO and joined the Fluor board in 1984.
The study of groundwater was pretty much “out of sight, out of mind’’ when James J. Geraghty began plying the field in the 1950s. Few schools offered courses, let alone degree programs. Even after forming a successful engineering partnership with David W. Miller and pioneering the study and practice of groundwater geology and contaminant flow, Geraghty once admitted that the much-ignored niche still “bored everybody” in his firm. Geraghty (left) wth partner Miller pioneered in a field considered a stepchild and set the standard. Geraghty, former chairman of Syosset, N.Y., consulting firm Geraghty & Miller, who co-wrote some of the
Arthur G. Witters, among the first construction program graduates of the University of Florida, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and a key figure in managing design, construction and early operation of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., died on April 16 in Orlando at age 91. The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, says Richard C. Witters, his son and president of design firm Witters & Bank, an Arlington, Va., engineering firm. Witters (center) shows model to Lt. Gen. Hubert Harmon (right), the academy’s first superintendent, and Dwight Eisenhower in 1954. WITTERS After earning his degree in 1941 and