I’m pleased to announce the recipients of ENR California’s inaugural Legacy Award. This new program honors industry veterans with many years of experience and long lists of contributions to their profession and community. In choosing this year’s recipients, our judges looked at each nominee’s history of innovation, outstanding career highlights and an engagement within the industry and the surrounding community.  

Due to the positive response from the construction industry and the number of entries we received, ENR California will honor two legacy winners. The Northern California winner, Kenneth G. Sletten, will be honored at the Best Projects awards banquet in San Francisco on Dec. 2, and the Southern California winner Timothy Psomas will be honored on Dec. 4 at the Long Beach banquet.

Below is just a brief glimpse into their lifelong dedication to the construction industry. You can read more about the recipients in the Feb. 2015 issue of ENR California, and at the awards banquets.

Kenneth G. Sletten, managing director–advisory board, Level 10 Construction

Ken Sletten co-founded Rudolph and Sletten in 1961, and the firm soon became known as “the contractor that built Silicon Valley.” The firm built the first chip-plating facilities, clean rooms and corporate campuses for the original tech giants such as AMD, Apple, HP and Memorex. Sletten established preconstruction services, fast-track scheduling and guaranteed maximum price delivery more than 40 years ago, concepts which continue to serve as a template for the industry. More recently, Sletten joined many past colleagues at Level 10, and the firm has grown exponentially since 2011. Sletten works with many non-profits, including 10 years on the board of the San Francisco Habitat for Humanity, as well as numerous other boards.

Timothy Psomas, chairman emeritus, Psomas

Tim Psomas strategically transformed his firm into new geographic markets and expanding its service offerings and target client markets beyond land surveying into civil engineering, transportation and water/wastewater engineering. A former chairman of the American Council of Engineering Companies, he joined forces with ASCE and APWA and helped launch the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure. As founding chairman of ISI, he led development of the groundbreaking Envision rating system for infrastructure. He has been involved with many transportation policy issues, and has a long history of leadership on legislative efforts to improve the business environment for engineers. He serves on the board of directors of several private companies and non-profits, and he serves as chairman of public-private partnership Project Restore.