Hopkins

John L. Hopkins, Fluor Corp. group executive for corporate development and new ventures, will retire in March to become CEO of NuScale Power, a Portland, Ore.-based nuclear-power R&D startup firm in which the contractor is the majority investor. He replaces Paul G. Lorenzini, also NuScale Power's co-founder, who will become a firm consultant.

Hopkins, also formerly president of Fluor's government group, joined Fluor in 1984. NuScale Power is developing a technology for a small modular reactor (SMR). Lorenzini has led the firm since 2007, when it began a technology transfer agreement with Oregon State University. The U.S. Energy Dept. opted last month not to award an estimated $200-million SMR commercialization grant for which NuScale had competed, although the agency awarded a similar grant to a team headed by Babcock & Wilcox. A Fluor spokesman said another grant competition was expected in the coming year. NuScale also is seeking SMR design approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 

Design firm FITCH has appointed Vicky Leavitt to the newly created position of executive vice president, mergers and acquisitions, for its Columbus, Ohio-based North American business. She had been managing director of that unit. Stephen Jay will succeed her in that role. He was strategy director for North America. Larry Stewart, formerly general manager of FITCH Architecture, becomes its managing director.

MWH Global, Broomfield, Colo., has named President and CEO Alan J. Krause to the additional role of chairman. In that position, he succeeds Robert B. Uhler, who becomes chairman emeritus. Uhler, who joined a predecessor of MWH in 1976, had been chairman since 2009 and served as CEO from 2001 until Krause succeeded him in 2011. Krause was named president and chief operating officer in 2007, responsible for global operations, and had been a unit president. He joined MWH in 1997. MWH, which specializes in water infrastructure, has revenue of more than $1.5 billion, with 7,500 employees in 35 countries.

Ronald Colas has joined New York City-based Parsons Brinckerhoff as a vice president in Miami. He was a principal at Burns & McDonnell in Coral Gables, Fla., and manager of Florida, Latin America and Caribbean business. Colas will serve as PB's Miami area manager, responsible for managing operations in those same regions.

 

Berra

Denver-based CH2M Hill Cos. has named Rob Berra as president of its energy-and-chemicals business group, which includes itswork in upstream and midstream oil and gas, refining, chemicals, and petrochemicals, gasification and mining. Most recently, he was executive vice president of Willbros, an energy infrastructure services firm. Berra also served as senior vice president of commercial operations for Foster Wheeler USA and as portfolio manager for major pipeline projects and global manager of EPC contracting at ConocoPhillips.

Anthony C. Funkhouser and Kent D. Savre, U.S. Army colonels and Army Corps of Engineers division commanders, have been nominated for elevation to the rank of brigadier general. Since last summer, Funkhouser has commanded the Portland, Ore.-based northwestern division, which includes five district commands that cover a 2,000-sq-mile area in 14 states. Savre is currently the North Atlantic division commander, based in Brooklyn, N.Y. He formerly commanded the U.S. Forces-Iraq Theater engineer brigade and also was director of the office of the Chief of Engineers in Washington, D.C.

The AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Dept. has promoted Sonia Ramirez to director of government affairs, effective on Jan. 1. Formerly in the deputy-director role, she succeeds Charles H. "Chip" Gardiner Jr., who is joining the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers, one of the department's affiliate unions, as director of government affairs. Ramirez had been the AFL-CIO's chief immigration lobbyist.

Thomas Squillo has joined Environmental Systems Design Inc., a Chicago-based firm specializing in high-performance building systems, as vice president. He will lead mechanical engineering design initiatives for its national mission-critical facilities group. Squillo had been an executive at EYP Mission Critical Facilities Inc., where he was responsible for planning, design and technical delivery of large-scale data centers.

Parsons Corp. has named Timothy Potier as its vice president and chief information security officer; he will lead its services related to information security. Previously, he was operations and security practices director for a division of SLAIT Consulting, which specializes in managed information assurance services. He also served as chief information security officer for Northrop Grumman Intelligence Systems.

Patrick Gallagher, a CDM Smith vice president, has been elected president of the Water Design-Build Council for 2013. The not-for-profit organization, based in Washington, D.C., promotes best practices in design-build to infrastructure owners in the water and wastewater sectors.

Larry C. Russell has joined Gannett Fleming, the Harrisburg, Pa., engineer, as western regional lead in its alternative-delivery group. Based in Irvine, Calif., he was executive vice president of the Southern California Contractors Association.

Pöyry PLC Group, a Helsinki, Finland-based contractor, has named P. Jaana Rinne as senior vice president of human resources, effective in spring 2013. She had been vice president of human resources at Konecranes Plc.

Mike Rosenberg has joined Syska Hennessy Group as senior commissioning engineer in Chicago to lead its regional commissioning practice. He is formerly principal commissioning engineer at Stanley Consultants.