We’ll also take a look at a project near and dear to Dave: rebuilding the pump stations down the shore close to where he grew up and currently lives. Getting the region “back to normal” after Superstorm Sandy has been a priority for PS&S since the days immediately following the storm in 2012. Having a team in Wall who live and work in some of the hardest hit areas helps us succeed.

One of the valued employees that joined our Wall office in 2013 is Natalya Shimunova, an engineer who was born in the Soviet Union and came to the U.S. at the age of 20. Natalya has embraced PS&S’s culture of giving back to the community and is an active member of Engineers Without Borders. You can read more about Natalya’s unique story in this recently published Asbury Park Press profile.

The technical capabilities brought in by the team of professionals who have joined PS&S have allowed us to continue to pursue and win work and has afforded us ongoing growth. With this growth comes new career opportunities at all levels, not only in Wall, but throughout PS&S. For more about opportunities with PS&S, Jamie McDonald, VP of Human Resources, can be reached at jmcdonald@psands.com.

For more information, please contact John Sartor at jsartor@psands.com

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The New Jersey shore is getting ready for its third post-Sandy summer. We’ve all lived through the rebuilding and rehabilitation of the region, and we all know we’re not finished yet. But with the experts in the PS&S Wall Office guiding the way, one project is nearing completion: creating a long-term solution for handling non-tidal storm events and providing a drainage solution along the Route 35 corridor from milepost 0 to 12.5.

It’s an area that includes Island Beach State Park to the south and the towns of Mantoloking and Bay Head to the north, and it’s a project that began about two months after the Superstorm. In December of 2012, Applegate received a call to mobilize to develop a stormwater pump solution for Sandy-affected areas. The challenge was to rapidly conduct site visits with a design deadline of just two weeks. Going forward, project deadlines and reaction times were all placed on a rush, priority basis.

Based on the charge from the client to provide a long-term solution for handling non-tidal storm events, the design task at hand for the project team was to successfully design a stormwater system that:

1. Provided a drainage solution for the entire Route 35 corridor, milepost (MP) 0 to 12.5.
2. Handled a 25-year storm event.
3. Created a robust, watertight storm pipe system.
4. Separated oil from the collected waters prior to discharge.
5. Removed 50% of the total suspended solids (TSS) from the collected waters prior to discharge.
6. Allowed tidal flooding to occur without affecting electrical components of the pump stations.

This required a balance between the need to elevate motor control centers (MCCs) and instrumentation panels at least two (2) feet above, what was at the time, the advisory base flood elevation (ABFE), and aesthetics.

Utilizing PS&S’s diverse expertise in structural, regulatory and water resources, PS&S has transitioned from early design and conceptual work to today focusing on support of the construction activities.

Starting at the northern end, the team of PS&S professionals has worked to ensure that the hundreds of thousands of permanent and seasonal residents have a stormwater pumping system that is best-in-class with a targeted completion date for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. The resultant new stormwater pumping system achieved all of the goals laid out by the client, and also was designed to blend into the built environment of New Jersey’s shore: a win-win solution with a net environmental and engineering benefit.

For more information, please contact Dave Applegate at dapplegate@psands.com

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“Our goal was to establish a new Master Services Agreement (MSA) with them as quickly as possible,” Dave recalls. “We succeeded within months of starting at PS&S and quickly finished work on the first ever Design-Build project for New Jersey American Water in Egg Harbor. The elevated water storage tank project was completed last year.”

Dave has been working in the industry basically since the day he graduated from the Rutgers College of Engineering in 1985…with one exception.

“I accepted my first job offer knowing I had a big trip planned with three college buddies. It was actually part of the conversation during the interviews. So, one month after starting, I took off for Australia, where I spent a month hiking and meeting some of the nicest people I have ever met. That trip was exactly what I needed to clear my mind and prepare for my career.”

Working in the industry for 28 years, Dave successfully built a reputation of excellence with his clients. In 2013, after considering several opportunities, he found a new home at PS&S. “I was very careful in choosing my next firm and finding my next position. I was looking for a company that recognized the value of my technical expertise and had the capability of leveraging that into winning new work. PS&S is different, from the full-service approach of combining engineering and architecture to the people who work here, it’s the right environment.”

For his first 2 ½ months, Dave commuted from his Toms River home to the main office in Warren. In short time, PS&S established a swing space in Wall Township closer to home near the shore.

“We created a temporary space and even though it was small, people were smiling again since they were avoiding the long trip to Warren,” Dave remembers. “Now the team has grown from about 10 people in that temporary space to 35 employees in our Route 34 office. And we are always looking to add staff and diversify services in Wall.”

The group that came to PS&S in 2013 was the perfect complement to the company’s existing Utility Services practice. PS&S had been seen as an expert in the water resources field, and the new team immediately brought added expertise to an important shore-based project: designing large stormwater pump stations.

“With new federal regulations on the horizon regarding increased flood standards, we have to design around a 25-year storm to get FEMA funding when it involves state highways,” said Dave.

Dave lives in Toms River with his wife Catherine and daughters Molly, a sophomore at William & Mary, and Margit, a high school junior. When not at work, Dave spends about 10-20 hours a week as the President of Northern Ocean Habitat for Humanity, which has successfully re-built more than 40 homes since Superstorm Sandy. The organization also began its “A Brush with Kindness” program which helps homeowners who are struggling to restore and maintain a safe and decent place to live with the ultimate goal of keeping homeowners in their homes by embracing the mission of eliminating substandard housing.

