James R. Endler, a veteran New York City construction executive on projects such as the World Trade Center, the Disney Epcot Center and London's Canary Wharf, died on March 24 in Manhattan at age 82. A West Point graduate, he also served as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. After two decades with Tishman Realty & Construction Co., Endler retired in 1983 as president and chief operating officer. Endler then joined Lehrer McGovern Inc., which was later acquired by Bovis, as president. "Jim brought wisdom, maturity, experience and that West Point discipline to our young company," Peter

Chase John S. Chase, an architect who broke barriers in Texas and elsewhere, died on March 29 in Houston after a long illness at age 87. He served as CEO of John S. Chase Architect Inc., a firm he founded in 1952 after graduating from the University of Texas-Austin as its first black architecture student.Chase also was the first black architect to be licensed in Texas and the first to be admitted to the Texas Society of Architects and the American Institute of Architects' Houston chapter. Chase collaborated on a number of local and national landmarks, and he was commissioned

When Ted Zoli and 2010 Award of Excellence winner John Hillman discussed the format for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association's initial TransOvation educational workshop last September, they agreed on the need to do something different.

  CREAMERJ. Fletcher "Fletch" Creamer Sr., who grew his father's coal-hauling business, J. Fletcher Creamer & Son, into a road and utility contracting giant in New Jersey and nearby states, died on March 30 at age 85. The Hackensack firm says he died of natural causes. Creamer was president and CEO from 1970 to 2006, when he became chairman. Named to the Utility and Transportation Contractors Association Hall of Fame in 1997, he "always set the benchmark for first-class road and bridge construction," says Phillip Parratt, a former carpenters' union business rep in New Jersey. The firm ranks at No.

  GRAYLois H. Gray, co-founder of what is now Gray Construction Co., a major family-owned industrial design-builder in Lexington, Ky., died on March 19 in that city. She was 91 and suffered from complications of Alzheimer's disease, says the firm. After the death of her husband, James, in 1972, Gray and her sons helped steer the contractor into a lucrative niche working for Japanese and European manufacturers. She was chairwoman from 1972 to 2000. The firm ranks at No. 182 on ENR's list of the Top 400 Contractors. Gray also was a director of the Federal Reserve Bank in St.

  SMULLNeil H. Smull, the president emeritus of architect-engineer CSHQA who helped the Boise firm evolve from its one-architect roots into a western U.S. regional player with 85 employees and $8.5 million in revenue, died there on March 18. The firm's last surviving partner, he died of natural causes at age 90, says a spokeswoman. A landscape architect, Smull joined the firm in 1961, lured to Boise from Kansas by co-founder Glen E. Cline. As principal architect, Smull began to incorporate energy-efficient design elements in the 1970s. He retired in 1986. Smull became a Fellow of the American Institute of

Robert V. "Bob" Whitman, who pioneered geotechnical research in soil dynamics and earthquake engineering beginning in the early 1960s, died in Lexington, Mass., on Feb. 25, at age 84. The cause of death was not released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he retired as professor emeritus in 1993.  WHITMAN"Bob's technical and policy contributions lie at the very foundation of much that is now state of knowledge and state of practice in earthquake engineering," observed James K. Mitchell, a University of California engineering professor emeritus, in a 2009 oral history for the West Coast-based Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.

Virginia Tech Univ. Holly Matusovich Potential gaps between how faculty teach and how students learn engineering concepts is the subject of a new study by a Virginia Tech University assistant professor. Holly Matusovich will focus her five-year research on thermal dynamics classes in chemical and mechanical engineering, but the results "will unlock secrets to conceptual learning that will apply across all fields," she says.On the faculty of the Blacksburg, Va.-based school's engineering education department, Matusovich will use a $438,000 National Science Foundation grant to study the gap between what faculty think they are teaching and what students say they are