Corrections or additions?
These articles were prepared by Barbara Fox for the May 4, 2005
issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
On the Move: Woman Engineer
Women in non-traditional fields might consider working for a smaller
firms, says environmental engineer Julia Algeo, the new manager of
the Hamilton office of Maser Consulting, a Red Bank-based firm.
"Working in a small company you are given opportunities to do more
just by necessity," says Algeo. "Because you have to be a jack of all
trades, your experience base can grow."
A Rutgers graduate, Class of 1984, Algeo does civil and site
development for warehouses and developers. For 15 years she worked at
Freehold-based Abbington Associates; she joined Maser Consulting five
years ago and last year was made a principal. Her clients include the
Kor Companies, Hovnanian, Berkowsky & Associates, the Morris
Companies, Trammell Crow, and Frank Greek & Son.
The planning, design, and construction engineering company has six
offices in New Jersey and New York, and Last month Algeo moved her
30-person branch from Nottingham Way in Hamilton to the former
American Standard factory, also in Hamilton, expanding from 3,000 to
9,000 square feet. Maser Consulting employs municipal and
environmental engineers, planners, surveyors, and landscape
architects. Its services include environmental management, site
development, highway and bridge design, structural engineering,
traffic and transportation engineering, and construction
administration.
"It’s a great location," says Algeo of her new office, which has a
view of the Hamilton train station. "On Nottingham Way we squeezed in
close to 30 people, and here we have the capacity for 50 people, so we
are able to give our up-and-coming professionals their own office.
Before, we had to put multiple engineers in the same office."
Reflecting on her own career, Algeo notes that sometimes she was the
only woman in an engineering class. She admits she was somewhat of a
pioneer but says she bypassed any gender prejudice simply by focusing
on doing her work. "I never let it faze me. I just focused on doing
the best I could do."
After graduation, she was often the only woman in the meeting room.
"Being young, I might have been slightly intimidated by it, but you
have to overcome that. Things are a lot different now," says Algeo.
"There are a lot more women involved in site development."
She was the first woman engineer hired at Abbington and the first
female principal at Maser Consulting, which she terms "a very
progressive firm. They don’t let people’s talents go unnoticed; we
have quite a few up and coming women engineers spread out through all
the different offices."
From high school on she and the other four children in the Gadaleta
family worked in the family’s coat factories in Hoboken and the
Ironbound section of Newark. Her older brother is a surgeon, and her
younger siblings went into business. Her father emigrated from Italy
when he was 21 and wanted to be a diesel engineer, but the family
couldn’t afford to send him to college, so he took a job in the
garment industry and eventually became a business owner.
"We saw how hard our parents worked and that rubbed off on us," says
Algeo. "My mom was my dad’s bookkeeper, and the dinner table was
sometimes a business meeting."
At Rutgers Algeo met her husband, also an engineer, now a regional
manager of Applied Water Management, a division of American Water
Company on Lenox Drive. He has always been "very supportive" of her
career, she says, and they have two daughters, one a freshmen at
Rutgers College and the other a freshman at Notre Dame High School.
Her Italian upbringing has had its beneficial effect: "I do take pride
in feeding my family home cooked meals, even though I work, to be a
good role model for my daughters."
She bases her management style partly on how her father ran his
companies: "At some times he had 50 to 80 people working for him; some
loved him, some did not, but the bottom line was, he worked hard and
was good to them and they respected that." She has had female
mentoring as a long-time member of the Society of Women Engineers and
ICREW (Industrial/Commercial Real Estate Women). At Abbington she
learned from Tom Krakow how to manage clients and projects. "At this
company," says Algeo, "Richard Maser is an excellent role model,
progressive and approachable, well respected in the field."
Civil and environmental engineering appeal to her, she says, because
they are tangible. "I always thought I would be an art major, but in
high school I was very strong in math and physics and wasn’t as
creative as you need to be in art," says Algeo, noting that her site
planning work requires esthetic taste. "The designs we create are
sound engineering, and I think I have a good eye because of my art
background."
