Pragada

Robert V. Pragada has joined The Brock Group, Houston, one of the largest U.S. industrial services subcontractors, as president and CEO. In those roles he succeeds Jeff Davis, who continues as chairman. Pragada had been senior vice president of global sales at Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. and also served as chief operating officer at Kinetics, an industrial-process design-build firm. Davis was named CEO in 2008. Brock Group ranks at No. 6 on ENR's list of the Top 600 Specialty Contractors, with $1.34 billion in 2012 revenue, about 88% in industrial services.

Burns & McDonnell, the Kansas City engineering firm, has named Mike Brown president of its newly created international company. He was corporate vice president of global facilities. The firm will focus on infrastructure work, including in U.S. government markets. It now has offices in Doha, Qatar; Mumbai, India; and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Brown told The Kansas City Business Journal that about 15% to 20% of firm revenue is non-U.S., with plans to double that amount in five years. Burns & McDonnell ranks at No. 18 on ENR's list of the Top 500 Design Firms, with $1 billion in 2013 revenue.

 

Mayer

Theresa Mayer has been promoted to associate dean for research and innovation at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, effective on Oct. 15. Now a distinguished professor of electrical engineering, she joined the university in 1994. Mayer also was associate director of its Materials Research Institute and a site director of the National Science Foundation's National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, which provides nanoscale research in science, engineering and technology to academia and industry. She holds seven patents.

White Electrical Construction Co., Atlanta, has promoted 14-year veteran Jeff Filippo to president and CEO. He succeeds Gary Clodfelter, who becomes president emeritus until his retirement at year's end. Filippo was vice president. The firm ranks at No. 363 on ENR's Top 600 Specialty Contractors list, with $40 million in 2012 revenue.

Richard L. Stoudt is named president of High Construction Co., a Lancaster, Pa., general contractor with $89 million in 2012 revenue (the most recent year disclosed). He had been a senior operations executive at Philadelphia-based LF Driscoll Co. Inc. and worked for Turner Construction for 31 years, according to a local online report. It said that Stoudt replaces Matthew D. Twomey, who resigned in April.

Patrick Natale, former executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers, will join

Natale

engineering firm Hatch Mott MacDonald, Iselin, N.J., in January as vice president for business strategies. Natale, who led the 145,000-member ASCE from 2002 until earlier this year, also had been executive director of the National Society of Professional Engineers and is a former executive at Newark, N.J.-based Public Service Electric and Gas Co. He will be inducted into the National Academy of Construction on Oct. 24.

Architect Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, Chicago. has named as new partners Brant E. Coletta, Laura Ettelman, Jonathan Stein and Kenneth A. Lewis, all based in New York City, and C. Keith Boswell, who is based in San Francisco. The firm also named as new directors Javier Arizmendi and Larry Chien, in San Francisco; Derek A.R. Moore, in New York City; and Peter Kindel, in Chicago.

John Quale has joined the Albuquerque-based University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning as director of its architecture program. He was director of the graduate architecture program at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Quale replaces Geoffrey C. Adams, who has returned to teaching as an associate professor at the UNM architecture school.

STG Design Inc. named company co-founder Jim Susman as CEO. He succeeds DeWitt Gayle, who recently retired. The Austin, Texas, firm also named Ross Anders as operations director. He was director of project management at commercial real estate firm CBRE Group Inc. STG Design reported $10 million in revenue in 2013.

Handley

AECOM Technology Corp. has named Rear Admiral (ret.) Mark Handley as a vice president, leading the firm's U.S. federal energy programs. Most recently, he was commander of the First Naval Construction Division, or Seabees. Handley was vice commander of the U.S. Navy Installations Command and a regional commanding officer of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command. He is based in Norfolk, Va.

Madrid-based international contractor FCC Construction has elevated Miguel Jurado to chairman, succeeding Fernando Moreno, who is retiring. Jurado had been the firm's general manager; Vicente Mohedano now will fill that position. He was FCC Construction manager of Latin America and Algeria since June 2013. FCC contributed about 40% of its parent Fomento Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas S.A.'s $9.3 billion in revenue. The group ranks at No. 35 on ENR's list of the Top 250 Global Contractors.

Cost and risk management consulting firm BTY Group, Vancouver, British Columbia, has named Ryan Brady director of its Phoenix-based U.S. expansion effort. He had been director of public-private partnerships at Faithful+Gould, a unit of U.K.-based Atkins.

Seung H-Sang has been named city architect of Seoul, Korea, the first person to be appointed to that position, says global online architecture publication Dezeen. He will run a newly created team of architects, planners and urbanists to oversee planning and bidding for all public projects and supervise the design and approval process for private buildings. Seung previously ran his own Seoul-based practice, IROJE Architects & Planners, which he founded in 1989.