Mutual Materials (Bellevue, Wash.) recently announced the promotion of executive vice-president Joe Bowen to president and COO.

Bowen began his tenure at Mutual Materials in 1995 as director of sales and marketing. In 1997, he took over distribution as well and was promoted to vice-president, where his responsibilities included oversight of operations, acquisitions, and sales and marketing. In 2001 he assumed responsibility for all manufacturing operations.

Currently, Bowen serves on the board of directors of the Interlocking Concrete Paver Institute (ICPI), and has served on a number of sales and marketing-related committees for the National Concrete Masonry Association (NCMA).

The Columbia Pacific Chapter (#54) of the American Society of Professional Estimators recently elected its 2003-2004 Board of Directors.

Bryna Gibson, president of Gibson Door and Millwork, has been re-elected president. First vice-president for her second term is Mary L. Steinmann, CSAM, construction search director for Management Recruiters of Portland. Greg Madden, president of Madden Fabrication, will serve as secretary, and Dick Montag, retired, returns as treasurer.

The following were elected to the board as directors:

Brad Johnson, owner, Westech Construction Inc.; Mike Morris, estimator/project manager, Gregory Pacific Corp.; Eric Kneeland, estimator, S D Deacon Construction; Mark Oakley, sales-estimator, Mountain Glass; Jon Grasle, purchasing manager, Hoffman Construction; and Wallace W. Brassfield, P.E. C.C.E ., cost/civil engineer, US Army Corps of Engineers, Northwestern Division.

David Standley, estimator, Skanska USA Building, the chapter's immediate past president, will also serve as a director for 2003-2004.

Chris Hashbarger has joined Express Construction Company (Seattle) as a project superintendent focused on tenant improvement and retail construction projects.

Hashbarger brings significant experience to the Express team. His tenure at Express includes several tenant improvement projects for Unico Properties, as well as Bassett Furniture Direct, Northwest Chemotherapy Center and Whitepages.com. Prior to joining Express, he completed retail buildings for clients including Office Depot, Petco and Sleep Country USA and directed tenant improvement projects in occupied space in several downtown Seattle office buildings.

Seattle landscape architect Richard Haag, founder of the University of Washington's Landscape architecture program, recently was awarded the American Society of Landscape Architects' Medal, the highest award for an individual landscape architect.

Professor Emeritus Haag is perhaps best known for his creative design of Gas Works Park. He is also widely recognized for working with Victor Steinbrueck to save the Pike Place Market, and he designed the famous Sequence of Gardens at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island. Haag continues his practice in Seattle and received both city and state recognition as designer of the historic landmark designation of Gas Works Park.

Haag is a Fellow ASLA and Honorary AIA. In 1998, Haag received a residency at the American Academy in Rome. A University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Graduate School of Design graduate, he founded and served as the first chair of the Landscape Architecture Department.

Engineering Firm BERGER/ABAM recently announced that it has added two new employees to its staff. Shawn Ellis recently joined the firm's Portland, Ore., office as a civil engineer, and Tonya Watkins is the new marketing coordinator at the company's Federal Way, Wash., headquarters.

Ellis has 10 years of civil engineering experience, including the design and management of public and privately funded civil engineering projects. Her civil engineering experience includes the analysis and design of systems for water supply and distribution; water treatment; sanitary sewer management and conveyance; stormwater treatment, detention, and conveyance; street and road design; and site grading.

Watkins has more than 20 years of business development experience in the architectural and engineering industry. Her background includes proposal and qualification coordination and preparation, event planning, and desktop publishing. She has also authored and edited several articles for publication. Prior to joining BERGER/ABAM, Watkins served as marketing coordinator for a civil and structural engineering firm.

Quadrant Corp. (Bellevue, Wash,) recently announced the appointment of Peter Orser as the company's new president.

Orser, formerly executive vice president, succeeds Steve Dennis who has served as president since 1993 and has been with the company since 1974. Dennis will serve as CEO until mid-September, when he retires.

