Presenting the 2025 BC&E Board Nominees ….
As we approach the new year, it’s time to vote on the 2025 Building Congress & Exchange leadership.
Ballots for the BC&E Board and Executive Committee will be sent out electronically later this month and must be returned by Oct. 22. The new board will be introduced at the Annual Meeting on Dec. 4.
The proposed 2025 Executive Committee is comprised of the following returning members: Ted Bowes of Excell Concrete Construction as President, Jeff Hossfeld of The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company as Vice President; Thomas Koch of Plano-Coudon Construction as Treasurer; Marianne Crampton of MK Consulting Engineers as Secretary, and John Gregg of GWWO Inc. Architects as Member at Large.
After years of valuable service, Jonathan Goetz of Oak Contracting, Fred Marino of Design Collective, and Doug McGinnis of Bunting Door and Hardware Co. will retire from the BC&E Board of Directors at the end of this year.
The returning Board members are: Schyler Bailey, Bowie & Jensen, LLC; Timothy Campbell, Clark Construction Group; Chris Eisenhart, Gray & Son; Rick Kottke, Harkins Builders; Greg Meyer, Wohlsen Construction; Mark Rich, Baltimore Fabrication; R. Nelson Oster, HMS Insurance Associates; and BC&E Past President Michael Martin, Live Green Landscape Associates.
Dennis Walsh of Floors Etc. is on the ballot again to return for a second, three-year term.
The board slate also includes two new people. We asked them to share a little about their work and their lives.
Emily Sales
Senior Associate, Architect
Design Collective
A class assignment in second grade sparked Emily Sales’ interest in architecture. As part of an enrichment program, she was challenged to design her dream home and lay it out in Planview.
“Because you only know what you know, I basically copied my grandparents’ house,” Sales said.
But soon, Sales began tagging along with her mother, a real estate agent, on home tours and appreciating the vast opportunities to design spaces differently.
She completed a BA in Architecture at Lehigh University, a Masters at University of Maryland, then immediately went to work for Design Collective. Since then, she has worked on a wide variety of projects — offices, event spaces, higher education buildings, student housing, multifamily housing and more.
“I am never pigeon-holed into one typology,” Sales said. “I love the variety. It keeps things fresh. But I still enjoy designing spaces where people live.”
What is the most unusual thing you have ever done on a project?
While I was working on a student housing project in Gainsville, Florida, my principal, Luis Bernardo, thought it would be best if we saw some precedents before we started designing, so he took me and our landscape architect on the project, Brian Reetz, to Miami. We snuck into a private and pretty famous housing development by pretending that we were scoping out a future home for my parents. We went there to admire the project, but we ended up being pretty critical of it.
What’s your favorite tool of the trade?
My favorite tool is consultants whether they are contract consultants, product reps, tech support or team members. It is amazing that we can reach out to each other, ask dumb questions and get great help that we need. Right now, I am working with glue-laminated beams and heavy timber structures for the first time, so our engineers are my current, go-to people.
What movie or television character do you currently love the most and why?
I have been indulging in Bridgerton. There is this one sassy girl named Eloise. She is cool, free spirited, doesn’t get involved in all the fuss the Victorian-era ladies are into. She rolls her eyes at those things. It is fun that they threw her no-nonsense character into all the pomp and circumstance.
Ricky Venters
Managing Director
Hartman Executive Advisors
One of Ricky Venters’ fond childhood memories is watching his parents bring their work home and spend evenings tinkering with circuit boards, medical devices and other pieces of technology. It stoked his love of problem-solving and convinced him to become an engineer.
Venters earned an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Manhattan College, completed executive education at The Johns Hopkins University – Carey Business School, and spent years managing construction projects and technology commercialization efforts at JHU.
“I have designed systems for every type of building, other than a stadium,” he said.
Venters who faced health challenges as a child, holds a special love for hospital projects, both because of the complex construction challenges they present and the tremendous benefits those facilities deliver.
What is the most unusual thing you have ever done on a project?
I was doing a project with one of my mentors that included a steam system for a hospital. He said, we have to get under the floor to get to the system. I figured there was a ladder or elevator to get us down to the basement. But no, it was a crawl space. I’m looking around, wondering what are we going to do. I turn back around and my mentor has already popped the grid off and he is crawling in the steam tunnel. We had to crawl on our bellies or backs so we could understand what was making the system work.
What’s your favorite tool of the trade?
I love enterprise resource planning (ERP) technologies. It is about the dashboards, KPIs, understanding the metrics of projects. I have been blessed to be able to see the industry through different lenses — engineering, construction, owner’s rep, and now, at Hartman, from the technology side. My role is working with the construction and real estate industries to help organizations utilize technology to become more efficient.
What movie or television character do you currently love the most and why?
There is a biography movie on Netflix called The Black Godfather about Clarence Avant. Most people don’t know about him. But if you talk to the most influential people in the entertainment industry, many of them have a story of how he is the person who got them where they are. The reason why that resonates with me is I strive to be that person that is a connector for people. I watched that documentary and I thought wow, this person speaks to the kind of person I want to be.