Two years into his PS&S tenure, Dave knows it’s a good match. Not only did he bring his potable water experience to PS&S in 2013, he brought his philosophy of strong project management, where project managers are responsible and accountable for their work. He also adds a unique perspective to PS&S’s management team. Reflecting on his career, Dave adds, “Having been a part of both business successes and failures, I know what works well. And maybe, more importantly, I know how to avoid the pitfalls.”

For more information, please contact Dave Applegate at dapplegate@psands.com

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WarrenPro had been looking to expand its senior management team to bring on board industry experts that understand the analysis of insurance claims for the benefit of design professionals and insurance adjusters. We could not be in better shape than with these two professionals running the show at WarrenPro.

It is fitting to kick off 2015 with this newsletter that broadens our focus on our sister companies and partner businesses. As we mentioned last month, our companies are growing and expanding, and we think this is the perfect place to share their stories with our clients and employees.

For more information, please contact Anthony Sartor at asartor@psands.com, or John Sartor at jsartor@psands.com

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Built on 45 years of personal experience, WarrenPro’s team is broadly experienced but has a focused and intimate approach to client needs. WarrenPro also carries the exclusive support of more than 250 qualified in-house scientists, engineers and architects and other associates, each of which is specialized within their fields to provide the most in-depth and efficient solutions. Utilizing customized forensic techniques, we probe and analyze incidents objectively. Our job is to identify, educate, and solve.

We know what works, and it all begins with personal relationships – developing them, nurturing them and then following your contacts wherever they go, from company to company, creating new relationships along the way. This allows WarrenPro to be on the “tip of the tongue” of any potential client which will enable us to be successful in 2015 and beyond.

I am excited to be working with Renard Barnes as we look to make WarrenPro the go-to consultant for insurance experts. As you read the following employee spotlight, I think you’ll agree that this is no ordinary lawyer!

For more information, please contact Joe Lifrieri at jlifrieri@warrenproservices.com

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Let’s start at Syracuse University in the 1980’s where Renard was earning his degree in electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics. While tackling such challenging coursework, he decided to attempt the impossible: walking on to make the basketball team for one of the premier programs in the country. Renard succeeded in impressing Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim and joined Pearl Washington, Rony Seikaly and the rest of the squad in their quest for the 1985-86 national championship. “I knew I was a good player,” Renard recalls. “Now I was good enough to wear the Orange uniform.” Unfortunately, the team was upset by Navy in the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament, but not before Renard Barnes scored those four points in the opening round game against Brown, forever cementing his name in Syracuse lore.

From SU, Renard worked with several consultants and contractors as a Field Engineer on numerous utility and heavy/highway construction projects in the City of New York and Westchester County, NY. As a field engineer, his job was to make sure the lines and grades were laid out correctly, labor and equipment were in the right locations, and field measurements were recorded for the work performed. He did this while attending law school at Pace University where he earned his Juris Doctorate Degree in June of 1994.

It was while he was a consultant on a Con Ed steam rehabilitation project where one of Renard’s career highlights occurred. There was a dangerous situation at the intersection of 30th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. An old S-bend fitting developed a crack and needed replacing. Con Ed had many of its employees in the area, but asked Renard to figure out how to replace the damaged S-bend. “It was in a funky spot, but I figured it out,” Renard remembers.

About the time he was working in the streets of New York and in law school, Renard married Tiffani, now his wife of more than 20 years. They have 4 children: a 23-year old daughter living in Seattle, a 21-year old daughter who is an academic All-American and track star for the University of Alabama, an 18-year old daughter who is a freshman hurdler at the University of Cincinnati, and a son who is a basketball enthusiast and in the 8th grade.

After getting his law degree from Pace, Renard secured a job in the Construction Management and Law Departments of Con Ed. After working for Con Ed, Renard worked for 2 New York law firms doing construction litigation and then in 2002, he was hired as Assistant General Counsel for Schoor DePalma, until it closed its doors in 2010. Renard was then a Senior Litigation Attorney at the Law Offices of Joseph Carolan, a CNA staff counsel office, where he represented architects, engineers, consultants, and contractors in commercial litigation, personal injury, and property damage matters.

Renard’s 2nd memorable career moment came in the courtroom. “I won a defense verdict in a jury trial for a roofing contractor who was being blamed by a warehouse tenant for damages that occurred during a water leak from a major rain storm,” Renard said. “I convinced the jury the damage was due to faulty piping within the warehouse and the not the fault of my client, saving him hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential damages.”

Renard joined our company in March of 2014, and by his own account, is a natural fit to not only manage the risk for the PS&S entities but to assist in developing, managing, and growing Warren Pro. Based on his past successes, he is more than ready for the challenge.

For more information, please contact Renard Barnes at renard.barnes@ajssharedservices.com

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We couldn’t think of a better way to kick off our final newsletter of 2014 than with Marilyn Lennon’s perfect depiction of our company. Marilyn is one of seven newly promoted PS&S employees we will spotlight this month as we reflect on their (and the firm’s) accomplishments and recognize the changes and growth that will lead us into the future.