Maser Consulting PA, 240 Princeton Avenue, American Metro Center,
Suite 152, Hamilton 08619. Julia Algeo, branch manager. 609-587-8200;
fax, 609-587-8260. Home page: www.maserconsulting.com
Top Of Page
Cross Cultural Move
‘Companies that choose to outsource some of their resources because
English is so widely spoken – what they have failed to realize is
that the cultural context is completely missing," says Catherine
Mercer Bing of ITAP.
ITAP, mutually run by John Bing and Catherine Mercer Bing, is working
with its partner firms on bicultural teams involved in such projects
as cultural audits on training materials for call centers in India and
the Philippines. "In this country, we tend to leave certain phrases
out," she says. For instance, the phrase "what do you show for my
employer" really means, "what does your screen show."
The business began in 1986 as International Training Associates of
Princeton and has expanded globally to help bridge the cross-cultural
gap. Last month the Bings began working closer to their home with a
move from Research Park to Newtown, Pennsylvania. Now they are just
seven miles from their home, as opposed to 19 miles. They have three
full-time and two part-time employees, plus they work with
international partners. Their clients have included Johnson & Johnson,
Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, Colgate-Palmolive, Avery Dennison, and the
United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
Mercer Bing credits Chuck Segal of Segal Commercial with finding the
right space for them in just three weeks. The 1,200 square foot office
is about the same size as at Research Park but is more efficiently
configured.
Raised in a globe-trotting family, John Bing grew up in a series of
exotic locales, including Africa and Japan. An English literature
major at Harvard (Class of 1962) with an education PhD from the
University of Massachusetts, he served in Afghanistan in the Peace
Corps and co-authored the manual that became the Peace Corps’ first
training guide.
Mercer and Bing were introduced by a mutual friend who knew they had
both lived in the Middle East. Both had been married before; he has a
son and a grandchild.
Trained as a teacher (Drexel, Class of 1971), Mercer Bing has a
master’s degree in educational supervision. "In 1978 I came back from
Iran, where I was teaching, because of the Islamic revolution and
worked at Covenant House for five years, managing a speaker’s bureau."
She started her own business, and then Lockheed hired her to start the
training function for its information management services division.
"Then I worked for Chase Manhattan Bank. With its merger with
Chemical, my job went to Long Island, and I got a job at the New York
Times doing HR management in succession planning."
Contracts involving call centers are a relatively new piece of ITAP’s
business, as are cultural audits of web pages. Bing cites a project
for a major pharmaceutical company that wanted to use its human
resources website for career development overseas. "It was very ‘U.S.
American,’ says Mercer Bing, "very individualistic. We did a cultural
audit and found areas where it needs more context." The phrase "figure
out what you want to do" does not resonate with biostatisticians who
work in China the way it does in the United States.
For some of these contracts, ITAP partners with Christine Casati of
the China Human Resources Group on Airpark Road. In addition to
differences relating to standard cultural issues, says Mercer Bing,
many U.S. natives do not appreciate of Chinese history. "One
generation was not allowed to go to school, and folks who now have
that education went through tremendous difficulty to get it. There is
a lack of understanding on our part about that. We help both sides
understand similarities and differences."
As ITAP approaches its 20th year, Mercer Bing says these interests
helped her and her husband keep the business going:
1. Global citizens. "We feel a desire to help and serve that
population."
2. Lifelong learning. "We like to have conversations with them and
learn about their culture. We literally learn something new every
day."
3. Global business. "We are very interested in helping businesses be
effective in the work they do through those people. If there are
barriers to that, we can help."
ITAP International, 4 Terry Drive, Newtown 18940. John W. Bing,
president. 609-921-1446; fax, 609-924-7946. www.itapintl.com
Top Of Page
Expansions
Design Research LLC, 84 Franklin Corner Road, Box 6086, Lawrenceville
08648. Rick Babick, president. 609-896-1108; fax, 609-896-3016. Home
page: www.DesignRes.com
Design Research, a research company providing services in luxury
consumer durables and design-intensive products, has moved to 84
Franklin Corner Road.
