McKIM KUESEL Thomas R. Kuesel, a noted bridge and tunnel engineer and former partner at Parsons Brinckerhoff, New York City, died on Feb. 17 in Connecticut after a long illness. He was 83. Kuesel, whose PB career spanned 43 years, contributed as project manager or engineer to more than 270 transportation structures and systems in the U.S. and abroad. He was named chairman of PB’s U.S. transportation design unit in 1984, retiring in 1990. Kuesel, who was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1977, was co-editor of the Tunnel Engineering Handbook, a standard reference manual used worldwide, and

REAGAN Insurance broker Marsh, New York City, has named Mark Reagan, a 40-year industry veteran, chairman of its global construction practice, which includes 600 professionals, the company says. He joins the firm from a previous role as managing director of the construction services group at Aon. Reagan also served as construction practice chairman at insurance broker Willis, and held management positions at AIG and Seaboard Surety Co. Marsh has also named Todd Vandenhaak to lead a new specialty construction and engineering consulting practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He is relocating from Seattle to London, to lead

KUESEL Thomas R. Kuesel, a noted bridge and tunnel engineer and former partner at Parsons Brinckerhoff, New York City, died on Feb. 17 in Connecticut after a long illness. He was 83. Kuesel, whose PB career spanned 43 years, contributed to design as project manager or engineer of more than 270 transportation structures and systems in the U.S. and abroad. As an engineering manager on the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in California, he directed design of 20 miles of subways, 25 miles of aerial structures, two hard-rock tunnels and a 3.6-mile immersed-tube tunnel under San Francisco Bay. Kuesel earned

After serving three years as acting head of the office of the Architect of the Capitol, Stephen T. Ayers has been nominated to a full, 10-year term as the Capitol Architect. The "AOC" is responsible for maintaining and operating the Capitol building, as well as the Library of Congress, Supreme Court building and other federal facilities on and near Capitol Hill. President Obama sent Ayers' nomination to the Senate on Feb. 24. Ayers next will go through the Senate confirmation process. Ayers, a 13-year veteran of the AOC office, has served as acting architect since February 2007, when Alan M.

The body of PBSJ Corp. transportation engineer Lee Strickland has been recovered from the remains of Haiti�s Hotel Montana, which collapsed during the January 12, 2010 earthquake. “It is a strike at the heart,” says Kathe Jackson, PBSJ vice president of corporate communications. “We’re a pretty close-knit company, and Lee touched many of our lives.”  Strickland, a group manager for the company’s engineering unit, traveled to Haiti to attend a two-day workshop on behalf of the company. STRICKLAND International search and rescue teams have worked at the site of the collapsed hotel since soon after the quake. Teams from the

FERNON T.Y. Lin International, the San Francisco design firm, has named Clark Fernon vice president in charge of a new southern California transportation group. He was associate vice president and San Diego unit business manager at AECOM. Also named to the group are Les Hopper, associate vice president and transportation manager, and Rodrigo Gonzalez, senior associate and supervising transportation engineer. Both are former officials of the California Dept. of Transportation. Ian Anderson has joined CH2M Hill Cos., Denver, as president of its energy and chemicals business group. He joins the firm from The Shaw Group Inc., where he was executive

DUNBAR Michael E. Dunbar, vice president of special projects at the Associated Builders and Contractors and a 22-year veteran of the open-shop contractors group, died on Jan. 31 at 63 after a long illness. He had a key role in ABC communications and operations and was a former Associated General Contractors staff member. “Mike loved being around construction contractors and admired their entrepreneurship,” says ABC CEO M. Kirk Pickerel.

LASSETTER Peter Lassetter has joined architect-engineer Thornton Tomasetti, New York City, as senior vice president of its San Francisco-based operation. He had been principal and group leader in that city for Arup. Lassetter also was the lead structural designer for San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences school project, which gained LEED Platinum certification. Bowman Consulting, a Chantilly, Va., civil engineering firm, has named Tom LeBeau, Ken Sisk and Jim Nelm senior project managers, following its acquisition of The Vision Group, a Chesapeake, Va.-based engineer and construction management firm owned by LeBeau, Sisk and Nelm. GRIFFITH Patricia Velasquez Griffith has been

SABBAGH Hassib Sabbagh, co-founder and chairman of Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Group (CCG), one of the largest Middle East building contractors whose past projects include Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, died on Jan. 12 in Cleveland. He was 90. From a small firm founded in 1945 in Haifa, Israel, that built housing for Jewish veterans of the British army in Palestine, CCG became the 44th largest firm on ENR’s list of The Top 225 Global Contractors, with $5.46 billion in 2008 international revenue. More than two-thirds of that is in industrial and petrochemical markets. The firm relocated to Beirut in 1948 but

John B. O�Dowd, a vice president of New York City-based engineering firm STV Corp. and a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who commanded its New York district during the 9/11 terror attack in lower Manhattan, died Jan. 26 at age 54. He suffered a sudden heart attack while in flight on business. O'DOWD O’Dowd joined STV in 2007 as vice president in its construction management division, providing oversight for two projects on which the firm was involved at the former World Trade Center site: the Freedom Tower and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. He