It’s no secret that our company is bigger and better than it has ever been. There are three key reasons – great clients, dedicated employees and a reputation for technical excellence. Over the past three years, PS&S has grown 40%, and we expect to grow another 12-15% by the end of 2015.

Clearly success leads to opportunity and expansion. Over the past few years we have added our Gas Engineering and Cultural Resources departments, expanded our Environmental Services group (which has doubled its headcount since 2009) and elevated our architecture and engineering capabilities, doing more vertical Design-Build projects. Our Design-Build service capability, now and in the years to come, provides a very efficient way of delivering services than just five years ago. This capability makes PS&S the one-stop shop clients count on for top to bottom excellence. We have also embraced our LSRP (Licensed Site Remediation Professional) practice, combining these professionals with our engineers to focus not just on remediation, but also redevelopment.

Such expansion allows for professional growth as well. By promoting such talented professionals as Bruce Hawkins, Patti Ruskan, Lisa DiGerolamo, Sanjay Patel, Ron Weston, Mary Acciani and Marilyn Lennon, we are not only rewarding them, but we are creating career opportunities for additional junior employees, and opening positions for new hires. In fact, we are looking to add professionals in all our offices.

We hope the “Q&A” with our employees gives you insight to the people who help run PS&S, and maybe even learn something new. We certainly enjoyed seeing the diversity of “favorite” projects and student advice these great colleagues discussed.

In future newsletters, in addition to updates and articles on PS&S, we will also be focusing on our sister companies and partner businesses. Our companies are growing and expanding, and we are well positioned to take advantage of our broadening expertise to continue serving our clients impeccably in 2015 and beyond.

For more information, please contact Anthony Sartor at asartor@psands.com, or John Sartor at jsartor@psands.com

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In the April Newsletter, we talked about our expansion into regional offices and we focused on the man who first advocated for PS&S to expand beyond its Warren headquarters. Executive Vice President Joe Fleming recognized the need to not only identify growth locations, but to put down roots as part of the local community. That idea led to the opening of the Long Island office, first in Melville, then to Garden City where it remains today.

Keith Samaroo was the first person hired to help start and build the New York offices. You’ll learn more about Keith in this month’s “Focus On,” but in his 13 years with the company, Keith and his team have made the Long Island office into a shining example of Joe Fleming’s dream of regional expansion.

The basic tenet behind our regional success is combining local presence with the full weight of our home office. We believe in organic growth employing local residents who live on Long Island, shop on Long Island and know the people they work with on our various projects. They are familiar with local practices and understand the myriad of local regulations and limitations. They are people who “get” Long Island, but who also have the full offerings of PS&S behind them.

This month, as we note the two year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, we want to show our appreciation for the opportunity to support the utilities that were devastated on Long Island. As we saw here at home in New Jersey, the resiliency shown by the people and businesses on Long Island was inspiring, and it was an honor to be part of the resurgence.

Moving forward, we continue to see tremendous growth opportunities on Long Island, both in Nassau County and further east in Suffolk. Frankly, we don’t see any competitors who can offer the services we do, from MEPF Engineering to Land Services to Environmental Remediation and everything in between. We look forward to living with and working with the residents of Long Island for many years to come.

For more information, please contact John Sartor at jsartor@psands.com

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The very companies that had been vital to the area’s economic and industrial prosperity had, over time, done tremendous damage to the area’s natural environment. But the city of Glen Cove had a dream. That dream was to take an abandoned and polluted waterfront and return it to the people of Glen Cove.

Now, six years after the Long Island office secured this project, PS&S continues to work with the project’s developers on this massive job, providing site/civil and surveying services for this redevelopment project. The financial crisis, a change in ownership and the approval process caused major delays, but now the owners and developers are aiming for a 2015 groundbreaking for a job that will take seven to ten years to complete.

“This is a very complex project,” said Patti Ruskan, the site’s project manager. Patti, who was recently promoted to company Principal and Civil Engineering Vice President, is deeply invested in the success of this project. “Incorporating the latest Smart Growth principles into the project design was crucial. The Best Management Practices applied to the design of this project include green roofs, landscaped open spaces, dry wells, infiltration basins and rain gardens. This design will meet all applicable regulatory requirements.” The PS&S project team is also working with the city of Glen Cove on the design of the adjacent and integrated Garvies Point Road Reconstruction Project, which includes significant infrastructure design and coordination in order to maintain services to the existing properties during construction while upgrading the infrastructure to accommodate the proposed redevelopment project.

“The idea is to have this beautiful village within a city,” said PS&S Principal Keith Samaroo. “It’s what many towns are striving for – a walkable downtown with something for everyone.” The waterfront property is proposed to be a mixed-use development including public-accessible open space, public parks, bicycle / pedestrian connectors, new intermodal transit connection, a luxury hotel with conference center, residential units, office space, cultural uses, retail space, restaurants, new marina slips and a new waterfront esplanade and boardwalk.

For more information, please contact Patti Ruskan at pruskan@psands.com

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“I was hired by Tony Sartor to start and build a New York office,” said Samaroo. “My background was in energy, but Tony hired me to create business and develop a presence on Long Island. We saw enormous opportunity for PS&S east of New Jersey capitalizing on my expertise and experience working with utilities.”

Looking back, Samaroo remembers the very first PS&S project on Long Island. It is not a fond memory.