Founded four years ago by Rick Babick to provide consumer preference
testing of design and products such as china, crystal, gifts and
collectibles, the company has expanded into proprietary preference
testing techniques to include fragrances, candles, packaging design,
fast food and pharmaceuticals. The company also, according to its
website, provides on-line survey capabilities, and qualitative and
multivariate quantitative research services.
Top Of Page
Commercial Real Estate
Matrix Development Group, Forsgate Drive, CN 4000, Cranbury 08512.
Joseph S. Taylor, president and CEO. 732-521-2900; fax, 609-395-8289.
Home page:
Matrix Development Group has broken ground on I-195 Business Park, a
speculative industrial park at Exit 3A in Hamilton. The
600,600-square-foot facility, designed by O’Connor Gordon Pratt
Architects, is on schedule to be finished in December.
The first one-story building will have 36-foot clear ceiling heights
and abundant doors and frontage on I-195, three miles from Exit 7A on
the New Jersey Turnpike.
Matrix Development has a total of 1 million square feet of speculative
development projects underway in Washington Township and South
Brunswick.
Computer Associates (CA), Route 206 and Orchard Road, Box 8, Princeton
08543-0008. Thomas Appel, facilities manager. 908-874-9000; fax,
908-874-9420. www.cai.com
Computer Associates has put its 214,000 square foot building up for
sale, and it will be marketed by the Central New Jersey office of CB
Richard Ellis. Computer Associates occupies 100,000 square feet there,
and Blessing White is also a tenant. The property has 70 acres
including a softball field, tennis courts, and a full-service
cafeteria. About 70,000 feet is available for lease. The property
could also be leased, under the terms of the marketing agreement.
Raymond Sohmer and Ward Greer are in charge of the CB Richard Ellis
contract.
Top Of Page
Crosstown Moves
Nations Realtors has moved from 214 Carnegie Center to the third
floor at 5 Independence Way. Doing business as "Nations," the company
had been in shared space at 212 Carnegie for two years and at 214
Carnegie for three years.
Founder Maurice McLaughlin, who will be 53 this year, spent the
majority of his 29 years inreal estate at Richardson Realtors but was
most recently with ReMax of Princeton at 600 Alexander Road. He
opened his own firm because, he says, "I wanted more independence and
the ability to help people with their real estate without sizable
corporate mandates."
"Entering our sixth year, we have listed, sold, and closed every
property we have placed on the market with the exception of a few that
were removed from the market," he says. Though he has had as many as
12 sales agents, he has four agents now, and they cover northern
Burlington and all of Mercer and Middlesex counties.
The son of a truck driver, McLaughlin grew up in Ewing and took a day
job as operations manager with Conrail, earning his real estate
license while going to school, at night, at Mercer County College,
Youngstown State, and Trenton State College. He lives on a 26-acre
farm in Hopewell.
Christine O’ Shea, a realtor associate, designed and maintains the
website, which connects to the multiple listing service. The attorney
who helped set up the business was Richard Hale, formerly of Hale and
Schenkman, now vice president of Stockton College. Alan Schauer is his
accountant.
He still remembers his first sale: "a little Cape Cod in Mercerville
to a young couple for $65,000."
Nations Realtors, 5 Independence Way, Suite 300, Princeton 08540.
Maurice McLaughlin, broker. 609-452-1152; fax, 609-452-1655. Home
page: www.nationsrealtors.com
Top Of Page
New in Town
Iron Mountain, 26 South Middlesex Avenue, Center Point at 8A,
Jamesburg 08831. 732-651-2800; fax, 732-651-2855. Home page:
Iron Mountain, an information and document management company, has
leased a 255,000 square-foot industrial facility at 26 South Middlesex
Avenue in Jamesburg. Originally developed by Matrix Development Group
for W.W. Grainger Inc., which has relocated to 18 North Applegate
Drive, the warehouse covers 30 acres, has 43 loading doors, 28-foot
clear ceiling height and 10,000 square feet of office space. The
facility currently employs approximately 10 people.
In business for over 50 years, Iron Mountain provides records storage
and management for businesses. This is the 20th storage building in
New Jersey leased by the Boston-based global company.