During his 16-year tenure with Quadrant, Orser has served in several roles in the company, including positions in the commercial and land development divisions. In 2001, he was promoted to executive vice-president of Quadrant.

Orser was instrumental in guiding Quadrant towards become Washington's first certified "Built Green" homebuilder. As a result, Quadrant has been recognized for the extensive environmental preservation practices used in its homebuilding to protect salmon, conserve energy, improve air quality and preserve natural resources.

Currently, Orser is a commissioner of the King County Housing Authority, a board member of the Cascade Land Conservancy and president-elect of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish counties. Formerly, he served on the planning commission and city council for Mercer Island.

Seattle electrical engineering and technology consulting firm Sparling recently added three new employees to its staff.

Nathan Larmore is the company's network/IT consultant, Hollis Heron is a project manager and Richard Leung is senior project manager for design of health care facilities.

Larmore has more than six years experience in IT, specializing in network engineering and design. He has extensive management and hands-on experience in network engineering, systems administration, project management, and technical analysis. His design work includes LAN/WAN design; network planning and implementation; campus-wide rollouts; and network migrations.

A Sparling associate, project manager, and LEED accredited professional, Heron has contributed technology consulting to multiple Sparling projects including Washington Mutual's Cedarbrook leadership development center, Seattle City Hall, and Providence Alaska Medical Center. Heron will transition from manager of electrical design to technology consulting over the course of the year.

Leung provided electrical engineering services in Hawaii for 25 years and Seattle for three years. His extensive experience in health care project management includes the Guam Memorial Hospital and major medical facilities in Hawaii. Leung's current Sparling projects are renovations at Harborview and a medical office building for Highline Hospital.

A certified industrial hygienist with more than 19 years of environmental and occupational safety experience has joined AMEC's Earth and Environmental office in Kirkland, Wash., as a senior project manager.

J. Michael Harris, C.I.H., has managed projects ranging from the abatement of asbestos and other hazardous materials to the development of health and safety plans. He has performed regulated-materials oversight work for major companies, including Alcoa Aluminum, Boeing, Hines and Weyerhaeuser, and has served as the primary regulated materials (asbestos, lead, PCBs) consultant for the Space Needle during demolition, renovation and new construction on the plaza, restaurant and observation levels.

Harris also has taught classes in all Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act disciplines, as well as hazard communication, hazardous waste emergency response, lead and silica awareness and other topics.

Core Design, Inc., a planning/civil engineering/surveying firm located in Bellevue, Wash., announced the addition of Scott R. Borgeson, P.E. and Stacia K. Schroeder, P.E., to the company's civil engineering team.

Borgeson has been licensed by Washington State as a professional engineer since 2000. His work for private sector clients has included single and multi-family housing developments in many local cities and counties, including the master-planned communities of Talus and Issaquah Highlands (Issaquah, Wash.), Third Avenue Bungalows (Kirkland, Wash.), Liberty Ridge (Renton, Wash.) and Lakeland (Auburn, Wash.).

Schroeder brings with her a wide variety of public and private experience. Past projects include Shoreline Interurban Trail for the City of Shoreline and Trilogy at Redmond Ridge, an active adult community. She is presently designing Northridge Park, a 74-lot plat in Marysville, Wash., and Issaquah Highlands - Division 84/85 in Issaquah, Wash.

Portland, Ore.'s SERA Architects has promoted Kurt Schultz to principal, and two of the company's leaders have been tapped to sit on city leadership boards.

Schultz joined SERA in 2001 and is the firm's public projects studio design leader. A registered architect with more than 15 years of experience, Schultz received his Bachelors of Architecture at the University of Oregon.

Schultz is currently leading SERA's design efforts for the Union Gospel Mission Lifechange Center, First Presbyterian Church addition and remodeling in Corvallis, Ore.; Western Baptist College Performing Arts Center in Salem, Ore.; Weatherford Residential College at Oregon State University, Memorial Coliseum Re-use study, Corvallis; and Civic Center master plan and the Aquatic Center in Forks, Wash.