“The initial project was a struggle from day one. It seemed whatever could go wrong, did. We made changes on the fly, brought in different people and eventually finished the project on time and to the client’s satisfaction.” The lessons learned have served the Garden City office well. “We realized the importance of building and maintaining relationships with both clients and city officials and those two strengths are still the cornerstones of this office. We are strong believers in PS&S’s culture of ‘us’. It’s never about one person – it’s about everyone supporting the execution and delivery of our services to provide the client with complete satisfaction. That philosophy was engrained in me by Joe Fleming, who was charged in the overall oversight for establishing the regional offices.”

Keith Samaroo was a natural fit to start the New York offices. He grew up in Yonkers, earned a degree in Physics from Fordham University, an Electrical Engineering Equivalent from Manhattan College, and his MBA from Long Island’s Dowling College. He currently lives in Huntington and likes nothing better than to spend the day on the beach with his two sons. Keith is a recipient of the Long Island Business News “40 Under 40” award, and he serves on the Board of Vision Long Island, an organization whose mission is to promote smart growth communities.

Keith and his New York based team have a long list of successful projects and several long-standing client relationships that have grown over the years. After the initial disappointment of the first project, the firm’s second project was a home run.

“The Touro Law School job put us on the map on Long Island,” said Samaroo. “We provided the structural engineering for a state of the art school that measured 170,000 square feet and was completed in 2006. The success of this project led not only to other projects with Touro, but referrals as well.”

Another big win for PS&S came earlier this year with the completion of the Great Neck sewerage plant upgrade. “We were involved from the very beginning when the North Hempstead town supervisor put together a team to value engineer the project.” Samaroo added, “We helped get the project’s costs in line and served more than two years on site as construction oversight.” The finished project was so successful it was awarded the prestigious Vision Long Island’s Smart Growth Award for Sustainability. “All of our departments were involved which was a really great example of how our New Jersey HQ works with the regional offices to complete a project.”

So the Bruce Springsteen vs. Billy Joel debate may go on forever. But, now, after 13+ years and many successful projects completed on Long Island, the Glory Days for PS&S are no longer just in New Jersey. Thanks to Keith Samaroo and his team, PS&S now has a New York State of Mind as well.

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That’s always been the case, whether it’s helping to beautify public spaces and landscapes that frame public structures, or realized through the valuable contributions so many of our professionals make to worthy community and charitable organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity or individual church groups.

The PS&S commitment to public service and public projects became an even more essential strategy after we reacquired the firm in 2009. At that time, we developed a business strategy that put greater emphasis on building a strong public sector presence, and making important contributions through community service. Currently, the split between our public and private business is roughly 50-50.

This month’s newsletter features two stories that examine different chapters in the PS&S public service story. The first is a retrospective look at the public service career of CEO Anthony Sartor, who announced his retirement from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey last spring, ending 22 years of public service. The second illustrates one of our emerging practices, the Landscape Architecture group, which indisputably has grown to become one of the most creative and productive design teams of its kind in New Jersey.

Our commitment to the communities and neighborhoods we serve will continue to grow as our firm continues to evolve.

For more information, please contact John Sartor at jsartor@psands.com

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The Landscape Architecture group has been a growing part of the PS&S service offering since 1985 – the year that New Jersey began certifying landscape architects. Today, the PS&S landscape architecture staff identifies and prepares design solutions that integrate site aesthetics, site infrastructure and overall architectural goals. An understanding of scale, texture, color, seasonal interest and the architectural goals of the building design complement and enhance building architecture.

Significant projects currently under way include landscape designs for several New Jersey pharmaceutical campuses, waterfront plazas and rooftop landscapes, with the firm involved as both prime landscape architect and project designer.

Over the years, clients have increasingly come to view PS&S landscape architects as frontline providers of well-designed, fully developed projects, and not simply as “support designers,” as they once were. Working together with the civil engineering group has brought an understanding of each group’s strengths and allowed a better PS&S team approach.

“Having developed our landscape architectural group in this environment provides an understanding of other disciplines,” said project designer Adam Bowles. “It has minimized conflicts which are often created when separate designers develop their pieces of the project without being cognizant of the needs of other disciplines.”

For more information on the PS&S Landscape Architecture group, please contact:

Craig Cartmell at ccartmell@psands.com
Brian Meneghin at bmeneghin@psands.com
Adam Bowles at abowles@psands.com

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As a commissioner with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey since 1999, and as chairman of the Port’s World Trade Center Redevelopment Subcommittee, Sartor was instrumental in a monumental rebuilding project designed to fill an enormous physical and psychological void.

“It was one of the most difficult, challenging and ultimately satisfying projects I could ever have envisioned,” he said. The committee’s work on the project was a catalyst for the recovery of Lower Manhattan and across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

“Participating in the leadership of the Trade Center project has allowed me to be a part of something important to the national interest,” he said. “It’s given me a sense of immense personal pride, and a chance to help us overcome the sadness and devastation of that awful time.”

Prior to his appointment to the Port Authority board, Sartor served with New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority (NJSEA), where he chaired the Construction Committee. Among other major projects, his committee had oversight of the development of the $300-million Convention Center in Atlantic City, new luxury suites at Giants Stadium and athletic facilities at Rutgers University.

