The line between criminality and regulatory non-compliance grows fainter every year. A reading of the indictment brought against ex-Louis Berger Group CEO Derish Wolff, for which he appeared in court recently, is full of details that provoke questions about Wolff's actions and whether a judge or jury will find him guilty. A dramatic case could be presented about war-profiteering. However, there are reasons to ask if this should have been a civil lawsuit instead of a criminal case.On the surface, the charges are serious. They involve Berger's former chief financial officer, Salvatore Pepe, and its former general accounting manager, Precy
Every pipeline is ugly, intrusive and potentially dangerous, no matter how barren the land that it crosses. In the best of all worlds, we would be charging our car batteries with hundreds of thousands of megawatts of electrical power from solar panels or wind turbines.
HAUSSMANN Louis D. Haussmann has been elevated to chief operating officer of Baxter & Wodman Inc., a Crystal Lake, Ill.-based municipal engineering firm. A 14-year veteran, he had been head of its transportation group and joined the board in 2009. Baxter & Woodman is ranked at No. 352 on ENR's list of the Top 500 Design Firms, with $27.5 million in 2010 revenue.Thomas Clinard has joined Chicago transportation engineer Alfred Benesch & Co. as vice president and Tennessee division manager. The move follows the Oct. 3 acquisition of Clinard Engineering Associates, a Brentwood, Tenn., design firm, Clinard was a managing
Construction Where Architecture Meets Online DatingFollowing in the well-trod path of Match.com and other online dating services, the American Institute of Architects thinks it has found a way to attract investors to the thousands of industry projects put on hold—send the potential suitors online for a database of the good-lookers. The AIA is compiling a list of stalled projects nationwide that “make sense” to move forward but lack financing.“It's the Match.com for projects,” says Clark Manus, AIA president.Clark believes AIA's initiative will help to shed light on the worthiness of restarting some of the projects that investors have overlooked. As
Related Links: Hurricane Irene Serves as Laboratory for Testing Bridge Innovations Hurricane-Hit N.J. Home Depot Ends Up In Same Flood as Customers Hurricane Irene's late summer trip Aug. 27-30 along the East Coast from the Carolinas up to Manhattan and through New England was anything but restful for people and infrastructure in the storm's path.The hurricane had diminished to tropical storm status as it churned up the coast, turned inland and headed to Canada. But it brought enough wind and rain to generate record flooding in some areas; it chewed up infrastructure and caused damage of at least $7 billion
iStockphoto Do concerns about liability limit the expansion of ethical engineering practice? The American Society of Civil Engineers has taken many steps to transform engineering and champion infrastructure. In 2009, the society produced a road map for the future of the profession; just recently, it produced a report documenting the economic costs of diminished spending on infrastructure. But a transformation so sweeping is bound to have rough spots, just as some of the most ardent supporters of a revolution are destined to be disap-pointed. Officially, ASCE policy supports engineers doing everything possible to promote safety. Making that happen in practice
The trial judge cleared the remaining defendant of charges July 6 in the Deutsche Bank fire trial in New York City.Criminal Court Judge Rena K. Uviller acquitted Mitchel Alvo, 58, a site manager for the subcontractor at the former Deutsche Bank building, which was undergoing asbestos abatement and demolition at the time of the fire in 2007. The jury cleared two other former managers, Jeffrey Melofchik and Salvatore DePaolo, on June 29.Uviller also tossed out the major charges against the subcontractor, The John Galt Corp., convicting the company only of a misdemeanor count of reckless endangerment. Alvo and the firm
Construction industry players and other major users of precision Global Position Systems (GPS) say a new report released by an industry working group today confirms that a wireless broadband network proposed by LightSquared would cause major harm to most GPS equipment in use around the globe. Rendering of LightSquared's latest satellite. Related Links: FCC Announces Comment Period for TWG Report Save Our GPS Coalition Press Releases LightSquared's Press Release Efforts 'To Save Our GPS' Heat up in Congress The group also rejected a three-pronged proposal put forth by Reston, Va-based LightSquared, which it says would mitigate any interference the company's
For 108 years, groups representing New York City's union contractors and building trades have worked under the New York Plan for the Resolution of Jurisdictional Disputes, an agreement used to resolve inter-union disputes and bind union contractors to use organized labor. But at year-end, the era comes to a close. The Building Trades Employers Association, which represents union contractors, voted in May to let the plan expire after this year, giving members the option to use non-union workers. Related Links: View the Full ENR 2011 Second Quarter Cost Report (PDF) Contractors Hold Line on Pay How John Deere's New Hybrid
The deaths of firefighters Joseph P. Graffagnino and Robert Beddia at the Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero in 2007 needlessly replayed the tragedy that unfolded on Sept. 11, 2001, when 343 of New York’s Bravest died. The high-rise bank building, adjacent to the World Trade Center, was damaged in the attack and six years later was being cleaned of asbestos and demolished. Courtesy of the Manhattan District Attorney Fire at Deutsche bank building killed two firefighters, who succumbed to smoke inhalation struggling to get water on the fire source. Related Links: NIOSH Report on Bank Fire Deaths State Supreme
