Frank L. Stahl, 91, a Holocaust survivor who became a noted bridge designer and the chief engineer at Ammann & Whitney Consulting Engineers PC, at which he built and rehabbed many landmark U.S. spans and highways, died on April 17 in Sandy Springs, Ga. The New York City firm says his death was due to natural causes. Stahl stands at the record-settingVerrazano-Narrows bridge, which opened in 1964. STAHL Stahl joined A&W in 1946, working directly for its legendary founder, O.H. Ammann. Stahl held key roles in designing Philadelphia's Walt Whitman Bridge and New York's Verrazano-Narrows and Throgs Neck bridges in
SCHAEFER Jack Schaefer, a respected labor negotiator in Las Vegas, president of the Nevada Contractors Association and a board member of several union trusts and apprenticeship programs, died on April 15 in that city. He was 64 and had pancreatic cancer, according to the association. After a Denver-based marketing career, Schaefer became labor relations director in 1990 for the Associated General Contractors chapter in Las Vegas. He left five years later in a leadership rift and launched NCA, a rival trade group that represents contractors that are union-only. AGC represents both union and non-union companies. “At the time, AGC was
DONES Ray Dones, Champion of Minority Contractors, Dies Raymon P. Dones, a contractor and industry activist who paved the way for minority contractors in construction, died on March 25 in Oakland, Calif. He was 93 and died of natural causes, says his son, Alan Dones, managing principal of Strategic Urban Development Alliance, a locally based developer. A former Pullman porter who gained a contractor's license, the elder Dones founded in 1953 the Aladdin Electric Co., which became the largest black-owned electrical contractor, says the alliance. He then founded Trans-Bay Engineers and was its CEO until he retired in 1984. In
SIR FRANK Sir Frank Lampl, Ex-Bovis CEO, Dies Sir Frank Lampl, an engineer who turned a modest U.K. building firm into the global giant Bovis Construction Group and was its chairman and CEO for 16 years, died on March 24 in London of complications related to his World War II and post-war imprisonment. He was 84. Born in Czechoslovakia, Sir Frank survived two Nazi death camps and escaped Soviet oppression and forced labor in a Czech uranium mine after returning to his native land. He became managing director of a state-owned construction firm but immigrated to the United Kingdom in
BENNING T.R. Benning Jr., co-founder and chairman of Atlanta-based commercial builder Benning Construction Co. and a wounded engineer combat battalion commander in World War II, died on March 10 in that city. He was 89 and had complications from a collapsed lung, the company says. Benning co-founded the firm in 1953 with his father and was president until 1990. The firm has about 100 employees and reported $46.8 million in 2009 revenue, according to ENR data. T.R. “Ted” Benning III has succeeded his father in that role. According to the firm’s website, the elder Benning began his career in 1943
BACHTA Joseph A. Bachta, owner and president of International Bridge & Iron Co., Newington, Conn., who fabricated structural steel for many landmark bridges and buildings in the Northeast, died on Nov. 29, 2010, of cardiac arrest in Hartford, Conn. He was 84. Bachta founded the steel fabricator in 1992 and also served as general manager and assistant to the president of Standard Structural Steel Co., also based there, from 1960 to 1990. Projects on which he worked as fabricator include Boston�s Central Artery/Tunnel; the Trident submarine base in Groton, Conn.; the Thames River bridge in Montville, Conn.; skyscrapers in Manhattan,
BUGLIARELLO George Bugliarello, 83, who led two engineering schools, advanced research in sustainable urban design and pioneered one of the first U.S. university-industry research parks in a blighted area in Brooklyn, N.Y., died on Feb. 18 in Roslyn, N.Y. The cause was pneumonia, according to his family. Bugliarello was also an ENR Newsmaker in 199y3, cited for being the visionary behind the $1-billion MetroTech Center, while serving as president of the nearby Polytechnic Institute of New York. “With limited resources, if you have a clear idea of the needs of the community and are lucky enough to line up political
O’BRIEN Thomas E. O’Brien, chairman and CEO of contractor-fabricator BMWC Group Inc., Indianapolis, died on Jan. 18 in that city at age 59. The firm says he died after a long illness but did not disclose details. O�Brien, who joined BMWC in 1979 as assistant project manager, was named president in 1996, CEO two years later and chairman in 1999. He was also an advisory board member of the Construction Industry Institute and on the executive committee of the Indiana Construction Roundtable. BMWC Group ranks 340th on ENR�s list of the Top 400 Contractors, with $160 million in 2009 revenue.
George Lamphere, former president of Washington, D.C.-based contractor Charles H. Tompkins Co. (later known as Tompkins Builders Inc.) and a builder of many city and area landmarks, died on Dec. 10, 2010, in Kensington, Md. Lamphere was 79 years old. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, according to The Washington Post. LAMPHERE Lamphere, who joined the firm in 1954, served as president from 1985 until retiring in 1996. Tompkins became a subsidiary of contractor J.A. Jones Inc., Charlotte, N.C., in the early 1970s and was acquired by Turner Construction Co., New York City, in 2003, when Jones filed for bankruptcy.
JONES He was remembered as a “prickly” corporate leader, but Edwin L. Jones Jr. built contractor J.A. Jones, founded by his grandfather, into an industry heavyweight before selling it to a German conglomerate that eventually collapsed under debt, forcing the U.S. firm into bankruptcy and a fire sale in 2003. Jones died on Dec. 26, 2010, in Charlotte, N.C., at age 89. Following a family tradition, Jones assumed the J.A. Jones presidency in 1959 and became chairman in 1971. The firm grew into a construction powerhouse, with projects ranging from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to launch