First named to the Port Authority board in 1999, Sartor was appointed to full six-year terms in 2001 and 2007. His last term was scheduled to conclude in June 2013, but he was asked to stay on indefinitely -- a decision that extended his service well past his planned retirement date.

“For me, giving back was never an obligation. It’s always been a privilege,” Sartor said.

For Sartor, his work at the Port Authority in general and rebuilding the World Trade Center in particular was a labor of love. He put in countless hours on his stewardship of Port projects in the region, in addition to serving as chief executive of PS&S.

“It’s a very time-consuming process, if you get involved with the agency as extensively as I did,” he said. “In the busy days, I was spending 30-40 hours a week at my non-paying job, and 30-40 hours a week at my paying job. It’s a challenging experience.”

A source of pride for the firm is not only Sartor’s long and valued contribution to regional public service, but the importance so many PS&S professionals assign to service to their own communities and favored charitable organizations.

“As a company, the employees of PS&S give freely of their time, whether it’s working with local fire departments or emergency services, walking for various causes or working with Habitat for Humanity,” Sartor said, “Making other people’s lives better, that’s our philosophy and always has been.”

His contributions to community and public service also were recognized In November 2013 when Sartor was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, marking his support of the university, its students and the community it serves.

Despite his retirement from the Port board, Sartor remains active in serving outside public and community interests. He continues to be involved with Gilda’s Club, named for the late comedian Gilda Radner and committed to fighting cancer. Recently, he became a trustee of John Cabot University in Rome.

In retirement from the Board, he plans to spend more time with his family – and to continue to helm the engineering and architecture firm bearing his name for nearly a half-century.

For additional information, contact Anthony Sartor at asartor@psands.com

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Scheduled to open in 2015, Hudson County’s first public course will offer 9 regulation holes totaling 3200 yards on 65 acres of land in Lincoln Park West in Jersey City that were once considered unusable landfill. PS&S has been working with long-standing client The Hudson County Improvement Authority (HCIA) and golf course designer Roy Case to create the course, using an ecologically and environmentally friendly design. PS&S Senior Vice President Mike Cohen is in charge of overseeing the project.

The task of completing the course went to Clark-based Construction Company D’Annunzio & Sons and its subcontractor, golf course developer Turco Golf. “This is truly a group effort”, said HCIA’s CEO Norman Guerra. The entire project is the inspiration of long-time Hudson County Executive and avid golfer Tom DeGise who can’t wait to hit the links. DeGise added “combining the talents of these companies will bring a ‘slice’ of golf paradise to Jersey City.” Let the golf puns begin.

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The 1970s focused primarily on energy generation, dictated by growing business and personal usage demands. Federal legislation calling for cleaner water and air standards created new regulatory challenges, and opportunities, for the major utilities – many of them, to this day, our valued clients. As consumption and demand increased through the 1980s, the emphasis began to shift to transmission. How to distribute energy efficiently and inexpensively became an important strategic and practical consideration, for the industry and for PS&S.

By the 1990s, remediation had become a rising business concern, for the firm and our energy clients. The utilities infrastructure increasingly was in need of repair and retooling, a result of the aging and deterioration of many electrical substations built in the 1940s and ‘50s.

Since the turn of the century, our focus on energy utilities has continued to evolve. Not only is PS&S working diligently with clients to solve conventional generation, transmission and environmental challenges, we’re increasingly active in the alternative and renewable energy space.

Some of our most innovative projects and plans, such as our Building Information Modeling program, are directed toward drafting state-of-the-art power generation and distribution models. The regulatory and implementation landscape has become more complex, and we’ve responded accordingly. It takes a firm such as PS&S, unmatched in the breadth of engineering and architectural services provided, to keep clients current on regulations, permitting needs and design specifications.

Our August newsletter looks at some of the people, projects and plans that distinguish PS&S in the delivery of energy utility services.

The Focus On feature profiles Senior Vice President L. Miguel Salinas, chairman of our Energy Utility group, and some of the important projects and clients he and his team are overseeing. Our Energy Utility practice has grown in interesting and creative ways over the past five years, and Miguel has been the steady hand on the wheel. In addition, we’re spotlighting Walt Judge, whose work on energy projects has produced an impressive string of client successes and established him as an industry leader.

For more information, please contact Anthony Sartor at asartor@psands.com, or John Sartor at jsartor@psands.com

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Pressures on public utilities to meet energy crises, evolving infrastructure needs and volatile market demands are pushing engineering firms to draft innovative solutions to complex operational challenges -- and PS&S is uniquely suited to provide that breadth and depth of technical and professional assistance.

L. Miguel Salinas, PS&S’s Senior Vice President who chairs the Energy Utility group, noted that the firm itself has evolved in response to powerful market-changing events. In New Jersey and New York, he said, “we’ve always been leaders, at the forefront of understanding and creating solutions for complying with new regulatory programs.”

Four years ago, Salinas said, PS&S developed an Infrastructure Group as one of its main business and marketing components, covering all energy utilities and public sector clients. In 2013, driven by customer needs and client growth, the firm broke the group into two separate lines of businesses – the Public Sector market and the Energy Utility market.

