VIESSMAN LABIB Maher Z. Labib, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the buildings and facilities division of engineering and construction management firm STV Inc., New York City, died on May 12 at age 67. STV declines to disclose how or where he died. Labib, who earned civil engineering degrees in Cairo, Egypt, joined the firm in 1996 from a previous role as vice president for facilities and buildings at Raytheon Infrastructure Services Inc. Labib “re-engineered … the division into one of the most profitable arms of STV,” says CEO Dominick Servedio. Warren “Bud” Viessman, professor emeritus of environmental

There was no middle ground about Floyd Dominy, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s longest-serving commissioner. He died April 20 in Boyce, Va., four months into his second century of life. Photo: courtesy of State of Utah Dominy oversaw completion of Glen Canyon Dam in the 1960s. DOMINY Dominy was either the conquering hero of the west, pushing completion of huge dam projects on the Colorado River and elsewhere that brought water and power to growth-obsessed western states and work and wealth to their construction industry builders. Or he was the reviled enemy of environmentalists, a power-grabber whose projects were simply

HANSON Walter E. Hanson, a foundations expert and founder of the firm that became Hanson Professional Services Inc., a Springfield, Ill., engineer that ranks 174th on ENR’s list of The Top 500 Design Firms, died on April 4 in that city. He was 93. Hanson, who was the firm’s president for more than 30 years since its founding in 1954, specialized in foundation engineering and soil mechanics. A former engineering faculty member of the University of Illnois, Urbana-Champaign, he co-authored with noted experts Ralph Peck and Tom Thornburn “Foundation Engineering,” a textbook in those fields still widely used by students

Grace Lai’s interest in construction began right where the bus would drop her off hours before class at Chicago’s American Academy of Art. Starting out as a sidewalk sketcher, Lai was soon invited inside the project gate to become a celebrated “on-site” artist, earning commissions from contractors and building developers, as well as tradespeople’s nods of approval. As an artist, Lai was a late bloomer, going to art school and taking up painting in her late 50s after her husband, Harry, died in 1985. Previously, she was an assistant in his art studio. Lai’s art was her personal therapy, but

WILTON James L. Wilton, former chairman and president of San Francisco engineering firm Jacobs Associates and an expert in excavation design of deep cut-and-cover structures, died on March 16 in Woodside, Calif., of lung cancer. He was 83. Wilton, who joined the firm in 1957, was named president in 1974 and chairman in 1985. He served in those posts until his 1992 retirement. Wilton worked on numerous large global projects, including rapid transit systems in San Francisco, New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C., Venezuela’s Yacambu irrigation tunnel, the Arenal power tunnel in Costa Rica and the Victoria Arts Center

GRAHAM Bruce J. Graham, a nearly 30-year partner of Chicago architecture giant Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and a driver of high-rise designs that now define the Windy City’s skyline, died on March 6 in Hobe Sound, Fla., at age 84. The cause was complication of Alzheimer’s disease, say published reports. Graham, degreed in both architecture and civil engineering, led design of Chicago’s first two buildings to reach or exceed 100 stories: the John Hancock Center in 1970 and the Sears Tower in 1974. Graham, who joined SOM in 1951 and was partner from 1960 until he left in 1989, pushed

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

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

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

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.