Dive Short:
- AECOM has employed two executives with decades of infrastructure-related knowledge to enable guide its New York Town-based group: Tom Prendergast, former chairman and CEO of the New York area Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Denise Berger, former chief of functions of the Engineering Division of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
- Prendergast has been named head of transit in just AECOM’s Style and design and Consulting Expert services Americas (DCSA) and Berger joins as senior vice president and COO of AECOM’s Northeast Location, which contains the metropolitan New York Town area. The two leaders have currently assumed their new roles, according to a push statement.
- The hires come at a crucial moment for the long term of transportation and transit for the New York Town area, claimed Steve Morriss, DCSA president at AECOM, who observed that Congress will soon take into consideration proposals to reauthorize and expand the national Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (Rapid) Act and other infrastructure-related laws.
Dive Perception:
The acquisition of two such significant-profile and seasoned infrastructure gurus will situation AECOM to tap into significant projects coming on the internet soon in the Large Apple. In January, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo presented his fiscal 12 months 2021 price range, which provides condition expenditure in transportation infrastructure and other condition-funded construction projects to $275 billion, the premier such plan in U.S. record.
The 2021 price range will enable help New York Town projects like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $51.five billion cash plan, the $11 billion Gateway Tunnel substitution venture connecting New York and New Jersey and the $thirteen billion John F. Kennedy Global Airport modernization method.
Prendergast, who will be focused on AECOM’s transit industry across the Americas, spent most of his career in

Tom Prendergast
Authorization granted by AECOM
senior management roles with the MTA, the premier agency of its variety in the place, serving above eight.five million day by day end users. Identified as “a single of the most potent folks in New York Town” by the New York Periods in 2017, he oversaw the region’s sprawling transit network with an “unassuming design and style that introduced praise from elected officials and transit advocates.”
Berger will be focused on AECOM’s Northeast Location, with a key emphasis on the growth and execution of projects for New York Metro shoppers. According to LinkedIn, she has spent her 32-12 months-lengthy career at the Port Authority, with the final two as chief of functions for the authority’s Engineering Division, which is comprised of additional than 550 architects and engineers and has a $1.3 billion annual price range. Berger has led several significant-scale cash projects for aviation, ports, tunnels, bridges, and terminals, Port Authority Trans-Hudson (Route) and the Globe Trade Center.

Denise Berger
Authorization granted by AECOM
Berger was named an American Institute of Architects fellow in 2018 for her contributions in the growth of civic improvements and governmental projects. “Her revolutionary guidelines and packages generated groundbreaking results, elevating the stature of architecture in the public realm,” according to AIA New York.
AECOM is not the only large contracting agency that has set its sights on New York transit and transportation projects. Bechtel, the country’s premier engineering and construction enterprise by profits, a short while ago opened an workplace in Manhattan to choose benefit of the infrastructure venture demand from customers there.
In a statement, Chairman and CEO Brendan Bechtel claimed the enterprise is looking to husband or wife with the town in its target of “enhancing transportation, expanding electronic know-how and insuring obtain to secure, responsible infrastructure.”