Salinas, who joined the firm in 2007, took the administrative reins of the Energy Utility group and also leads its go-to-market efforts. His professional background features broad experience with the energy utilities in all aspects of planning, engineering and environmental services. He is a licensed site remediation professional (LSRP) in New Jersey and certified professional soil scientist (CPSS) nationally.

“Working with utilities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York has been a big part of my career,” Salinas said. “Helping clients understand and navigate the regulations has always played a big role in what we do.”

“Regulatory programs have and will continue to evolve,” he said. “Recently, one of our clients told me that the ‘value add’ we bring to the table is not only understanding what the regulation means, but more importantly the unwritten knowledge of how to comply most effectively and efficiently -- without having to spend tremendous time and effort going back and forth with agencies.”

Over the past few years, he added, “we’ve seen radical changes with regulations, technical advances and current thinking.”

Many of those changes are the result of increasing demand for energy in the most densely populated area of the country; the impact of recent severe storms in the aftermath of Katrina; the effect of harsh winters; aging infrastructure, and newly available natural gas resources in the region.

“The weather and storm-related impacts have changed the way we look at flood prevention and protection, flood analysis and all the science behind it,” Salinas said. “That has stepped up the past 10 years or so, and I continue to see that happening.”

PS&S works closely with the major utility companies -- including PSE&G, First Energy/JCP&L, AGL/Elizabethtown Gas, UGI, Orange and Rockland/Con Ed, National Grid and Atlantic City Electric -- to develop new, creative and productive solutions. Recently, Salinas said, the firm has been doing extensive work with PSE&G Long Island, since the utility’s takeover of the Long Island Power Authority infrastructure.

That continues the firm’s solid track record on Long Island, built from its office base in Garden City. Besides its breadth of engineering and architectural talent and services, the firm’s presence in key markets through its development of regional offices is another plus.

“Having our regional offices makes a big difference,” Salinas said. “A lot of the big utilities have regional services that one or more of our offices falls within. That advantage helps us become a local presence, as well as having all of the other technical expertise of the company.”

For additional information, please contact L. Miguel Salinas at lsalinas@psands.com

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Judge is project manager for many of PS&S’s biggest energy utility clients, including PSE&G and First Energy/JCP&L. He also manages the firm’s efforts for Atlantic City Electric, a subsidiary of Pepco Holdings, Inc. In this role, Judge oversees a wide range of permitting, engineering and architecture projects incorporating nearly all of the firm’s well-respected disciplines.

Through the years, PS&S services to energy utilities have been heavily focused on environmental licensing and permitting. As energy utilities expand existing substations to improve reliability, Judge has worked to introduce clients to other PS&S services, including geotechnical investigation, civil/site design, architectural design, landscape design, sound/noise evaluations and cultural resource management studies.

A licensed engineer who recently obtained certification as a Project Management Professional (PMP), Judge embodies the broad skillsets and versatility of PS&S’s best.

The extent of engineering and architectural experience at PS&S is a significant plus in providing full client service. “We’re a firm that doesn’t need to retain sub-consultants in order to provide a complete proposal or negotiate a fee,” he said. “The person down the hall can do it. In terms of project coordination, the efficiency PS&S brings translates to savings in cost and schedule. The clients appreciate having one point of contact.”

“We like to think of PS&S as having an ‘all under one roof’ approach, and it’s true,” he says.

One particularly creative project that has tapped into that breadth of engineering and architectural experience involves the expansion of an aging electrical substation situated in the midst of a high-end South Jersey Shore residential neighborhood. Community outreach and ultimate buy-in was critical to project success, Judge said. PS&S’s challenge was to enclose the substation equipment in a structure that would resemble a contemporary single-family seashore residence.

Using the firm’s Building Information Modeling platform, the client was able to visualize the structure in 3D and provide design input at each step along the way. PS&S then turned the 3D model into renderings and an animation for presentation to municipal officials and neighbors.

“Our use of animation was a first for this client and the Architecture Department hit a homerun on this one,” Judge said. The project also demonstrates PS&S environmental/land use permitting, civil/site design, landscape design and sound study skills. The project won municipal site plan approval and is expected to be online in 2016.

Judge received his undergraduate degree from the University of Hartford in Civil Engineering and a Master’s from Stevens Institute of Technology in Environmental Engineering. He lives in Spring Lake, N.J. and is a familiar face to clients at both the firm’s Warren Township headquarters and the Wall Township office.

For more information, please contact Walt Judge at wjudge@psands.com

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Our firm has been instrumental in designing and engineering some of the most appealing parks and recreation facilities throughout the region. These projects are the product of the seamless integration of our Building and Land groups in environmental reconnaissance and permitting, land survey and geotechnical mapping, landscape design and civil engineering, as well as structural and utility engineering.

We bring a multi-disciplined approach to all of these efforts. As a result, PS&S has become synonymous with the creation of attractive public structures, spaces and parks.

This issue of our newsletter highlights some of the parks and recreation projects that have distinguished the firm over the years. First, we profile Executive Vice President Todd Heacock, the subject of our ‘Focus On’ feature. Todd is a veteran of PS&S with more than 30 years with the firm. He heads the Building Group, and his story recalls some of the memorable projects that have defined his career.

Our Case in Point revolves around a sustained record of excellence in designing and developing a long list of projects as part of the ongoing Hudson River Waterfront Redevelopment, from Jersey City to just south of the George Washington Bridge.