CCX Con-Way Central Express, 107 Youngs Road, Mercerville 08619. John
Scholz, service center manager. 609-587-8193; fax, 609-587-5439. Home
page: www.con-way.com
CCX Con-Way Central Express started out on Quakerbridge Road, then
moved to Bensalem, and in January it moved back to Mercerville.
Founded in 1985, this coast-to-coast trucking company is based in Ann
Arbor, Michigan.
John Scholz, the service center manager, is a Kean College alumnus who
has been in the industry for 27 years, the last eight years with this
company.
Scholz has 26 people here now, including 13 drivers for city
operations and six for the "line haul" at night. "We are hiring
drivers," says Scholz. Drivers need to have a Class A with hazmat
certification and "doubles" endorsement (be able to drive two 28-foot
trailers).
"We do daily local pickups and deliveries," says Scholz. In contrast
to UPS which is more of a package carrier, CCX does daily local
pickups and deliveries for items that are usually larger than
packages.
Top Of Page
ETS Deal
Educational Testing Service, Rosedale Road, Princeton 08541. Kurt F.
Landgraf, president. 609-921-9000; fax, 609-734-5410. Home page:
Principals of New Jersey schools will soon get a digital tool to help
them cope with the demands of standardized testing, thanks to a data
management system to be provided by Educational Testing Service.
ETS announced last week that it will make part of its Instructional
Data Management System (IDMS) product available for free, so that New
Jersey’s districts can create electronic tables of data to analyze
standardized test results for 2003 and 2004.
IDMS is a product of the Pulliam Group, located in Redlands,
California. ETS bought the 60-person company last year and is
providing IDMS as a value-added service as part of the existing
contract at no charge to the state.
IDMS taps data from New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ
ASK), the state’s method of fulfilling No Child Left Behind
requirements. Until now, principals had to juggle pencil-and-paper
data to compare schools, says Richard Ten Eyck, assistant
commissioner for educational programs and assessment at the
department of education.
"A number of us in the department had come from previous positions as
superintendents," says Ten Eyck in a telephone interview. A 1964
graduate of Massachusetts-based Assumption College with a doctor’s
degree from Lehigh, he had been a superintendent in Little Egg Harbor.
"We had done all these calculations by hand, cutting and pasting the
reports."
"For school districts to make good decisions, it does not hurt to know
how kids are doing in similar demographic areas," says Ten Eyck.
The release of this tool will not invade student privacy because
individual test scores – or scores from individual classes – will not
be available. "What’s available now is how a school compares to other
schools in the state," says Ten Eyck.
Another version of IDMS products includes access to individual data,
according to Ten Eyck. As a state, New Jersey does not give teachers
access to test questions, or to test results question by question,
because it must guard test security; it does not replenish test items
every year.
Top Of Page
Start-Up: Stinar
Stinar Communications LLC, 20 Le Parc Drive, Princeton Junction
08550. Tom and Lisa Stinar. 609-275-4497; fax, 609-275-4497.
Tom and Lisa Stinar have opened a web enhancement and graphic design
firm in West Windsor.
Tom Stinar graduated in 1983 from Bemidji State University in northern
Minnesota, two hours north of where his father owned a furniture
store. Lisa, who has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Kean
University, worked at McGraw Hill and then at CNN as a multimedia
journalist doing script writing and graphic design.
The couple met at CNN, where Tom was a sportscaster for 19 years,
covering such events as the Indy 500, the Daytona 500, and the World
Cup soccer tournament.
The Stinars, who have two school-age children, were drawn back to New
Jersey by the prospect of being near to Lisa’s family and close to New
York and the Jersey shore.
Stinar Communications creates custom graphics, scripts, and visual
presentations to help with its training, business, and marketing
needs.
Top Of Page
Deaths
Karl D. Pettit Jr., 89, on April 14. He had been regional sales
manager at Waddell & Reed, a financial planning firm.
Edward R. Farley Jr., 86, on April 25. He was formerly president and
chief executive officer of the Atlas Corporation, a uranium mining and
holding company, and longtime chairman of the board of Princeton
Healthcare System.
Corrections or additions?
This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
Facebook Comments