Lisa Ballerini
President
Montana Construction
Ballerini leads Montana Construction, a family-owned heavy construction company in Lodi. Despite its name, it has nothing to do with Montana. The firm handles sewer, water, bridge and emergency work for municipalities, utility authorities and private clients across the tri-state area. It has its own fleet of heavy equipment and has responded to emergencies throughout New Jersey. The Leading Women Entrepreneurs initiative named her one of New Jersey’s Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs.
Joseph Belott
CEO
Roman E&G Corp.
Belott’s Newark company puts in the underground gas, electric, water and sewer lines that keep the region running. Roman E&G has worked on PSE&G’s Energy Strong program and is a prime contractor on Newark’s Lead Service Line Replacement Program, which is replacing the city’s lead water lines with copper. The company says it is one of the few utility contractors that can work over electrified manholes. It is a veteran-owned small business, and Belott brings more than 45 years of experience in utility construction.
Lisa Chowansky
President
HC Constructors
Chowansky leads HC Constructors, a heavy civil contractor whose executive team has been in the business since 1985. She has made helping young and diverse businesses part of its mission. “There are companies out there that are growing and need an opportunity to grow — regardless of who they’re growing under,” she told BINJE last year. She is 1st Vice Chair of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce and serves on the boards of the New Jersey chapter of Professional Women in Construction and the Supplier Diversity Development Council.
Bernie Corrigan
President
IBEW Local 102
Corrigan leads IBEW Local 102, which marked its 125th anniversary last year. The Parsippany-based local has about 3,000 electricians in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They work for utilities, hospitals and refineries and on highways and bridges across the state. The local trains its workforce at its Parsippany center, offers a five-year apprenticeship to journeyman status and partners with Rowan University. Corrigan has been President since 2009, and in 2024 he was elected to the board of trustees of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association.
Gary Dahms
Chair, CEO
T&M Associates
T&M Associates turned 60 this year. Under Dahms, the Middletown engineering firm has grown to more than 375 professionals working in water, environmental, transportation, community development and buildings. It is still employee-owned, and Dahms has said he has no interest in selling to private equity. About two-thirds of its work is for public clients, including PFAS treatment and Phase One of Middlesex County’s strategic investment plan. Dahms joined T&M as a staff engineer in 1986 and has led it since 2012.
Martin Downs
President
J. Fletcher Creamer & Son
Downs leads one of the region’s oldest specialty contractors. J. Fletcher Creamer & Son, founded almost a century ago, was one of the original contractors on the George Washington Bridge. Today, the Hackensack company has about 1,200 employees and has worked on hundreds of transportation and municipal infrastructure projects across the country. It has been part of APi Group since 2016 but still operates under its own name. Downs joined Creamer as an intern and was named President in 2020.
Dane Evans
CEO
Skoda Contracting
Skoda Contracting started as a pipeline welding company and grew into a full-service underground utility contractor for gas, electric and water systems. The Flanders company has held a blanket contract with PSE&G and Elizabethtown Gas since 1968. It now works across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia, with offices in Rahway, Roselle, Fords, Whitehall, Pa., and Beltsville, Md. Its services range from pipe replacement and directional drilling to corrosion control. AGL Resources, Elizabethtown Gas’s former parent, named Skoda its Contractor of the Year three years in a row.
Marilyn Grabowski
President
Atlantic Infrared
Grabowski launched Atlantic InfraRed in 2002 from a walk-in closet with a single infrared repair machine. It is now part of Atlantic Infra, a Wall Township parent company of four construction businesses serving the utility industry. Its infrared pothole repair fleet is reportedly the largest in the world. A milling and paving arm handles high-profile road work. The company works with most of New Jersey’s major utilities and many of its municipalities. Grabowski spent 15 years in pharmaceutical sales before starting the business. She is a past board president of the BPU’s Supplier Diversity Development Council.
Mike Hellstrom
Vice President and Eastern Regional Manager
LIUNA
Hellstrom leads the Eastern Region of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, which says it has 25,000 members in New Jersey. He has pushed for federal infrastructure funding and for job training. A second-generation laborer, he joined LIUNA in 1984 at what is now Local 79 in New York City and worked as an organizer there. In 1998 he took over Local 108. He later served as Business Manager of the 17,000-member Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York and Long Island. He succeeded Ray Pocino in November 2022.