We’ve welcomed the opportunity to take old, blighted public structures and spaces and convert them to something vital to the community. It’s one of our most important service offerings, and a source of pride and commitment for our team of dedicated engineers and architects.

For more information, please contact Anthony Sartor at asartor@psands.com, or John Sartor at jsartor@psands.com

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“For the engineers and architects working on these kinds of projects, there is a kind of personal connection and a sense of satisfaction,” Heacock said.

One area that’s benefitted from sustained high-quality engineering and restorative work is the Hudson River Waterfront Redevelopment project. In addition to that redevelopment effort, the firm has been instrumental in rehabilitating other decrepit structures and facilities along the riverfront. In Hoboken, the PS&S team helped transform two neglected landmarks – Pier A and Pier C, north of the waterfront PATH station – into visually appealing recreational centers for the community.

Heacock said the redesign of Pier C, in particular, incorporated an innovative approach. It called for transforming a structure that had always jutted from land directly into the Hudson River into a facility that would now stand parallel to the coast. As a result, it made the permitting process more complicated, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers initially expressed concerns about a structural change of such significance.

While the new facility would be more user-friendly, there were questions about how to preserve and maintain environmental safeguards. PS&S worked closely with the Army Corps to devise plans meeting all environmental and structural needs and lead to a new recreational asset that would be more attractive to tourists and the community.

“Ultimately, the Army Corps was happy, the client (City of Hoboken) was happy, and the public was happy,” he said. “We made it more functional, provided increased recreational value and preserved that beautiful view of Manhattan.”

Heacock has been involved in important public engineering projects since joining PS&S in 1983. A native of Bricktown, N.J. Heacock attended Rutgers University, where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, and then earned a Master’s degree in Structural Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston.

One of his first big projects after joining the firm was also one of the biggest construction projects under way at the time on the East Coast: the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. Heacock spent nearly four years as a member of the engineering team.

That professional assignment also involved rebuilding the city’s famous Steel Pier, which had fallen into disrepair. PS&S was hired to restore the pier as part of the Taj Mahal contract, and designed a replacement pier built of concrete that pushed about 1,000 feet into the Atlantic. It faced a series of structural challenges, including working around strong waves and water pressure.

“You don’t get to design very many ocean piers these days,” Heacock said. “That was a tremendous structural and geotechnical effort, a lot of coordinated effort.”

For more information on PS&S Building Group projects, contact Todd Heacock at theacock@psands.com

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Through their work in developing attractive and user-friendly public walkways, parks, marinas and other facilities – from Jersey City north to the George Washington Bridge – PS&S engineers have made an invaluable contribution to some of the state’s most important development projects.

“When you walk along the waterfront today and see how it’s changed, it’s gratifying to know that we were a part of it,” said Patricia A. Ruskan, a PS&S associate principal involved in many of the key riverfront redevelopment projects.

PS&S has been a part of the rehabilitative process since the early 1980s, when builder Arthur Imperatore spearheaded a campaign to transform the waterfront. The firm’s role in providing essential civil engineering, environmental permitting and architectural services has been extensive, concentrating among other projects on Port Imperial North and South, the development of Weehawken Park, the Port Imperial Marina and a number of private residential facilities.

Among the most prominent and important elements of the redevelopment was the Port Imperial Intermodal Ferry Terminal in Weehawken. The project posed considerable engineering and environmental challenges. Built on a 10-acre brownfields site on Port Imperial North, PS&S engineers were faced with a high level of soil contaminants. Firm services included utility design, grading and storm water management design and a visual impact analysis to ensure views from the top of the adjoining Palisades were not impeded.

Weehawken Park was another spotlight project for the PS&S team. The site had been contaminated over time by chromate waste. Today, due in large part to the expertise of the firm’s engineering and design teams, it is a sprawling sports and recreation facility, featuring baseball and football fields, tennis courts, a multi-purpose rink, swimming pool and a boat launch for kayaking. The sports facilities are balanced by well-designed areas of passive recreation.

Besides other public works projects in Weehawken, the firm has made an impact in the Hudson County communities of Guttenberg and West New York, focusing on the creation of new walkways, pedestrian bridges and park development.

Although the PS&S imprint is visible on so many different waterfront projects, Bruce Hawkins, head of the firm’s Civil Engineering department, said the team never had the time or the inclination to rely on past successes.

“You try to make sure you understand the client’s needs and bring a high level of skill and focus to each individual project,” he said.

For more information on Hudson River Waterfront Redevelopment, contact Bruce Hawkins at bhawkins@psands.com or Patricia Ruskan at pruskan@psands.com.

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Our commitment to top-flight design and providing technical and engineering expertise in the construction of college dormitories, classroom facilities, elementary and high schools, among other structures, continues to be a priority. It has established us as an industry leader.

As the design-build approach to school development and construction has evolved over the past several years, PS&S has been presented with many challenges, and opportunities. We’ve seized those opportunities. PS&S has contributed major design and engineering work to facilities at Montclair State University, Penn State University, Ramapo College and the State University of New York, Albany at the higher education level.

Our firm also is responsible for some of the highest-functioning and architecturally distinctive elementary, middle and high school structures across New Jersey, New York City and New York State.

Designing and building higher education facilities, in particular, have often involved unique challenges.

