To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ENR Award of Excellence, Newsmakers and winners from across the years joined this year’s class and winner, Anvil Builders’ CEO HT Tran, on stage at the gala in New York City on April 16.
While hanging out with friends in his California living room one day in 2006, HT Tran had an epiphany that changed his career path and the direction of his life. The wounded Army veteran whose family fled Vietnam went on to start a fast-growing construction firm that's building San Francisco and careers for fellow veterans.
What started as an effort by Bob Nilsson, a U.S. Marine vet with a broken leg to help other Vietnam War wounded heal at a Navy hospital in Queens, N.Y., has grown decades later into a nationwide crusade to transition veterans, injured and not, into entrepreneurs in the construction sector—and beyond.
The Obama administration made construction careers for veterans a high-profile initiative, announced last year by First Lady Michele Obama, that asks industry firms to hire 100,000 vets in the next five years.
George J. Pierson has had his share of kudos for engineering the sale last October of global design firm giant Parsons Brinckerhoff in what many consider an impressive $1.35-billion deal.
In 1999, David White accompanied his father, the founder of American Piledriving Equipment (APE), to Shanghai.
Like the maestro of a Wagnerian opera, Michael Marchesano conducted a chorus of 400 workers, 19 concrete pumps, 208 mixers and eight batch plants to perform a 19.5-hour continuous concrete placement for the Wilshire Grand Center's foundation.
Early in the process of building Florida Polytechnic University's $60-million Innovation, Science and Technology building, architect Santiago Calatrava expressed his doubts to Skanska USA Building's project leader, Chuck Jablon, about the ability of U.S. craft workers to deliver the quality the architect envisioned.
Few people would get excited about leading a much-needed overhaul of a 500-page building code, even if it is the global bible of concrete design.
Developed and built primarily as a testing and research center for wind-turbine drivetrains, Clemson University's Energy Innovation Center in North Charleston, S.C., is still ramping up operations.
Major disasters have played a significant role in the life of Teddy Phillips Jr.
A history buff who has enjoyed a 36-year career in construction, Charlie Gannon, a project manager for Walsh Construction, certainly appreciates the significance of having delivered the longest-ever bridge slide.
In terms of importance, Georgia Power's $14-billion-plus Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project stands alone.
Early in 2014, the cash-strapped contractor consortium stopped constructing the third set of locks to create a third lane large enough for newer, larger ships to use the Panama Canal.
Moving from active combat to a civilian career can be a tough transition for returning veterans, especially those who have been injured in service.
A decade ago, San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission embarked on a bold plan to prepare for the next earthquake or other natural disaster.
HOK looms large in the memory of Bill Johnson—the architect for the daring New Atlanta Stadium—as having set inadvertently, yet fortuitously, his career path.
A kid's biology book, devoured when Christine Sheppard was 8 years old, tweaked her interest in science. A professor who helped reestablish the peregrine falcon on the East Coast opened the graduate student's eyes to environmental bird threats.
"If I don't have 100 balls in the air, I don't work well. I get bored," says David Burrus, referring to his multitasking skills.
For Denis Hayes, the journey to a leadership role in the environmental movement has been informed by childhood trauma, youthful disillusionment and an epiphany.
Sept. 19, 1985, was life-altering for Eduardo Miranda.
Equipment magnate Don F. Ahern says he doesn't believe much in setting goals.
Over the past three decades, Jim Wiethorn has investigated hundreds of crane accidents and generated a mountain of data on what causes lifting machines to fail.
John J. Struzziery knew it wasn't going to be easy to design a solution for Cambridge, Mass., to meet mandated federal water-quality upgrades and stormwater-runoff control in a tight, state-owned urban space.
As DC Water's assistant general manager of wastewater treatment, Walter Bailey played a key role in the public utility's decision to implement an innovative system to create a better class of biosolids at the Blue Plains advanced wastewater treatment facility.
Nick Hetrick was AECOM's project manager on a Milford, Del., highway interchange job when he got an urgent call from his boss: A Delaware Dept. of Transportation crew on June 2 had verified an engineer's report that piers supporting an interstate bridge in Wilmington had tilted.
A hoisting first is what Ferndale, Wash.-based Samson Rope pulled off under the direction of Michael Quinn, director of new market development, when it debuted the world's first synthetic hoisting rope—the KZ100—for use on cranes in 2014.