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

  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.

ULLICO Inc. Related Links: AFL-CIO statement on Death of Mark Ayers Electrical Workers' Union Shows Muscle In Choice for New Building-Trades Chief Laborers Returning to Trades But Total Harmony Still Elusive Trades Vow To Keep Political Status Quo Mark H. Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Dept. (BCTD), died suddenly early on April 8 in Washington, D.C., a department spokesman has confirmed. Ayers, who had been in the role since 2007, was 63 years old.No details were released on the cause or circumstances of his death, but according to an industry group official with ties to the

Ivan Viest Ivan M. Viest, an immigrant Slovak engineer who pioneered research in composite construction, earthquake resistance and load and resistance factor design (LRFD) of buildings and bridges, died on Feb. 11 in Bethlehem, Pa. He was 89. The cause of death was not released.Viest's research at the University of Illinois in the 1950s led to acceptance of composite design criteria for steel bridges. Research he then championed for the National Academy of Sciences expanded the knowledge of fatigue and fracture and led to advances in LRFD use.Viest added to his body of work while a manager for Bethlehem Steel

Gerard G. "Gerry" Gilmore, a former principal and senior vice president of architect-engineer HOK Inc., St. Louis, who helped guide its global growth over a 40-year career there, died Feb. 7 in Chesterfield, Mo., following surgery. He was 75. A former U.S. Navy officer who helped run construction operations at the Charleston, S.C., naval shipyard, Gilmore was hired by HOK co-founder Gyo Obata in 1963 and served in top marketing and business development roles and on the firm's board until 2001. He retired in 2004, but remained a consultant until 2010. "Gerry did as much as any individual to take

Stephen M. Levin was a physician, noted construction occupational illness researcher and co-director of the pioneering Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at New York City's Mount Sinai School of Medicine.  LevinBut as a carpenter's son, he also could communicate with craft workers and warned of on-site health risks they faced after the 9/11 attack and for decades before. Some 32 years of research and advocacy ended on Feb. 7 with Levin's death from cancer in Rockland County, N.Y. He was 70."To be very honest, I think Dr. Levin was the first one to identify or suspect

Tom Coble, president of Coble Trench Safety, a Greensboro, N.C.-based firm that supplied trench and traffic safety equipment and training to contractors, municipalities and industrial clients in southeastern and mid-Atlantic states, was killed on Jan. 20 when the plane he was piloting crashed shortly after takeoff in Rainbow City, Ala.Coble, who was 58, founded the now 82-employee firm in 2002. It now has 11 locations. CobleA spokesman for the firm says the cause of the crash “has not been determined yet” and is under investigation. The company says Coble, who was alone and returning to North Carolina, had more than 42