Business Announcements

C10
STAR BUSINESS WEEKLY
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015
Business Announcements
Business Announcements are
published in Tuesday Business
and are paid for by the company
placing the announcement.
Building industry
rAy kowAlik APPointed to
newly creAted role At
Burns & mcdonnell:
eXecutiVe Vice President And
President of gloBAl PrActices
After hiring nearly 900
employees in 2014,
Burns & McDonnell
reached a milestone
just days ago after
hiring its 5,000th employee. This inspired
the firm's first major kowAlik
organizational change in a decade
naming Ray Kowalik as Executive
Vice President of Burns & McDonnell
and President of Global Practices.
The newly created role will provide
strategic vision for future growth at
Burns & McDonnell.
After graduating from the University
of Missouri, Ray joined Burns &
McDonnell as a structural engineer
27 years ago working on projects
for both the Energy and Process and
Industrial groups. For the last decade, Ray has served at the helm of
the firm's successful Energy Division
managing critical projects across the
globe, including KCP&L's Iatan Generation Station Unit 2 that was
named "Plant of the Year," by Power
Magazine. Ray was promoted to
president of the division in 2007 and
joined the board of directors in
2009.
Energy will be just one of the 11
Global Practices that Ray will now
provide guidance to in his new role,
which includes everything from
Aviation and Federal to Transmission and Distribution and Construction Design Build.
"Now that we've grown to more
than 5,000 people, we need someone with the experience and ability
to focus on our key areas of opportunity for our company and our clients. And that person is Ray Kowalik," says Greg Graves, Chairman
and CEO, Burns & McDonnell.
"Ray's steady approach and forward
thinking that he's provided the Energy sector is just the type of leadership that will help guide the entire
company into our next chapter."
rick hAlil nAmed generAl
mAnAger of Burns &
mcdonnel's energy diVision
With a career resume
highlighted by successful completion of
some of the power industry's most complex
projects, rick halil has
been appointed GenhAlil
eral Manager of the
Burns & McDonnell Energy Group.
Rick has spent his entire career in
the Energy group since joining
Burns & McDonnell in 1989 as a mechanical engineer, just after graduating from the University of Florida.
Rick has served in various roles both
leading and serving on multi- discipline project teams designing and
constructing power generation, renewable energy, nuclear, environmental and plant betterment projects. For the past 10 years, he has
provided strategic leadership of the
division's engineering and project
management teams which are responsible for executing client projects around the world. Rick was
named an officer of the company in
2005.
Rick has steadily advanced in his responsibilities with Burns & McDonnell, and is noted for providing
thoughtful guidance to clients as
they consider various approaches to
power generation projects in a constantly evolving marketplace.
"During a period of regulatory uncertainty and large-scale transformation of the utility industry, I can't
think of anyone better suited than
Rick in providing the guidance our
clients need," said Greg Graves,
Chairman and CEO of Burns &
McDonnell. "He is the right leader to
build on the foundation set by Ray
Kowalik and the entire Energy
team."
Burns & mcdonnell generAl
counsel elected to Vice chAir
of the design-Build institute
of AmericA
Bill quatman, fAiA,
dBiA, General Counsel
of Burns & McDonnell,
has been elected to
Vice Chair of the Design-Build Institute of
America (DBIA), the
only organization in quAtmAn
the world that defines, teaches, and
promotes best practices in design-
build project delivery. In 2014, Bill
served as Treasurer of DBIA and will
succeed Peter Kinsley as National
Board Chair in 2016.
With degrees in Architecture and
Law, Bill joined Burns & McDonnell
in 2008 providing a rich and unique
perspective of 25 years of experience in design and construction law.
He's been a trailblazing proponent
of design-build throughout his career founding the Mid-America
Chapter of DBIA and promoting design-build legislation.
Bill also
taught design-build and construction law at the University of Kansas
and wrote the book, "Design-Build
for the Design Professional."
Design-build is the fastest growing
method of construction that integrates design and construction
services under one contract with a
single point of responsibility. Representing 40% of all construction projects, design-build is at the heart of
almost every project at Burns &
McDonnell which aims to provide
the best value for the client while
meeting schedule, cost and quality
goals.
holly streeter-schAefer
Joins legAl teAm At
Burns & mcdonnell
holly streeter- schaefer
is Burns & McDonnell's
newest staff attorney
who offers a rich blend
of passion and experience in construction
law. Holly graduated
with distinction from streeter-schAefer
Iowa State University with a degree
in Construction Engineering and received her law degree from Drake
University.
