ROGERS John B. Rogers, a founder of what became RNL, a major Denver-based architect, died July 12 of complications of lung disease, in Denver. He was 88. A practice that Rogers founded in 1956 merged ten years later with two other firms to become RNL. Rogers, considered a pioneer in the profession, served as president for 30 years until the mid-1980s, and as chairman until 1995. With 250 employees and $29.1 million in 2009 revenue, the firm is No. 355 on ENR’s list of The Top 500 Design Firms. Rogers was an early advocate of integrated project delivery, the charrette
WOODMAN Lorrin E. Woodman, co-founder and former CEO of transportation and environmental infrastructure engineer Baxter & Woodman Inc., Crystal Lake, Ill., died on June 13 in Woodstock, Ill., of an undisclosed cause. He was 94. Woodman, who started the firm with fellow civil engineer Richard M. Baxter in 1946, retired in 1975. Baxter & Woodman, now owned by its 200 employees, ranks 352nd on ENR’s list of the Top 500 Design Firms, with $29.2 million in 2009 revenue. MATZZIE Donald E. Matzzie, 69, a transportation engineering executive and researcher for 44 years, died on July 5 in Mt. Lebanon, Pa.,
GUSTAFSON WINDMAN Arnold L. Windman, a former top executive of consulting engineer Syska & Hennessy, New York City, and an early advocate of tort and liability reform, died on June 19 in Hilton Head, S.C., of complications from a fall, says his family. He was 83. As a senior engineer, partner, president and vice chairman of the firm, Windman oversaw a number of its key design projects, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the American Hospital in Paris. He retired in 1991. A former president of the society that preceded the American Council of Engineering Companies,
James S. “Jim” Myers, former senior engineer at The Louis Berger Group Inc., Morristown, N.J., whose 40-year career included some of the firm’s toughest global assignments, died on May 13 of natural causes in Northport, Wash. He was 75. Myers held engineering and law degrees and was a certified scuba diver, licensed instrument pilot and marksman. “He was a man of such engineering brilliance, tenacity and dedication, he forever will be a legend at Berger,” says Larry D. Walker, Louis Berger president. Photo: Louis Berger Group Engineer Myers (left) at memorial to workers killed during an Afghanistan road rehab project
PATTISON Robert K. Pattison, a high-speed-rail advocate and former public- and private-sector transportation senior executive, died on May 12 in Fairfax, Va. He was 88. Pattison’s career in freight- and passenger-rail engineering, operation and administration spanned four decades. He served as president and general manager in the 1970s of the Long Island Rail Road, the largest U.S. commuter railroad, and was general manager of the Penn Central-Conrail Railroad. Pattison also is a former vice president of Parsons Brinckerhoff, where he was technical director of railway engineering on all its domestic and international rail projects. He also is a founding member
VIESSMAN LABIB Maher Z. Labib, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the buildings and facilities division of engineering and construction management firm STV Inc., New York City, died on May 12 at age 67. STV declines to disclose how or where he died. Labib, who earned civil engineering degrees in Cairo, Egypt, joined the firm in 1996 from a previous role as vice president for facilities and buildings at Raytheon Infrastructure Services Inc. Labib “re-engineered … the division into one of the most profitable arms of STV,” says CEO Dominick Servedio. Warren “Bud” Viessman, professor emeritus of environmental
There was no middle ground about Floyd Dominy, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s longest-serving commissioner. He died April 20 in Boyce, Va., four months into his second century of life. Photo: courtesy of State of Utah Dominy oversaw completion of Glen Canyon Dam in the 1960s. DOMINY Dominy was either the conquering hero of the west, pushing completion of huge dam projects on the Colorado River and elsewhere that brought water and power to growth-obsessed western states and work and wealth to their construction industry builders. Or he was the reviled enemy of environmentalists, a power-grabber whose projects were simply
HANSON Walter E. Hanson, a foundations expert and founder of the firm that became Hanson Professional Services Inc., a Springfield, Ill., engineer that ranks 174th on ENR’s list of The Top 500 Design Firms, died on April 4 in that city. He was 93. Hanson, who was the firm’s president for more than 30 years since its founding in 1954, specialized in foundation engineering and soil mechanics. A former engineering faculty member of the University of Illnois, Urbana-Champaign, he co-authored with noted experts Ralph Peck and Tom Thornburn “Foundation Engineering,” a textbook in those fields still widely used by students
Grace Lai’s interest in construction began right where the bus would drop her off hours before class at Chicago’s American Academy of Art. Starting out as a sidewalk sketcher, Lai was soon invited inside the project gate to become a celebrated “on-site” artist, earning commissions from contractors and building developers, as well as tradespeople’s nods of approval. As an artist, Lai was a late bloomer, going to art school and taking up painting in her late 50s after her husband, Harry, died in 1985. Previously, she was an assistant in his art studio. Lai’s art was her personal therapy, but
WILTON James L. Wilton, former chairman and president of San Francisco engineering firm Jacobs Associates and an expert in excavation design of deep cut-and-cover structures, died on March 16 in Woodside, Calif., of lung cancer. He was 83. Wilton, who joined the firm in 1957, was named president in 1974 and chairman in 1985. He served in those posts until his 1992 retirement. Wilton worked on numerous large global projects, including rapid transit systems in San Francisco, New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C., Venezuela’s Yacambu irrigation tunnel, the Arenal power tunnel in Costa Rica and the Victoria Arts Center