After 45 years with W.E. O’Neil Construction’s Chicago office, Mike Faron will step down as chairman of the company at the end of the year. John Russell will continue to lead the firm as president.

“I feel deeply fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with and learn from so many talented and dedicated colleagues during my long tenure at W.E. O’Neil,” says Faron, who started as a superintendent and project manager and was named president in 1989. He became chairman in 2008 as part of a planned leadership transition to Russell.

“This is a bittersweet time for me and the team as Mike has been an enormous part of W.E. O’Neil,” Russell says. “Because of Mike’s incredible leadership and service to our firm, we have enjoyed many years of success, and as a result, we expect to work from a position of strength as we look ahead into next year.”

Ben Eisel has been promoted to general manager of the Rudolph Libbe Group’s Plymouth, Mich., office. Eisel joined Rudolph Libbe Group as a project manager in 2010.
 

Chris Ferguson has joined WSP as central transit and rail market lead.
 

James Holzapfel has joined planning, engineering and program management firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam in Oak Brook, Ill., as a senior project manager. For the past eight years, Holzapfel was water and wastewater utility director of Naperville, Ill.