Had one asked Franz-Josef Ulm 10 years ago if a concrete bridge could be designed from atomic models, he might have said, "Come on, get real." Today, scientists working under Ulm's direction at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are busy cracking concrete's molecular code.
When the Brazilian government decided to build a pair of large, run-of-river hydro powerplants in remote Rondônia state, a shortage of skilled workers put not only the project at risk but also the government's Amazon Basin dam-based energy strategy and the profit margin of Odebrecht Energia, a leading contractor in the project consortium.It took a finance guy to solve the people problem.
Brian D. Winter never thought one project would set the tone for his entire career. Winter is the National Park Service's lead on the largest-ever dam-removal and river-restoration project in the U.S.
Courtesy of C3TS/Stantec Inaugural poet and engineer Richard Blanco delivers a poem at 2008 groundbreaking for Miami urban project he helped design. Related Links: Inaugural Poem: "One Today" by Richard Blanco, P.E. Blanco Poem at 2008 Groundbreaking for City of South Miami, Sunset Drive Improvements Richard Blanco, who wrote and delivered the Inaugural poem "One Today" at the Jan. 21 second-term swearing-in of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden, made history as the first Hispanic gay man and, at 44, the youngest person selected as the inaugural poet.He also carries the distinction as the first civil engineer with
Courtesy of Balfour Beatty Deputy CEO Andrew McNaughton moves into U.K. contracting giant's top spot in April. Related Links: Balfour Beatty and Parsons Brinckerhoff Seek Their Sweet Spot as a Global Infrastructure Firm In a planned succession, Ian P. Tyler, a chartered accountant who has led U.K.-based Balfour Beatty PLC since 2005, will step down as CEO on March 31, the firm announced on Jan. 7.Set to replace him is his deputy, chartered civil engineer Andrew J. McNaughton, 48.Tyler presided over Balfour Beatty's tripling in size, including its foray into the U.S. market.The firm acquired, in 2007, Centex Construction, the
Related Links: See Who Else in the Industry Has Moved Up, or Moved On SchneiderHans-Christian Schneider has been elevated to CEO of Ammann Group, the construction equipment and materials production firm based in Langenthal, Switzerland. He was deputy CEO. Schneider, 33, is the sixth generation of family members to run the 143 year-old company with 2,900 global employees. He replaces Ulrich Meyer, who has run the firm since 2010 when Schneider's father, Johann Niklaus Schneider-Ammann, became Swiss economics minister. As of Jan. 1, Schneider-Ammann became minister of economics, education and research.Joseph P. McGonagle has joined construction management firm Project
Related Links: February 2011 Video Tribute to Jay Wadman 2011 Video About Wadman Corp. WadmanAs a boy, David L. Wadman, now CEO of Ogden, Utah, contractor Wadman Corp., was less than thrilled to be "packing cement" for his father's company on summer mornings rather than joyriding on a motorcycle, he said in a 2011 video tribute.But the firm founded by his father, V. Jay Wadman, in a business the younger Wadman once thought was the "stupidest," had revenue of about $88 million in 2012 and is one of the state's leading building contractors.The elder Wadman, credited by his son
Related Links: Today's Critics Offer Tributes to Ada Louise Huxtable in Architectural Record Ada Louise Huxtable, the influential New York City-based architecture critic and winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for criticism, died there on Jan. 7 at age 91 of cancer, according to her attorney.“She set the standard for architectural criticism in our time,” according to the editors of Architectural Record magazine, which like ENR, is part of the McGraw-Hill Cos.As a longtime critic for The New York Times and later The Wall Street Journal, Huxtable “wrote penetratingly against the mindset of entitlement that allowed developers to remake cities
Related Links: Obituaries of other noted industry leaders and pioneers James N. Kise II, 75, a noted Philadelphia-based architect and urban planner, died Dec. 26 in Freeport, Maine, of a heart ailment. A principal and co-founder of Kise, Straw & Kolodner, he oversaw local projects that won national acclaim and overseas developments such as Guayana City, Venezuela, and Egypt's 241-sq-mi Sadat City. KISEKise oversaw several projects in historic Phiadelphia, including the 3.5-mile-long Avenue of the Arts in the city center district combining old and new cultural institutions and entertainment attractions.The American Planning Association named the eight-block stretch one of America’s great
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