WHITAKERCynthia Whitaker, 69, former preconstruction vice president at ISEC Inc., an Englewood, Colo., contractor, died on Oct. 15 of cancer, says the firm. She joined the firm in 1978, retiring in 2005. ISEC ranks at No. 45 on ENR's Top 600 Specialty Contractors list, with $252.5 million in revenue.

Related Links: Remembrance of Lynn Bellenger Contribute to Lynn Bellenger Memorial Fund Lynn G. Bellenger spent 200 days traveling the globe in her 2010-11 term leading the 55,000-member American Society ofHeating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers. But Nancy Jendryaszek, with whom Bellenger co-founded Pathfinder Engineers & Architects LLP, Rochester, N.Y., says colleagues "found it amusing because Lynn was directionally challenged." A leader in energy modeling software development as well as being ASHRAE's first woman president, Bellenger died on Oct. 19 at age 62. The firm did not disclose the cause of death.Bellenger told a Rochester business publication last April of

Burton S. Sperber was a “passionate and accomplished” magician, says the California landscape architecture firm he founded and ran for decades. But it was Sperber's vision and tough business skills, not magic, that built Valley Crest Landscape Cos., Calabasas, into the billion-dollar business it became before recession nipped its bottom line. Sperber, 82, died on Sept. 30 in Santa Monica, Calif., of complications from surgery, says the firm.With only a high school education and experience in his father's nursery, Sperber acquired a small landscape business in 1949 for $700 and was busy as post-WWII California boomed. Valley Crest helped its

Ben C. Maibach Jr., who joined Michigan contractor Barton Malow Co. as a laborer in 1938 and rose to become chairman of what, nearly 40 years later, is now a major U.S. building construction firm, died on Sept. 24 in Farmington Hills, Mich., at age 91.MAIBACHe died of cancer, says a spokeswoman.Maibach, who followed his carpenter-foreman father into the firm, was instrumental in creating its profit-sharing and pension plan in 1951 as a rising executive. It was a first for a U.S. contractor, says the firm.Maibach became president in 1960 and retired as chairman in the early 1980s but was

A. Clive Houlsby, a leading authority on cement grouting methods in dams and large structures who maintained a widely consulted internet site called Rockgrout, died on Sept. 24 in Sydney. He was 82.HOULSBYHoulsby suffered from cancer, says a colleague, U.S.-based engineer Jim Warner. A former dam safety chief of the Water Resources Commission in New South Wales, Australia, Houlsby became a global consultant and lecturer in the 1980s.In the 1970s, he advocated for what was then a controversial change in the water-cement ratio for structural grout. While critics deemed his recommendation as a “heresy,” Houlsby's formula is now standard practice,

Joseph Penzien, a University of California-Berkeley engineering professor who developed the world's first modern shake table in 1972 and pioneered groundbreaking earthquake engineering research and academics, died on Sept. 19 in Redwood City, Calif. He was 86.PENZIENPenzien, a 35-year teaching veteran at the school, was a key developer of its programs in structural dynamics and earthquake engineering, "which many considered to be the best in the world," according to a 2004 oral history conducted by Robert Reitherman, executive director of the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering.An introduction by Berkeley professor Anil Chopra noted that while Penzien taught

Thousands of Imad Naffa's digital devotees are mourning the Sept. 6 loss of the industry social-networking pioneer whose Twitter posts seemed omnipresent. Naffa, a civil engineer, building-code software developer and entrepreneur, had a fatal heart attack in Fresno, Calif., at age 49, according to a post by Loretta Naffa, his wife and the office manager of his firm, Naffa International.Dubbed the “Twitter King” by BusinessNewsDaily.com, an online publication for startups, Naffa claimed more than 56,000 followers. He was second among construction tweeters, says Wefollow.com, a website that ranks registered Twitter users based on the number of followers and “influence.” Matt

Photo courtesy of TEDx Engineer Imad Naffa, at industry conference in May, was a strong advocate of social networking. Related Links: TEDx Dead Sea Imad Naffa Video Imad Naffa, a civil engineer and building code software developer who propelled his "passion for people" to become a global social media networking phenomenon, died suddenly on Sept. 6 in Fresno, Calif. He was 49 and suffered a fatal heart attack, according to a Twitter post by Loretta Naffa, his wife and office manager.The death of Naffa, a self-proclaimed "Twitterologist," generated a buzz among his followers, who numbered more than 56,000, making him

James W. Poirot, who chaired Denver engineering and construction giant CH2M Hill Cos. Ltd. for a decade and spearheaded an epic, although controversial, project to boost construction quality industry-wide, died Aug. 4 of congestive heart failure. He was 79.While chairman of CH2M Hill in the late 1980s, the longtime quality control advocate also pushed to develop a professional practice quality manual through his involvement in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The effort had its roots in the collapse of a hotel walkway in Kansas City in 1981.  PoirotThe Poirot-led project involved the coordination of 4,000 contributors and 40

Harold E. “Bud” Nelson, known to many as “the most influential fire protection engineer of the 20th century” and the father of the emerging discipline, died on July 21 in Fairfax, Va., from complications after a fall, according to the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE). He was 82 and lived in Bethesda, Md.Fire protection engineering is considered a unique subset of construction, but its high-profile industry status today may stem from the pioneering 60-year career of Nelson, who developed many innovations in fire protection design, modeling and systems ap-proaches that have improved building safety, particularly in high-rise structures. Nelson began