Ward Joins General Contractors Association

The former head of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection is the new head of the heavy contractors group. Also, several building industry firms expand to serve more regions.

NEW HIRES

Christopher Ward has been appointed managing director of the General Contractors Association of New York. Ward was commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection until 2004 and most recently was president and CEO of American Stevedoring, which operated a Brooklyn port.

Dean Jacobson has joined New York's Steven Kratchman Architect as project architect. Also, Maureen Amores has joined the firm as interior designer and resource librarian and Mike Vorland has joined as a technical staff member.

David Peraza has been hired in the New York office of Exponent, an engineering and scientific consulting firm based in Menlo Park, Calif.

Thomas Fox, Douglas Freeman, and Paul Tapogna have been named associates at New York-based FXFowle Architects.

John Paul Chulliyil has joined New York's M.J. Macaluso and Associates Architects as a draftsman. Also, Noah Shepherd has returned to the firm as a project manager after getting his master's degree, Ryan Sciopione has been promoted to head the firm's exterior restoration division, and Scott Smith has been promoted to head the newly-formed marketing and sales division.

PROMOTIONS

David Callan has been promoted to vice president at Syska Hennessy Group, a consulting, engineering, technology, and construction firm based in New York, where he is now director of sustainable design and high performance building technology.

Diana Mendes, Gary Morris, and Michael Marchelletta have been appointed senior vice presidents in the New York office of DMJM Harris, the transportation arm of AECOM Technology, a design and management services company headquartered in New York and Los Angeles.

O'Dea, Lynch, Abbattista Consulting Engineers, an engineering firm based in Hawthorne, N.Y., has promoted Steven Gumm to associate, Jeffrey Lyman and Scott Ziegler to Engineer III, Kenneth Kristensen to Engineer II, and Daniel Smith to senior engineer.

Suzanne Billet has been named executive vice president overseeing the real estate department of Quinn & Co. Public Relations, based in New York.

Stephen Thomas and Stephen Berdel have been named associate vice presidents of Cannon Design, a planning and design firm based in Grand Island, N.Y.

HONORS AND APPOINTMENTS

Jeffrey Levine, founder and president of Levine Builders, a New York-based construction manager and general contractor, has received the Community Achievement Award from the Real Estate and Construction Industry Chapter of ORT, a nonprofit group focused on professional training.

Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers' Association of New York, has been appointed to the New York State Apprenticeship and Training Council. As the only New York City representative on the council, Coletti will advise the state's commissioner of labor, suggest standards, and recommend research projects.

Sudhir Jambhekar, a principal at New York's FXFowle Architects, has been named "Architect of the Year" by the Society of Indo American Engineers and Architects.

The 23rd Street Association, a nonprofit community organization in Manhattan that represents businesses and residents in the area from 17th to 28th streets bounded by the Hudson and East rivers, presented its 33rd Annual Distinguished Citizen Award to Jerome Cohen, chairman of Williams Real Estate, a real estate company based in New York. Cohen was recognized in particular for the restoration of 28 and 40 West 23rd St.

Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., recently honored Charles Murphy, vice president and general manager of New York regional operations for New York-based Turner Construction, for his contributions on the hospital's renovation and expansion project.

The American Institute of Architects chapter in Connecticut recently gave its 2005 Public Service Award to Thomas Rogér, vice president and project executive for the Glastonbury, Conn., office of Gilbane Building, a construction and real estate development company based in Providence, R.I.

Lynn Woodworth, the president of Stone Construction Equipment of Honeoye, N.Y., has been elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the 750-member Association of Equipment Manufacturers. Stone, a designer and manufacturer of construction equipment, was No. 59 on Rochester's Top 100 Companies, a ranking based on three years of revenue growth. The Rochester Business Alliance and KPMG sponsor the ranking.