ENR's Top 25 Newsmakers 2016
The Top 25 Newsmakers are a diverse group—but they share one thing in common. All have gone above and beyond to serve the best interests of the construction industry and the public. The new class ranges from an architect who worked to make schools more secure to a contractor who is pioneering mixed reality on the jobsite. ENR editors have chosen one individual to receive ENR’s highest honor, the Award of Excellence. That person will be the subject of a cover story in the April 17-24 issue. All will be celebrated April 13 at the New York Hilton Midtown. Browse through this year's Newsmakers below.
April M. Barkasi
Engineer is lauded for her good judgment and intelligent and efficient application of emerging technology.
Calvin Beyer
Risk professional pushes construction leaders to take steps to improve how their firms handle mental health issues.
James E. Blackmore
Project director uses variety of skills with a touch of philosophy to keep the New York region’s first major public-private partnership bridge project on track.
Habib J. Dagher
Immigrant engineering professor has set a high bar for R&D to propel his adopted state to new levels of achievement in clean energy and transportation technology.
T. Bella Dinh-Zarr
NTSB vice chairman has been an advocate for accelerated installation of positive train-control technology in U.S. rail infrastructure.
Sean Donohue
Creating the vision that led to Dallas-Fort Worth’s status as the first carbon-neutral North American airport.
Marc A. Edwards
After testing water samples from Flint, Mich., this Virginia Tech professor focused national attention on the dangerous levels of lead in the water and in children’s blood.
Carrie Kirk
Kirk expanded design-based anti-hunger nonprofit from its North American base to a global presence.
Cary Kopczynski
Earthquake engineer pioneered the use of high-strength steel fiber as a much-needed rebar decongestant in shear-wall link beams.
Greg Mella
Leading the design team for the first U.S. commercial building permitted to turn rain into drinking water.
Robert D. Mitchell
Architect was the “rock” that kept construction of the new Sandy Hook Elementary School on track four years after a tragedy.
Jacob Myer
Design engineer gets technical with post-tensioning during demolition of a floating bridge in Seattle.
Geoffrey Neumayr
SFO executive leads airport capital program setting high bar for contractual success.
Cody Nowak
R & D director at interiors contractor strives to adapt cutting-edge visualization technology for regular workers on the jobsite.
Giuseppe Quarta
Leader restored a sense of teamwork among members of the fractured project team, making the final push to complete the Panama Canal’s third lane.
Ian N. Robertson
Professor made crucial contributions to the campaign that resulted in the 2016 adoption of the world’s first standards for tsunami-resistant design.
Thomas F. Robinson
Architect is supporting a forest-to-frame movement in the Northwest by spearheading a 148-ft-tall mass-timber building project.
Robert J. Schillerstrom
Promoting a cutting-edge culture of innovation, customer service and diversity.
Kim Shinn
Developed long-running energy-modeling game, “The Wizard Show,” that seeks to correct industry peers’ mistaken assumptions about sustainable building design.
Peter Sluszka
Persevered in getting bridge owners to try an anticorrosion cable dehumidification system, created in Japan.
Michael Sousa
Veteran builder set new standards for construction quality and nation-building in Afghanistan when completing a high-risk project he didn’t want to take on.
Joseph Stagner
Leads the cause for a more sustainable campus at Stanford University.
Chris Van Beek
Dutch marine construction veteran leads Deepwater Wind team to build an industry-leading wind farm off the Rhode Island coast.
Wade Watson
Manager prevented culture clash to deliver Virginia’s Elizabeth River Tunnels project, the first all-concrete tunnel designed for deepwater immersion.
Antony Wood
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s dynamo executive director propelled the global skyscraper authority into a new era.