The ancient Inca built a complex system of roads that span some 20,000 miles and range in altitude from sea level to 14,000 feet, all without the benefit of special tools or even a formal writing system.

Dr. David Rempel led a team of researchers from the University of California in San Francisco and Berkeley that developed an 'inverted' drill press.

Following Hurricane Katrina’s 2005 attack on New Orleans, the best minds in the international water-resources industry began seeking innovative ways to rebuild the city’s storm-surge defenses.

While a penniless college student in Texas, Hong Kong native Dennis C.K. Poon’s first gig in the U.S. paid $2 an hour.

Gary Fore, a now retired vice president of the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA), Lanham, Md., leads a voluntary partnership of asphalt-paving industry organizations that is researching and recommending ways to cut down the amount of silica dust generated by asphalt-milling machines in advance of federal safety and health regulations.

Dwayne Smith, a senior engineer at URS Corp., San Francisco, is a geotechnical program manager on a levee enlargement project in New Orleans that is shaving a decade off the time it normally takes to build and consolidate such a structure.

BELLAMAN The Associated Builders and Contractors has selected former Bovis Lend Lease executive Michael D. Bellaman to be its new president and CEO. Bellaman, 48 years old, who has been based in Chicago, starts his ABC job on Feb. 1, the association announced on Jan. 10. You can view ABC's announcement here. He succeeds M. Kirk Pickerel, who has been ABC's president and CEO since 2000. Pickerel announced last April that he would be retiring, effective March 31, 2011. Bellaman spent 23 years at Lend Lease Corp. Ltd., the Australia-based real estate, design and construction company, most recently as Bovis

SNYDER Charles H. Snyder has been named as president and CEO of Am-Quip Crane Rental LLP, Trevose, Pa., effective on Jan. 17. He had been executive vice president of fleet operations and a board member of Sunbelt Rentals Inc. Snyder also previously served as chief operating officer of NationsRent and as president of AMECO, a subsidiary of Fluor Corp. He replaces Frank Bardonaro, who left Am-Quip in August 2010 to join Terex Cranes as vice president and managing director in the Americas. Greg McGuire has joined Fairfax, Va.-based consulting firm ICF International as a principal following its Dec. 17, 2010,

JONES He was remembered as a “prickly” corporate leader, but Edwin L. Jones Jr. built contractor J.A. Jones, founded by his grandfather, into an industry heavyweight before selling it to a German conglomerate that eventually collapsed under debt, forcing the U.S. firm into bankruptcy and a fire sale in 2003. Jones died on Dec. 26, 2010, in Charlotte, N.C., at age 89. Following a family tradition, Jones assumed the J.A. Jones presidency in 1959 and became chairman in 1971. The firm grew into a construction powerhouse, with projects ranging from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to launch

JORDAN J. Bryan Jordan has been named president and CEO of Jones & Carter Inc., a Houston-based civil and electrical engineering firm, effective on Jan. 1. In those roles, he replaces founder J.R. � Bob � Jones, who becomes chairman. Jordan, who joined the 260-person firm in 1992 as an entry-level engineer, had been its operations manager. He is president-elect of the Houston chapter of the Texas Council of Consulting Companies. Jones & Carter ranks 345th on ENR�s list of the Top 500 Design Firms, with $30.4 million in 2009 revenue. TRO Jung|Brannen, a Boston-based architect and engineer, has named