In the case of the new 2,000-bed dormitory located on the campus of Montclair State University, our team had to map a site plan for property sitting almost entirely on rock and that rested on a steep and difficult to develop incline.

The dormitory project at Ramapo required us to negotiate sensitive wetlands and meet strict building requirements. There were limited opportunities for the siting of the project. But the end result was a project that has earned the firm numerous awards for design and functionality. And we recently achieved LEED Gold certification for our 500-bed dormitory project at SUNY-Albany.

This month’s newsletter explores the progress we’ve made in our Education Market group and focuses on key projects. The Focus On feature examines design-build and the successes of PS&S’s Education Market group, under the direction of Mary Acciani. Our Case in Point details the efforts that went into the first of those projects, the much-anticipated A. Chester Redshaw Elementary School in New Brunswick.

For more information, please contact Anthony Sartor at asartor@psands.com, or John Sartor at jsartor@psands.com

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PS&S Vice President Mary Acciani, PE, CEM, GBE, directs the firm’s Education Market group. By changing the model to enable public entities to work directly with contractors who bring their partner engineers and architects into the picture from the beginning, the timing and delivery of public school and university projects has improved.

For example, under the old model, construction of the 2,000-bed dormitory and 600-seat cafeteria on the campus of Montclair State University, designed by PS&S as part of a design-build team, could have taken about five years to finish. With design-build, the timing was cut to 20 months, Acciani said.

In New Jersey, the Schools Development Authority builds public K-12 schools and is now using a design-build model. It lets bids, contracts with builders and monitors project progress and budget. SDA RFQ’s are very specific in terms of the school architectural layout, MEP systems and material and equipment specifications.

These are more specific than previous guidelines used under the design-bid-build model. Acciani said contractors, architects and engineers must select materials, manufacturers and equipment from an approved SDA list of specifications. Overall, however, design-build has streamlined the building cycle.

“It was more a question of refining some of the mandated requirements than anything else,” she said of the transition between designing K-12 schools for the NJSDA under the old model, and designing them now under design-build.

PS&S is currently working with the NJSDA on four design-build projects. They include the A. Chester Redshaw Elementary School in New Brunswick, the Elliott Street School in Newark, the Caruso School in Keansburg and Paterson’s P.S. 16. The Redshaw School is nearing completion, while construction on the Elliott Street School is ongoing. Design plans are currently underway for Caruso and P.S. 16. Additionally, the firm has contracted with the New York City School Construction Authority to design P.S. 317 in the Bronx. That project is design-bid-build and is currently out for bid.

Challenges in the education sector are unique. Timing of project completion is especially critical; delivery of a project has to be made on time or a school year could be lost. “If you miss an August deadline, you are typically out of it for a year,” Acciani said.

Acciani, a Ewing resident, leads a team of about 30 people in the MEP engineering group and works closely with architectural design and management, structural and geotechnical engineering, as well as civil and environmental engineering. She also heads the Go-to-Market Committee for the Education group. Prior to joining PS&S in 2009, she was Director of Planning and Construction at Rowan University. The PS&S connection was forged during the firm’s work on the development of Rowan’s co-generation facility.

“I was impressed with the work they did on that project,” Acciani. She welcomed the opportunity to shift from public to private sector, help build an Education team and mentor young engineers and architects. The firm’s expertise in both architecture and full service engineering, she said, gives it a decided advantage in winning design-build contracts.

“We’re able to work so effectively together because we’re all here in the same location and we work hard to avoid the siloed approach of many other firms,” she said.

For more information, please contact Mary Acciani at macciani@psands.com

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“This was the first project out of the gate for the NJSDA design-build program in New Jersey,” said PS&S Vice President Mary Acciani, PE, CEM, GBE, who directs the firm’s Education Market group.

The NJSDA selected Hall Construction Company, Inc. as the design-builder of the facility, a pre-kindergarten through 5th grade school. PS&S partnered again with Hall Construction to win the new public school project. As lead A/E, the firm performed full architectural design, MEP and structural engineering services in bringing the much-anticipated school facility to completion.

The old Redshaw School had been demolished in 2006, with the promise of a more modern replacement that better met the needs of the district and its students. But a state moratorium on new school construction caused by funding shortages led to a protracted schedule of delays. In the interim, students had to attend classrooms located in trailers, makeshift schools without playgrounds.

Redshaw was the first of 10 school construction projects funded by the NJSDA in 2011 once funding was available, and ground broke on the new school in early 2013. The new school is scheduled to open this fall.

Ron Weston, Senior Director-Architecture who spearheaded the project for the firm, noted that because of their successful development formula, Hall Construction and PS&S were awarded four of the first six design-build contracts, including Redshaw, that were issued by the NJSDA.

The facility is a two-story, 135,000-square-foot structure designed for 900 students, a community school that will include 46 classrooms, 12 additional classrooms for special education, basic skills and small group instruction, a cafeteria, a multi-purpose room with stage, gymnasium, media center, art room and a music room.

Because of new guidelines PS&S had to follow under the mandates of design-build, Acciani said the firm faced unique and challenging hurdles. “We had a huge learning curve on Redshaw,” she said. “And there was a learning curve on their (the state’s) part, too. It was more a question of refining the relationship and the work schedule than anything else.”

“We look at it as a strong partnership with Hall Construction and the NJSDA,” she said.

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