The Virginia- and Kentucky-based AE firm Mason & Hanger has promoted Benjamin A. Lilly, PE, a 23-year company veteran, to the position of President.
Lilly, 46, replaces Mike Matthews, whom the company named President in July 2016 after it had acquired the AE firm Hankins & Anderson, which Matthews had helmed for 18 years.
Prior to assuming his new role, Lilly was Mason & Hanger’s Vice President of International Federal Programs. He has traveled to over 31 countries, and has managed AE services for international construction projects with a combined value of more than $4 billion.
Mason & Hanger is a Day & Zimmermann company whose origins date back to 1827. It is one of the industry’s oldest architectural and engineering services firms, and has worked on projects in 48 U.S. states and 163 countries.
Currently, international work represents a bit more than half of Mason & Hanger’s total portfolio. But Lilly tells BD+C that the firm will continue to invest “in all of our services and consider them to be equally essential” to the company’s growth and mission.
The firm has three offices spanning Lexington, Ky., and two in Virginia (Glen Allen and Hampton Roads), supporting both domestic and international projects with equal importance to the U.S. government.
As a federally focused firm whose primary clients are the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, Mason & Hanger will continue to invest in such growth sectors of energy, sustainability, and security design services, says Lilly. Its strategic focus includes adding other government agencies “where we believe we can provide unique value.”
Mason & Hanger will continue to focus on expanding its business with federal agencies. Image: Mason & Hanger
To achieve its objectives, Mason & Hanger will need to find qualified and capable people to support its work in complex environments and various geographies. “This is a good challenge to have and one I am most excited about,” says Lilly.
He is not averse to expansion via acquisition, either. After acquiring Hankins & Anderson last year, he says “we are always open to the right new growth opportunities that fit within our overall strategy.”
A graduate of Virginia Military Institute, Lilly is past president of the Virginia Chapter of the American Council of Engineering Companies, which in 2015 bestowed on Mason & Hanger its Virginia Engineering Excellence Grand Award for design of the Innovation Center in Helsinki, Finland. The previous year, Mason & Hanger received ACEC’s Virginia Engineering Excellence Pinnacle Award for design of the U.S. embassy in Monrovia, Liberia.
In his spare time, Lilly is an avid golfer and, as an Eagle Scout, has been an active leader with the Boy Scouts of America.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Luxury Hotel required faceted design
Goettsch Partners, Chicago, designed a new five-star, 214-room hotel for the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The design-build project, with Saudi Oger Ltd. as contractor and Rayadah Investment Co. as developer, has a three-story podium supporting a 17-story glass tower with a nine-story opening that allows light to penetrate the mass of the building.
| Aug 11, 2010
Three Schools checking into L.A.'s Ambassador Hotel site
Pasadena-based Gonzalez Goodale Architects is designing three new schools for Los Angeles Unified School District's Central Wilshire District. The $400 million campus, located on the site of the former Ambassador Hotel, will house a K-5 elementary school, a middle school, a high school, a shared recreation facility (including soccer field, 25-meter swimming pool, two gymnasiums), and a new publ...
| Aug 11, 2010
New Jersey's high-tech landscaping facility
Designed to enhance the use of science and technology in Bergen County Special Services' landscaping programs, the new single-story facility at the technical school's Paramus campus will have 7,950 sf of classroom space, a 1,000-sf greenhouse (able to replicate different environments, such as rainforest, desert, forest, and tundra), and 5,000 sf of outside landscaping and gardening space.
| Aug 11, 2010
U.S. firm designing massive Taiwan project
MulvannyG2 Architecture is designing one of Taipei, Taiwan's largest urban redevelopment projects. The Bellevue, Wash., firm is working with developer The Global Team Group to create Aquapearl, a mixed-use complex that's part of the Taipei government's "Good Looking Taipei 2010" initiative to spur redevelopment of the city's Songjian District.
| Aug 11, 2010
Florida mixed-use complex includes retail, residential
The $325 million Atlantic Plaza II lifestyle center will be built on 8.5 acres in Delray Beach, Fla. Designed by Vander Ploeg & Associates, Boca Raton, the complex will include six buildings ranging from three to five stories and have 182,000 sf of restaurant and retail space. An additional 106,000 sf of Class A office space and a residential component including 197 apartments, townhouses, ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Restoration gives new life to New Formalism icon
The $30 million upgrade, restoration, and expansion of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles was completed by the team of Rios Clementi Hale Studios (architect), Harley Ellis Devereaux (executive architect/MEP), KPFF (structural engineer), and Taisei Construction (GC). Work on the Welton Becket-designed 1967 complex included an overhaul of the auditorium, lighting, and acoustics.
| Aug 11, 2010
Best AEC Firms to Work For
2006 FreemanWhite Hnedak Bobo Group McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. Shawmut Design and Construction Walter P Moore 2007 Anshen+Allen Arup Bovis Lend Lease Cannon Design Jones Lang LaSalle Perkins+Will SmithGroup SSOE, Inc. Timothy Haahs & Associates, Inc. 2008 Gilbane Building Co. HDR KJWW Engineering Consultants Lord, Aeck & Sargent Mark G.
| Aug 11, 2010
High-Performance Workplaces
Building Teams around the world are finding that the workplace is changing radically, leading owners and tenants to reinvent corporate office buildings to compete more effectively on a global scale. The good news is that this means more renovation and reconstruction work at a time when new construction has stalled to a dribble.
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Business Management
22. Commercial Properties Repositioned for University USE Tocci Building Companies is finding success in repositioning commercial properties for university use, and it expects the trend to continue. The firm's Capital Cove project in Providence, R.I., for instance, was originally designed by Elkus Manfredi (with design continued by HDS Architects) to be a mixed-use complex with private, market-...
| Aug 11, 2010
Nurturing the Community
The best seat in the house at the new Seahawks Stadium in Seattle isn't on the 50-yard line. It's in the southeast corner, at the very top of the upper bowl. "From there you have a corner-to-corner view of the field and an inspiring grasp of the surrounding city," says Kelly Kerns, project leader with architect/engineer Ellerbe Becket, Kansas City, Mo.
