Related Links: See Who Else in the Industry Has Moved Up, or Moved On HopkinsJohn L. Hopkins, Fluor Corp. group executive for corporate development and new ventures, will retire in March to become CEO of NuScale Power, a Portland, Ore.-based nuclear-power R&D startup firm in which the contractor is the majority investor. He replaces Paul G. Lorenzini, also NuScale Power's co-founder, who will become a firm consultant.Hopkins, also formerly president of Fluor's government group, joined Fluor in 1984. NuScale Power is developing a technology for a small modular reactor (SMR). Lorenzini has led the firm since 2007, when it
Related Links: Global Acquisitions Fall in Q3, But Strong Activity in Some Areas CB&I Makes $3-Billion Bid for The Shaw Group Nuclear Plant Fix Central to Duke CEO Ouster After Utility Merger Merger and acquisition activity was hot in 2012. Some surveys maintained that M&A numbers fell off this year as global economic trends made buyers more cautious, but others say company consolidation was steady. While there were numerous transactions involving small and midsize firms, the year also featured one deal that, if it is completed early next year, will become one of the largest ever in the industry: Woodlands, Texas-based
Related Links: N.Y. Concrete Test Firm Testwell Found Guilty of Racketeering 2011 indictment of American Standard Testing & Consulting Labs, owner and employees (PDF) In another action linked to an ongoing probe of fraudulent concrete testing in New York City, American Standard Testing and Consulting Laboratories Inc., its owner and several employees have pleaded guilty to falsifying testing and inspection reports on some of the city's largest public and private projects, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said on Dec. 14.The guilty pleas follows the August 2011 indictment of the firm, owner Alan Fortich and five engineers for submitting
SNC-Lavalin has key role in team winning $2.1-billion light rail line in Ottawa, Ontario, with award announced on Dec. 5. Related Links: Efforts To Restart Libyan Projects Land SNC-Lavalin in Controversy Ottawa Light Rail line website With the Nov. 28 arrest of its former CEO for alleged fraud on a large Montreal project, a new chapter opens in the ongoing probe of contracting improprieties involving SNC-Lavalin, the global design-build giant based there.Pierre Duhaime had been "relieved" from the post in March, with a retirement package after the firm's internal review found he approved improper payments to agents on overseas projects.The
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers Global economic uncertainty generated fewer acquisitions in 2012, but there were three 'mega-deals,' each worth more than $1 billion when completed. Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers Acquirers are also focusing on synergies in deals, as well as "human capital and a technological competitive edge." Related Links: PricewaterhouseCoopers/engineering & construction EFCG Inc. Morrissey Goodale AEC Management Solutions The buying and selling of firms in the engineering-and-construction sector, particularly across borders, has fallen off this year as participants "wait and see" whether global economic, financial and political signs improve, say merger-and-acquisition industry experts.Financial investors appear to be stepping into the E&C sector in
Courtesy of O Empreiteiro Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, dead at 104, created the modern city of Brasilia and other iconic buildings around the world. Courtesy of government of Brazil As in this 1950s-era cathedral in Brasilia, Niemeyer's emphasis on curves pushed Brazilian engineers to new levels of innovation to accommodate the untested designs. Related Links: Architectural Record slideshow of Oscar Niemeyer's well known buildings Homepage (in English) of Brazil Construction Publication O Empreiteiro The idea of moving Brazil's capital to the undeveloped interior dated to 1789, but it took until 1957 for work to begin. Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, along
Related Links: 100 Years of Coal Age WilkinsonJoseph F. Wilkinson, a former managing editor of ENR in the 1960s and 1970s and an award-winning journalist, died on Nov. 28 in Brooklyn, N.Y., of cardiac arrest at age 87.Wilkinson joined ENR in the 1950s and was managing editor from 1969 to 1976."Joe was the first ENR staffer to be a Vietnam war correspondent," says ENR Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Arthur J. Fox. "At his own initiative, he also was the first and only ENR editor to visit Antarctica and report on activities there."Adds Fox, "Joe's writing was 'splendid,' a favorite word of
Related Links: Contractors Association of Greater New York "Walking Steel": 2004 Video Tribute to John Cavanagh UPDATE: A public memorial for John A. Cavanagh will be held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan on Jan. 24 at 3 p.m. CavanaghJohn A. Cavanagh admitted he was "scared to death" scaling high-rises as a young field engineer for a New York City contractor, but he ended up climbing to the heights of the city's tough construction business some 50 years later as a top company executive, the founder of a leading contractor bargaining group and an industry activist for union construction.Cavanagh died
Related Links: Tappan Zee Bridge Bidder's Cold Feet Costs Team $2.5 Million The internationally expansive contractor ACS Group, Madrid, has tightened its control of German contractor Hochtief A.G. with the Nov. 20 appointment of Marcelino Fernández Verdes, a former executive of the Spanish firm, as the German company's new CEO.His predecessor, Frank Stieler, held the post for only 19 months since replacing former Hochtief boss Herbert Lütkestratkötter, who quit after unsuccessfully resisting ACS's acquisition of a controlling interest in the German firm.Fernández Verdes, whose appointment was unanimously supported by Hochtief's executive board, led the German firm's Americas division since joining
Related Links: "Raising the Bar in Contractor Selection"- Fall 2012 issue of CURT magazine The Voice, see page 37. CURT Event Talks up Risk-Taking, Value Creation Aiming to head off projected craft and management shortages and push contractors to boost workforce quality to compete for work, owners are launching a long-gestating rating tool that they want to become a key differentiator in contractor selection. The Contractor Workforce Development Assessment, which would grade firms based on 23 training components, will be deployed widely next year by the Construction Users Round Table.At the group's convention in Orlando, Fla., last month, CURT officials
