Rider Levett Bucknall, a U.K.-based cost and project management consulting firm wth more than 120 offices and 3,200 staff globally, will not replace Lance Taylor, CEO of its 400-person U.K. division in London, who left the firm in September. Instead, it will share his executive responsibility among six division board directors to promote what it calls a more “collegiate” management approach, according to British industry publication Building.
The firm announced on Dec. 12 that it has added to its U.K. board Andrew Reynolds, who leads key U.K. accounts and heads RLB Alliance, a network of 30 European partners. He and five other existing board members, including Chair Ann Bentley, will run the U.K. practice.
Reynolds also is named to RLB's global board to represent the U.K., along with Russell Lloyd, a London partner who leads the U.K. sports-and-event practice. On that board, Lloyd replaces Mark Williamson, who now is based in the Caribbean to establish a new RLB office.
Bentley told the British publication the management shift was part of a push to run the division “much more like a partnership." As part of the drive, Bentley said the firm will encourage more staff to “buy in” to the business through a shared ownership approach and added that the U.K. unit is “on track” to have 600 staffers and doubled revenue in five years.
Effective on Jan. 1, Alyson Watson is elevated to president of RMC Water and Environment, the Walnut Creek, Calif.-based environmental engineer and water-resources consultant. She will succeed Randy Raines, who becomes chairman and senior vice president to lead new strategic initiatives, the firm says. Watson, who currently is a senior water-resources engineer and principal, has been with RMC for seven years. She holds chemical engineering degrees from Stanford University. RMC ranks at No. 389 on ENR's list of the Top 500 Design Firms. 
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John Patterson, chairman of equipment manufacturer JCB USA Group and former CEO of JCB North America, has been elected the 2015 chairman of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, an international trade group for off-road equipment makers in construction, agriculture, mining and other sectors. JCB, the world’s third-largest construction-equipment brand, has 22 plants and 10,000 employees on four continents and manufactures more than 300 different machines.
Carol Tate has joined contractor McCarthy Holdings Inc., St. Louis, as corporate chief ethics and compliance officer. She had been vice president and corporate counsel at Flextronics, a global electronics, design, manufacturing, distribution and after-market services company, where she developed and managed its ethics and compliance program and global investigations. Tate also worked in a senior role in the Division of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Parsons has named James “Jim” Kerr president of its new regional business unit, Parsons Canada, effective on Jan. 1. He joined the parent firm in April with its acquisition of Delcan, an 800-employee transportation design firm based in Markham, Ontario, that has been a wholly owned unit of Parsons. Kerr, who had been Delcan's chairman and CEO, will remain based in Markham.
Dan Adams and Mara McMillen have assumed the roles of president-CEO and chief operating officer, respectively, of McMillen Jacobs Associates Inc., a newly created San Francisco-based firm formed by the merger of engineer Jacobs Associates and McMillen LLC, a Boise-based, woman-owned design-build firm. Adams was president of San Francisco-based Jacobs, and McMillen was in that same role in the Idaho company. Both will still lead those firms as wholly owned units of the new parent. Rafael Castro and John Kaplin, Jacobs Associates' executives, and Mort McMillen, a McMillen partner, are named vice presidents of corporate development, construction management and water resources, respectively, of the new company. McMillen Jacobs Associates says it will have 380 employees in North America, New Zealand and Australia. Jacobs Associates is ranked at No. 292 on ENR's list of the Top 500 Design Firms.
CannonDesign, a Grand Island, N.Y.-based engineer, has named Louis P. Astorino to head its new design-led design-build division, formed by its Dec. 10-announced acquisition of Pittsburgh-based design-constructor Astorino. He had been Astorino CEO. Louis D. Astorino, the firm’s founder and chairman, will "provide design counsel and leadership" to the new company, a spokesman confirms. He adds that James Frauen, current Astorino CFO, will become a practice leader and run the combined firm's operations in Pittsburgh. No new titles were provided for Timothy Powers, current president of Astorino Architecture, and Robert Ward, president of Astorino Engineering, who "will continue to serve as prominent leaders," says the spokesman. Cannon Design ranks at No. 62 on ENR's current list of the Top 500 Design Firms, with $212.7 million in 2013 revenue.
Seattle-based real estate firm Kidder Mathews has hired Jim Bowles for a newly created position as president of its commercial brokerage services division, effective in January. He had previously headed Seattle-based operations for real estate firm CBRE and is a board member of the University of Washington Runstad School of Real Estate as well as the Commercial Brokers Association and the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors. Kidder Mathews says it is the largest commercial real estate brokerage in Seattle and Portland and a leading independent brokerage in northern California.
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TLC Engineering for Architecture Inc., Orlando, has elevated Michael P. Sheerin to succeed Debra Lupton as CEO, effective in early 2015, says the firm. Lupton, who has served in the role since 2004, will retire on May 1, it adds. Sheerin now is the firm's director of health-care engineering, its leading practice, and joined TLC in 1995. Lupton was the first woman to have served as president of the Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects. Robert Danner is named to succeed Sheerin. The firm ranks at No. 317 on ENR's list of the Top 500 Design Firms.
Craig Carson has joined contractor Lend Lease as general manager for energy development in the Americas region, which includes the U.S. and Mexico, says the firm. Most recently, he was CEO of the U.S. business for Australia-based renewable-energy developer Infigen Energy. Lend Lease says Infigen's American arm has a 1-gigawatt fleet of U.S.-based wind farms. It sold two 20-MW solar projects earlier this year to Duke Energy.
Shawmut Design and Construction, Boston, has promoted President Les Hiscoe to the addtional role of CEO, effective in July, with the planned retirement of Tom Goemaat, the firm said on Dec. 8. Goemaat has served as CEO for 15 years, during which the firm expanded into new geographies and market sectors. Hiscoe is a 17-year company veteran. The firm ranks at No. 64 on ENR's list of the Top 400 Contractors, with $859.6 million in 2013 revenue. That position is up from the company's No. 86 ranking in the previous year's list.
