Real Estate Meets Construction Women

Professional Women in Construction held a "Meet the Real Estate Industry" table-top and networking event at La Maganette Ristorante in Manhattan.

The event, hosted by PWC president Lenore Janis, drew an impressive array of speakers. Among those who addressed the gathering were: Robert Selsam, senior vice president and manager of the New York office of Boston Properties, Inc; Bobbi McGowan, executive director of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Greater New York Inc.; Anthony Giorgio, director of commodity sales with Con Edison Solutions; and James Doran, vice president of operations for Vornado Realty Trust; John Janis, property manager with Stillman Management; Louis Villafane, manager of construction and space planning with Altria Corporate Services, the holding company for Philip Morris and Kraft; Shari Colburn of Columbia University and James Connors, deputy director with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Connors spoke of the $8.8 billion in capital spending planned by the agency over the next five years, and Colburn told the audience that Columbia is in the final year of its current $1.3 billion five-year capital plan and is expecting strong growth to continue.

According to Selsam, not only institutional building but commercial construction as well should be on the upswing soon.

"In April, the city gained over 10,000 jobs, most of which were in offices, meaning that 2.5 to 3.5 million sq. ft. of space was absorbed," he said. "this is reflected in a generally increased level of activity in the real estate market, especially among smaller tenants."

Civil Engineers Buy Magazine

The American Society of Civil Engineers acquired the International Journal of Geomechanics from CRC Press. IJOG covers interdisciplinary topics in geomechanics with an emphasis on computational methods, constitutive models, laboratory field testing and related practical applications. The editor of the journal will be C.S. Desai, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Arizona.

Design-Build Library

The Design-Build Institute of America and the Foundation for Integrated Services has published a catalogue of design-build books, pamphlets, reports and CDs. It can be ordered from DBI at 1010 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Third Floor, Washington, D.C. 20001-5402 or on-line at www.dbia.org

Women Engineers Select Leaders

Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network, a nonprofit educational organization founded in 1990 to enhance the success of women in the engineering professions, appointed its 2003-2004 Board of Directors. The new president is Sherry Woods, director of special projects at the College of Engineering at the University of Texas-Austin. Also elected to the board was New Jersey resident Susan Staffin-Metz, the executive director of the Lore-El Center for Women in Engineering and Science at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

New Jersey Carpenters Give First Scholarship

The New Jersey Carpenter Contractor Trust, a member of the New Jersey State Building and Construction Trades Labor Management council, named Daisy Kim as the recipient of its first ever scholarship award. Kim is a fourth-year architecture student attending the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, N.J. In addition to a $2,500 scholarship, Kim will participate in a one-week shadowing program at the Joseph J. D’Aries Carpenters Training Center in Hammonton, N.J.

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