It’s time to announce the 2025 Class of Top Young Professionals for each of ENR’s regions, which will look a bit different moving forward. In addition to naming the awardees, ENR is announcing a new configuration, consolidating the eight regions into five, starting in 2025.
As the construction industry continues to evolve, the audience for ENR’s regional editions has also shifted, with firms often working within broader geographic footprints and crossing over to work in neighboring regions. With that in mind, ENR’s regional editions, newsletters and website content are evolving as well, and will be arranged as follows:
Mountain States and Southwest will be combined to form ENR Mountain States & Southwest, which will cover Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
California and Northwest will be merged to form the ENR West region, adding Nevada, which was previously in the Southwest region.
ENR Midwest will expand to include the Dakotas, which were previously in the Mountain States.
Texas/Louisiana and Southeast will become ENR Texas and Southeast.
New York, New England and MidAtlantic will merge to form ENR East.
Much will remain the same, though, with each of the newly re-formed regions continuing to publish six bi-monthly print and digital magazines, a twice monthly newsletter and regional-specific digital content posted daily to the new regional websites within ENR.com.
In addition, ENR’s successful Best Projects competition/events and top firm rankings will continue to provide the same level of opportunity to showcase your firm’s outstanding work.
So, the following list of Top Young Professionals represents the first class of the new ENR Mountain States & Southwest Region. Each awardee will be featured in the first edition of ENR Mountain States & Southwest on March 3, 2025, detailing their successes and careers so far. The recognition program, held annually by each of ENR's regional editions, recognizes young industry professionals, all under 40, who are achieving excellence in their professional lives by exhibiting qualities of career and industry leadership, and community involvement.
The judges for this year’s contest are each former Top Young Pros: Teena Bergstrand, Saunders Construction; Willie De-Souza, Primoris Services Corp.; Daniel Jensen, Michael Baker International; and Yanling Leng, IMEG Corp.
Judges did not score applications from individuals working at their same firm or with whom they had any conflicts of interest.
Congratulations to this year’s 25 awardees who are listed alphabetically:
Warren Alford – Transmission & Distribution Manager, Burns & McDonnell, Phoenix
Lindsay Bruckal – Project Executive, Clayco, Phoenix
Matt Ciarkowski – Civil Engineer, Kimley-Horn, Denver
Sadie Cline – Principal, ZGF, Denver
Kyle Cole – Arizona Business Team Leader, Garver, Tempe, Ariz.
Ramiro L. Diaz – Project Architect/Associate, The Beck Group, Denver
Rae Faber – Senior Manager of Design, Modern Railway Systems, Littleton, Colo.
Jack Grauman – Power Sector Alternative Delivery Director, HDR, Billings, Mont.
Grisel Gray – Director of Preconstruction & Estimating, Gilmore Construction, Denver
David Haldiman – Project Superintendent, Hensel Phelps, Phoenix
Brett Himes – Operations Manager, IMCO General Construction, Boise
Venkatesh (VJ) Janakiraman – Senior Electrical Engineer, IMEG, Scottsdale, Ariz.
Brett Kohring – Senior Traffic Engineer, HDR, Boise
Jennyfer LaBuff – Application Development Manager, Sundt Construction, Tempe, Ariz.
Erica Moser – Vice President/Market Leader, The RMH Group, Lakewood, Colo.
Patrick Payne – Vice President of Operations (Water), McCarthy Building Cos., Phoenix
Anthony Pratt – Mobility Planner and Designer, Kimley-Horn, Broomfield, Colo.
Jordan Ricks – Preconstruction Manager, Adolfson & Peterson Construction, Aurora, Colo.
Adrian Saldanha – Project Manager, PCL Construction, Tempe, Ariz.
Rebecca Santiago – Transportation Planner II, HDR, Phoenix
Zachary Shuman – National Aviation Services Practice Leader, Woolpert, Glendale, Colo.
Kyle Tillery – Senior Superintendent, Adolfson & Peterson Construction, Aurora, Colo.
Kayla Voller – Manager of Project Delivery, Transmission & Distribution/Mountain Region, Burns & McDonnell, Centennial, Colo.
Ethan Walton – Project Director, McCarthy Building Companies, Denver
Arthur Wickham – Senior Hydrogeologist/Senior Project Manager, BEM Systems, Lakewood, Colo.