Jack Kocsis
CEO
Associated Construction Contractors of New Jersey
Kocsis leads ACCNJ, which represents more than 330 contractors that build everything from offices and schools to roads, bridges and utility lines. Its members employ tens of thousands of union craftworkers each year and do billions of dollars in construction. The association added five member companies in the first quarter of this year. Kocsis also sits on the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority, which finances the capital programs of the state Department of Transportation and NJ Transit. He was appointed in 2022.
Greg Lalevee
Business Manager
IUOE Local 825
Lalevee has led Operating Engineers Local 825 since 2010, and its membership grew more than 15% to over 7,500 by 2022, when he was re-elected unanimously to a fifth term. The local has invested millions in training and equipment. Its members run the heavy equipment on major projects across New Jersey and New York, including the Gateway tunnel. Lalevee is a second-generation operating engineer who ran cranes from 1984 to 2000 before becoming the local’s first organizer. He is also an International Vice President of the IUOE and Vice Chair of the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority.
Kelley O’Malley
President
Garden State Precast
O’Malley became President of Garden State Precast on Jan. 1, as the Wall Township manufacturer turned to what it called the next generation of ownership. The company makes manholes, utility vaults, lift stations, catch basins and box culverts for infrastructure and utility projects in five states. It is an approved supplier to PSE&G, NJDOT, the Port Authority and other agencies. J. Kirby O’Malley co-founded the company in 1999 and is now Chairman. Sean O’Malley was named Chief Operating Officer at the same time.
Robert Patterson
President, J.F. Kiely Service Co.
Kiely
Patterson leads the natural gas construction business of the Kiely Family of Companies, one of the region’s largest utility contractors. Its legacy customer is New Jersey Natural Gas. Kiely was founded in 1952, has more than 1,800 employees and is ranked on ENR’s list of the 400 largest contractors. Patterson joined Kiely in 1998 after 15 years at New Jersey Natural Gas. He helped launch Kiely Engineering, landed the company’s first utility customer outside New Jersey and opened its Pennsylvania office. He became President of J.F. Kiely Service Co. in 2023.
Sandy Petrocelli
CEO
Allan Briteway
Petrocelli leads Allan Briteway Electrical Utility Contractors, a union electrical contractor whose roots go back to 1933. The Florham Park company handles transmission and distribution, street and traffic lighting, fiber optics, mission-critical data centers and storm restoration. Its workers come from eight IBEW locals, including 102, 164, 269, 351 and 456.
David Rible
CEO
New Jersey Utility and Transportation Contractors Association
Rible leads UTCA, the Wall-based trade group whose roughly 1,000 member firms do heavy, highway, utility and marine construction. He joined as Executive Director in 2019 and became CEO this year. In September, Gov. Mikie Sherrill appointed him to the board of the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank, which makes low-cost loans for local water and infrastructure projects. Before UTCA, Rible was Director of the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. From 2007 to 2017, he served in the Assembly, where he was prime sponsor of the Transportation Trust Fund reauthorization.
James Rudolph
Vice President, Gas and Underground
Henkels & McCoy
Rudolph oversees gas and underground work at Henkels & McCoy, one of the country’s largest utility contractors. MasTec acquired the company in a deal valued at about $600 million that closed in January 2022, when ENR ranked Henkels & McCoy fifth among U.S. utility contractors. Rudolph represents NUCA of New Jersey on the board of the National Utility Contractors Association.
John Sartor
CEO
PS&S
Sartor is expanding PS&S well beyond Warren. In March, the architecture, engineering and environmental firm bought Priest Craven & Associates, giving it a base in North Carolina’s Research Triangle. It also added Swedesboro’s Marathon Engineering for more reach in South and Central Jersey. Those moves followed its 2022 purchase of B. Thayer Associates, which works on the MTA’s Penn Station Access project. Sartor became CEO in 2015, succeeding his father, Anthony Sartor, who led the firm for decades.
