Following completion of an acquisition announced May 14 by POWER Engineers Inc. of Burns and Roe Enterprises (BRE), the power and energy engineering unit of Burns and Roe Group, the corporation's CEO Keith Roe will have a dual role as chairman and as Roestrategic executive advisor to POWER Engineers, Hailey, Idaho, as an employee, says a Burns and Roe spokeswoman.

Related Links: IronPlanet Wins Auction Lawsuit Against Ritchie Bros. The construction equipment industry is seeing leadership shake-ups as Peter J. Blake, who transformed Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers into a global player with 44 operations in 25 countries, and $3.8 billion in sales in 2013, exits in July after 23 years with the company, including a decade as CEO.Named as his successor is Ravi Saligram, former president and CEO of OfficeMax.BLAKEBlake is credited with increasing the Vancouver, B.C.-based public traded company’s market value tenfold. In releasing its first-quarter results last month, Ritchie Bros. said that its earnings rose 2% to $14.3 million

Related Links: In Memoriam: Abe Gutman, Structural EngineerA Tribute by ENR Buildings Editor Nadine Post Abraham “Abe” Gutman, 73, an internationally recognized structural engineer and concrete foundations expert whose projects included New York City’s 6-million-sq-ft GutmanWorld Financial Center and foundations for the 3.3-million-sq-ft Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, and who also was senior vice president and a 45-year veteran of design firm Thornton-Tomasetti, died suddenly on April 9 of an undisclosed cause.Gutman was one of the firm’s first principals and was named a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers.He was actively involved in structural integrity inspections and

Courtesy FCC Total diameter of the excavated tunnels was nearly 10 meters. Related Links: Panama Canal Owner and Contractors Agree to Final Cost, Schedule Terms Excavation Under Way on Panama City Metro A design-build team led by Brazilian engineering and construction conglomerate Norberto Odebrecht and the Spanish company Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC) last month completed the 14-kilometer, $1.8-billion Panama Metro light-rail line. The work featured two earth-pressure-balanced tunnel-boring machines, each 9.77 meters in diameter, dubbed "Marta” and "Carolina." The Panama Metro route includes seven kilometers of tunnels and more than five kilometers of elevated guideway. The metro will

Related Links: Read about other execs moving up, or moving on, in the AEC sector AMEC, London, has named Jeff Reilly group president of strategy and business development. Based in Houston, he was chief procurement officer of oil company Phillips 66, also based there. AMEC ranks at No. 5 on ENR's list of the Top 150 Global Design Firms.Ram Madugula is named president of Power Engineers Collaborative LLC, the engineering services unit of Pipestone, Minn., alternative-energy developer Juhl Energy Inc. He was a vice president and 30-year veteran of power-sector design firm Sargent & Lundy LLC, Chicago. Madugula, based in

Related Links: The Beck Group Grows Through Collaboration, Technical Innovation How About Eliminating the Endless 3D Construction Coordination Meetings? Peter Beck, a managing director with contracting firm Beck Group, is on a mission to improve our understanding of buildings. In his view, designers and contractors have no shortage of software tools to help them design and build buildings. But tools that analyze a building's performance? Not so much, he says. But that is changing with technologies such as IP-enabled sensors (the "internet of things") and Big Data tools to analyze building data. One could argue that Beck Group is helping

Brazil is the world’s seventh-largest economy and the United States’ ninth-largest merchandise trading partner, with two-way trade totaling nearly $72 billion last year.

Related Links: Paul R. Munger Obituary-Missouri University of Science and Technology Paul R. Munger, 82, a Missouri civil engineer and longtime educator who probed the fatal 1981 Hyatt Regency skywalk collapse and chaired the board that revoked the licenses of its designers, died on April 19 in Rolla, Mo. The cause of death was not disclosed.MUNGERAs Missouri Board for Architects, Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors chairman, Munger was among the experts who investigated the Hyatt incident. They found the collapse of two vertically contiguous atrium walkways was linked to design issues; 114 were killed and 216 were injured, making it

Photo Courtesy of Sellar The busy site, crossed by a bus station and adjacent to a rail station, limited foundation locations. Photo Courtesy of Sellar Floor-to-ceiling windows offer views of the neighboring Shard, which was designed and built by the same firms. Related Links: 2014 Global Best Projects Winners The Place The firms that designed and built The Place were no strangers to each other. They had cut their teeth on the 17-story office building's 306-meter-tall neighbor, The Shard, which was named the Best Large Project of ENR's 2013 Global Best Projects contest (ENR 6/3/13 p. 51).The building-team familiarity bred

Photo courtesy of Aedas Related Links: 2014 Global Best Projects Winners Aedas' The Star Website American visitors might have difficulty deciding whether to go shopping or take in a show, but at the The Star they can do both. Singapore's award-winning entry in the Retail/Mixed-Use category creatively offers a nod to art and commerce in a fanciful structure designed to serve both. The dynamic design houses a performance space comprising two levels and stalls with high-quality sound and lighting systems for an audience of 5,000 people. Outside the hall but within the iconic structure is an upscale shopping mall, accessible