Emily A. Carter, dean of Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science since 2016, becomes executive vice chancellor and provost of the University of California, Los Angeles as of Sept. 1. She also is founding director of Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment and was a UCLA engineering faculty member for 16 years before joining Princeton in 2004. Carter will be UCLA's chief operating and academic officer.
Architect-engineer Short Elliott Hendrickson, St. Paul, Minn., has tapped the executive ranks of Texas engineer Wood to name David Ott as chairman, president and CEO. He was his former employer’s senior vice president for environment and infrastructure and also AMEC Foster Wheeler senior vice president for construction services. Wood acquired AMEC Foster Wheeler in 2017. SEH says it employs 800 engineers, architects, planners and scientists in the U.S. Ott succeeds Sam Claassen, now CEO emeritus. Wood's UK parent Wood plc also said that energy sector veteran Roy Franklin was named chairman of the corporation.
Iowa State University has named W. Samuel Easterling dean of engineering. A 30-year faculty veteran of Virginia Tech University, he had been a professor of structural steel design and head of the Via Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He takes the new role on July 15.
One year after PC Construction CEO Kevin McCarthy departed the Vermont contractor, it has elevated President and COO James F. “Jay” Fayette to the role. A 24-year company veteran, he succeeds interim CEO David Crawford, a PC board director and former CEO of Sundt Construction. PC says it now has $1.2 billion in water, wastewater and buildings projects, including a $300-million water supply system in Atlanta.
S. Manian Ramkumar has been named dean of the College of Engineering Technology at Rochester Institute of Technology, one of the university’s oldest and largest colleges. An RIT alumnus and former faculty member, he had been interim dean and also is founder of its Center for Electronics Manufacturing and Assembly.
Robert L. “Bob” Zollars, 72, co-founder and chairman of Dallas engineer-architect Huitt-Zollars Inc., who presided over it becoming a firm with $93 million in revenue in 2018, died there on April 20.
The firm did not disclose the cause of death, but an online obituary refers to a long illness.
Huitt-Zollars, launched in 1975, reported 42% of its revenue in transportation and 30% in general buildin, according to the ENR Top 500 Design Firms list.
The firm says Zollars had a key role in its work to expand the Fort Bliss base near El Paso, among other major projects.
He held past industry leadership roles and is a fellow of the Texas Engineering Foundation. Zollars also was a strong supporter of STEM education, endowing engineering scholarships at his alma mater Southern Methodist University and other schools.
