Kimberly “Kim” Roy has been elevated to the newly created role of CEO at HITT Contracting Inc., a Falls Church, Va., building firm that ranks at No. 55 on ENR’s Top 400 Contractors list, with $1.3 billion in 2016 revenue.
An 18-year company veteran and former senior project manager and executive vice president, she is the first non-family member to lead the 80-year-old, family-owned firm and the only woman CEO among the ENR Top 100 contractors, says HITT. She is an advisory board member of Virginia Tech’s Myers-Lawson School of Construction.
Roy succeeds company owners and former presidents Jim Millar and Brett Hitt, who the firm says are its sole owners and now are co- chairmen of a newly formed board of directors. Russell Hitt becomes chairman emeritus.
Executive Vice Presidents Jeremy Bardin and Drew Mucci are elevated to co-president, reporting to Roy. Bardin, who joined HITT in 2002, has run the firm’s hospitality and technology operations. Mucci rejoined the contractor this year from a previous role as senior vice president and head of mid-Atlantic operations at Gilbane Building Co.
Promoted to senior vice president are Josh Foreso, Evan Antonides and Sara Collins. HITT says 2017 revenue is set to exceed $1.5 billion.
New York City-based developer The Related Cos. has hired two top Obama administration transportation officials—former U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and former U.S. Transportation Dept. Build America Bureau acting executive director Andrew Right—as managing directors of Related Infrastructure, a new infrastructure investment arm of the developer’s Fund Management platform, of which it is principal owner.
The new business will target investments in entities “that develop and manage transportation-related assets [and] municipal assets as well as companies providing infrastructure- related businesses, services and technologies” in areas such as smart cities and resilient energy, says Related.
Fund Management was founded in 2009 as a real-estate investment advisory firm that Related says it “principally” owns. The developer says the unit has raised over $5 billion of capital.
Foxx also is former mayor of Charlotte, N.C., and Right was a co- founder of investment firm Goldman, Sachs & Co.’s infrastructure investment group.
Newly elected Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) has named former state Democratic delegate Shannon Valentine as secretary of transportation. A member of the Common-wealth Transportation Board since 2014, she co-directed the transportation-policy transition team for current Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D).
Northam also named Stephen Brich, vice president of design firm Kimley-Horn, as Virginia Dept. of Transportation commissioner. He previously held agency leadership positions. Also, VDOT Chief Deputy Commissioner Quintin Elliott was named deputy transportation secretary. A VDOT veteran, he led construction operations in two districts.
The Northam team’s challenge will be to find common ground with Maryland, the District of Columbia and the federal government on a viable funding plan for the beleaguered Metrorail regional transit system—a key recommendation of a year- long study led by former US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood..
Northam voiced conditional support for dedicated Metro funding during the campaign. As a state legislator, he backed public-private-developed toll-lane projects for I-95 and I-495 but has since called for lower tolls to make new infra- structure more accessible to motorists.
The Moles, the national heavy-construction professionals group, has named member Alfred H. Brand, a retired partner at Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers and former Moles president, and non-member Raymond G. Ames, co-founder, president and CEO of Minnesota-based contractor Ames Construction, as its 2017 achievement award winners. The awards will be presented in New York City on Jan. 24.
