AECOM NYC office nabs MTA, Port Authority veterans

Dive Temporary:

• AECOM has hired two executives with a long time of infrastructure-associated expertise to assistance direct its New York Town-centered team: Tom Prendergast, previous chairman and CEO of the New York area Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Denise Berger, previous chief of functions of the Engineering Office of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
• Prendergast has been named head of transit in AECOM’s Style and Consulting Expert services Americas (DCSA) and Berger joins as senior vice president and COO of AECOM’s Northeast Area, which involves the metropolitan New York Town area. The two leaders have by now assumed their new roles, according to a press statement.
• The hires arrive at a vital second for the long run of transportation and transit for the New York Town area, explained Steve Morriss, DCSA president at AECOM, who observed that Congress will quickly take into consideration proposals to reauthorize and increase the national Correcting America’s Floor Transportation (Quick)​ Act and other infrastructure-associated laws.​ 

Dive Insight:

The acquisition of two these types of large-profile and seasoned infrastructure authorities will position AECOM to faucet into large projects coming on the net quickly in the Huge Apple. In January, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo presented his fiscal calendar year 2021 budget, which provides state investment in transportation infrastructure and other state-funded building projects to $275 billion, the largest these types of strategy in U.S. historical past.   

The 2021 budget will assistance guidance New York Town projects like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s​ $51.5 billion money strategy, the $11 billion Gateway Tunnel replacement job connecting New York and New Jersey and the $thirteen billion John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport modernization plan.

Prendergast, who will be targeted on AECOM’s transit sector throughout the Americas, invested most of his career in

senior management roles with the MTA, the largest agency of its sort in the place, serving over 8.5 million daily consumers. Referred to as “a single of the most impressive people in New York Town” by the New York Periods in 2017, he oversaw the region’s sprawling transit network with an “unassuming fashion that introduced praise from elected officials and transit advocates.​”

Berger will be targeted on AECOM’s Northeast Area, with a main emphasis on the progress and execution of projects for New York Metro purchasers. In accordance to LinkedIn, she has invested her 32-calendar year-long career at the Port Authority, with the past two as chief of functions for the authority’s Engineering Office, which is comprised of extra than 550 architects and engineers and has a $1.three billion annual budget. Berger has led quite a few large-scale money projects for aviation, ports, tunnels, bridges, and terminals, Port Authority Trans-Hudson (Route) and the Planet Trade Middle. 

Berger was named an American Institute of Architects fellow in 2018 for her contributions in the progress of civic enhancements and governmental projects​. “Her modern guidelines and programs made groundbreaking outcomes, elevating the stature of architecture in the general public realm,” according to AIA New York.

AECOM is not the only huge contracting business that has set its sights on New York transit and transportation projects. Bechtel, the country’s largest engineering and building organization by income, just lately opened an business in Manhattan to acquire gain of the infrastructure job demand from customers there.

In a statement, Chairman and CEO Brendan Bechtel explained the organization is looking to husband or wife with the city in its objective of “improving transportation, increasing digital technology and insuring obtain to harmless, reliable infrastructure.”