Timothy Smith, SERA's director of urban design planning, was recently appointed to Portland's Planning Commission by Portland's Bureau of Planning and Mayor Vera Katz. The Portland Planning Commission advises the Portland City Council on any proposal that affects the goals, policies or contents of the City's Comprehensive Plan.

Smith is a certified planner and a registered architect with more than 20 years of professional experience. With a special interest in ecologically sensitive urban development, he has led planning and design studies for new towns and villages, the revitalization of existing villages, corridor planning projects, land use studies, town center planning and design projects, and community involvement initiatives.

Donald Eggleston, president of SERA Architects, has agreed again to be chairman for the Rehabilitation Code Task Force for the City of Portland. Eggleston was previously the chairman of the task force on seismic strengthening of existing buildings which developed the seismic retrofit policies used today within the City of Portland's building renovations. Eggleston has more than 34 years of architectural experience.

Environmental consulting firm Blasland, Bouck and Lee Inc. recently added two new employees to its West Coast offices.

Pamela Sargent joins the staff as a senior civil engineer with more than 20 years of experience providing civil and environmental engineering services to the private and public sectors, including numerous port districts. Sargent served as the project engineer for sediment remediation at the head of the Thea Foss Waterway in Tacoma, Wash., and was responsible for developing a design to enlarge the Blair Waterway Turning Basin, also in Tacoma, to accommodate deeper-draft container vessels, a project that involved dredging 730,000 cu. yds. of material.

Shannon Dunn joined the firm's Seattle and Portland, Ore., offices as a senior project geochemist. She will concentrate on sediment quality issues associated with chemodynamics and bioturbation. Her portfolio includes a client base as varied as aerospace contractors, mining companies, plywood manufacturers, metals recyclers, landfill operators and the Department of Defense.

LRS Architects Inc. (Portland, Ore.) recently announced the addition of two new associates - Janice Goo and Gail Boger - and the expansion of its interiors studio with the addition of David Jamison and Calista Fitzgerald.

Goo and Boger join the firm from Chilless Nielsen Architects, which recently merged with LRS. Boger brings design experience ranging from mixed-use to affordable housing. Goo is currently working on the Mennonite Village CCRC for LRS.

Jamison has previously worked on the Brewery Blocks and Museum Place projects in Portland as well as a number of civic projects before joining LRS. Fitzgerald brings experience ranging from educational facilities and civic projects to tenant improvements for numerous commercial office spaces.

Nora Vivarelli, CSI, IIDA, has been named president of the Puget Sound Chapter, Construction Specifications Institute. She is a specification specialist with Pacific Mat and Commercial Flooring in Kent, Wash. Active on many chapter levels, Vivarelli was also honored with the Albert E. Barnes award this year, a chapter honor conferred upon an industry member.

General contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis (Seattle) recently hired several new employees.

Susan Conn has joined the marketing department as marketing assistant. Conn has a strong background in communications and executive assistance.

Cindy Little is a project engineer in the Special Projects Division. She has been in construction for 18 years and recently finished an office remodel at the Washington Mutual headquarters.

Rhiannon Wolfe-Jones and Jessica Stone are accounting assistants in accounts payable. Wolfe-Jones has worked in accounting previously for Acadio and the Salvation Army. Stone holds an associates degree in accounting from Whatcom Community College.

Tiffani Mapalo is an accounting assistant in job cost and Roxanne Conover is an office assistant.

Two area college students recently were awarded scholarships by the Washington Chapter, American Planning Association. The association awards a scholarship to each of the two state universities who offer accredited planning programs.

Katherine Fosset, a first year undergraduate student at Eastern Washington University (Cheney, Wash.) in the Department of Urban Planning, Public and Health Administration; and Joshua Miller, a first year graduate student in the Department of Planning and Urban Design at the University of Washington (Seattle) each received a $2,500 scholarship.

Fossett has been an active participant in the department's student organization, Association of Student Planners, serving as secretary this year. She will assume the presidency of the ASP for 2003-04.

Miller, active in the UW Planning Students Association, served as faculty liaison this past year. He has also been involved in volunteer work related to environmental planning and restoration.