Specializing in construction law,
contracts and risk management,
Holly will leverage her 15 years' of
legal experience to focus on three of
the firm's growing global practices:
Water, Transportation, and Environmental. In addition, she will also
provide legal guidance and strategy
on a broad range of business matters that intersect with design and
construction law, corporate, regulatory and business law.
Holly comes to Burns & McDonnell
from the Polsinelli law firm, where
she spent the majority of her career
focusing on legal matters in the design and construction industry.
Holly also spent more than five
years in-house with a large construction company where she
served as corporate counsel.
Holly is a member of the Missouri
Bar, Kansas Bar and the Kansas City
Metropolitan Bar Association. She is
highly involved in the construction
trade organization and is a regular
speaker on current issues within the
industry. She is also on the Board of
Central Exchange and a member of
the Central Exchange WiSTEMM
committee. Holly also serves on
the City of Overland Park's Code
Board of Appeals and as a board
member of the Greater Kansas
City NAWIC chapter.
About Burns & McDonnell
Burns and McDonnell is a company
made up of more than 5,000 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants
and entrepreneurs with offices
across the country and throughout
the world. The firm strives to create
amazing success for its clients and
amazing careers for its employeeowners. Burns & McDonnell is 100%
employee-owned and is proud to be
No. 14 on FORTUNE's 2014 List of
100 Best Companies to Work For.
For more information visit:
http://burnsmcd.com.
hollis + miller
Architects Announces the
following Addition to its
Architecture + design firm
hollis + miller Architects has expanded its team with the following
addition:
travis J. willson, AiA
joined Hollis + Miller
Architects as a licensed and registered
senior architect. Prior
to joining the firm, he
was an architect at
Clockwork Architec- willson
ture + Design (2014), HTK Architects
(2009-2013) and Springfield, Mo.based Jack Ball Architects (20022008). Willson has a bachelor's of
architecture from Drury University.
Deadline is Tuesday 2 weeks prior
to desired publication.
For information, call
Rhonda Sparks at 816-234-4089
or email
bizannouncements@kcstar.com
bizannoucements@kcstar.com or 816-234-4089
WWW.KANSASCITY.COM
CHROSTOWSKI:
Recovery’s for real
FROM C1
500 rising 13.7 percent including dividends.
The plunge in oil prices
provided the most surprising dose of economic medicine. Falling from near $100
a barrel to below $50 will
give
consumers
what
amounts to at least a $100
billion a year tax cut.
The Fed felt confident
enough to begin winding
down its quantitative easing,
while interest rates stayed
low. Defying pessimists, inflation remained caged and
the price of gold fell.
Overall, the U.S. will log
about a 3.3 percent increase
in the GDP and easily outperformed the economies of
many other countries. Thus
the dollar strengthened. At
the first of 2014, the dollar
bought .73 of a euro. Monday
it bought .85.
And finally, U.S. budget
hawks should note that the
deficit as a percentage of
GDP is the best since before
the recession.
Still, as in any recovery
from near death, it’s too
soon to declare the economy
fully healed and sure to keep
improving. A big danger
now is that the Fed overestimates the health of the economy and raises interest rates
too fast.
Pessimists still have plenty of bad numbers they
could use to dim a rosier
view. Wage stagnation, the
weak labor force participation rate and rising inequality are still problems.
The numbers I find most
immediately troubling are
housing and business startups.
Sales of new and existing
homes last year fell about 3
percent, and we’re still below the pace of single-family
home construction and sales
that existed even before the
housing bubble.
Business startups are at
their lowest in 30 years. U.S.
businesses are now dying
faster than they’re being created.
The overriding reason for
the weakness, economists
say, is that despite low interest rates, tight credit continues. Bankers just aren’t approving enough loans, even
to mortgage applicants with
good credit records or entrepreneurs with good ideas
and decent collateral.
To help housing, Fannie
Mae recently eased lending
standards a bit, and the Obama administration last week
said it planned to shave insurance premiums on some
federally issued mortgages.
Of course, we don’t want
to go back to the bubble
years, when bankers were
figuratively throwing money
out their doors. But it’s galling that bankers who got us
into this mess by being reckless are now holding back
the economy out of cautionary excess.
Other economic observations:
❚ The increase in minimum wages in 25 states next
year will provide a chance to
see whether the boost hurts
businesses and leads to significant layoffs compared
with other states.
❚ Remember the angst
about cutting back longterm jobless benefits? What
happened to those people?
Economists should figure
out whether they finally began taking less-than-optimum jobs and whether that
played a big part in the increase in jobs created last
year.
❚ My scary prediction for
2015: Hackers will succeed
in taking down a major U.S.
financial institution.
To reach Keith Chrostowski,
business editor of The Star,
call 816-234-4466 or email
chrostowski@kcstar.com.
Twitter: @Keithc3