Joseph G. Belechak has been promoted to chief operating officer, a new position, at Pittsburgh-based contractor dck Worldwide LLC. Since joining last September, he has been senior vice president of strategy and operational excellence. Belechak formerly is a senior vice president of nuclear fuels at Westinghouse Electric Co. and chief operating officer at Duquesne Light. He also was president of a consulting firm, Transformation Services. dck Worldwide ranks at No. 172 on ENR's list of the Top 400 Contractors, with $315 million in 2011 revenue.
Belechak
James C. Griffin Jr. has joined Gannett Fleming as vice president of engineering and technical services, based in Morrisville, N.C. The new role follows the firm's acquisition in January of Griffin Engineering and Technical Services, of which Griffin was co-founder, vice president and principal engineer. That firm was founded in 2003.
Batson-Cook Co., a West Point, Ga., construction firm, has elevated President R. Randall Hall to the added role of CEO. He succeeds Raymond L. Moody Jr., who becomes an executive adviser. Hall, based in Atlanta, has been president since early 2012. He also is a board member of the Georgia branch of the Associated General Contractors. Batson-Cook, a unit of Kajima USA, ranks at No. 267 on ENR's list of the Top 400 Contractors.
Jeff Theerman has joined engineering firm Brown & Caldwell as a vice president. Since 2003, he was the executive director of the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD); he is still based in that city. The firm says he led negotiations to finalize a 2011 consent decree between MSD and U.S. agencies that calls for $4.7-billion in upgrades to settle Clean Water Act violations.Theerman also is a former president of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, a national wastewater utility-trade group. Jonathon Sprague, MSD operations director, has been named interim executive director. MSD's board is now seeking a permanent replacement for Theerman.
Design firm Thornton Tomasetti Inc. has named Daniel H. Nall as a senior vice president in its New York City building sustainability practice. Nall was a senior vice president and director of sustainability at WSP Flack + Kurtz.
Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA Inc., Chicago, has named Mark Mallonee as its San Francisco-based vice president, the lead sales executive for the firm's Bay Area construction and surety business. He had been executive vice president at contractor The Weitz Co., Des Moines, and founder and president of its wholly owned subsidiary, Construction Surety & Insurance Services LLC. He also was construction practice executive vice president at insurer Willis.
Diane S. Richer has joined Baltimore law firm Ober|Kaler as a principal in its real estate group. Based in Washington, D.C., she was a real estate partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman. Richer also is on the capital-markets committee of the D.C. Building Industry Association.
Hudson Meridian Construction Group, New York City, has elevated Noel Hayes to senior vice president from vice president. He is a former senior project manager at M.A. Angeliades Inc. Robert Schwartz also joined the firm as a vice president. He was a project executive at Plaza Construction. Hudson Meridian also has elevated Luis Gutierrez, Daniel Hooker, Walter Haass and Gregory Rinaldi to vice president.
Thomas A. Minwegen was approved on March 19 as general manager of the Clark County (Nev.) Water Reclamation District, the regional wastewater utility serving greater Las Vegas. He had been acting general manager and, previously, deputy general manager. Minwegen is an international board member of the WateReuse Research Foundation, Alexandria, Va., and past president of its Nevada section. The non-profit group conducts research in water reclamation, recycling, re-use and desalination.
STV Inc., the Douglassville, Pa., engineer, has elevated to executive vice president Gerald Donnelly, head of its energy services division, and Majid Heydayati, who will lead a newly consolidated international division. Richard M. Amodei, a senior vice president, now leads the transportation and infrastructure division's Northeast region. Named vice presidents are Clark D. Caughey, corporate controller, and R. Price Jepsen and John Ponzio, division directors in building and facilities and transportation and infrastructure, respectively. Donnelly and Caughey are based in Douglassville; Heydayati, Amodei and Jepsen are in New York City; and Ponzio is in Philadelphia.
Buckland & Taylor, the Vancouver, B.C., engineer, has named John Brestin as vice president and major projects director, based in Seattle. He was VP and project director at HNTB, Kansas City.
