SEATTLE, WA Arup announces Joshua Yacknowitz, PE, LEED AP, has been appointed the new Seattle Group Leader. He steps into the position previously held by Cormac Deavy, who is moving to the United Kingdom to assume the role of Arup's Buildings West Leader.

Andy Howard, Arup Chairman of the Americas Region, said, "Josh is eminently qualified to head up our Seattle office. He will look to diversify our business by growing prime agency work with local clients in the sectors he knows so well from his experience as our Americas Region Science & Industry Business Leader."

Arup's recent work in the region includes major expansion programs at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Pike Place MarketFront, the University of Washington West Campus Utility Plant, and the Washington State Convention Center. The Seattle, Washington, office also branches out into more niche-market engineering applications, including large-scale public artworks at the Seattle Museum of History and Industry and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

With a strong background in managing interdisciplinary teams of design consultants, Yacknowitz has played central roles in numerous high-profile projects around the world. From a facility to house the world's largest neutrino detector experiment for Fermilab/CERN in South Dakota to a major interdisciplinary laboratory facility for Columbia University to land ports of entry at various locations for the GSA to manufacturing facilities for Procter & Gamble in the Americas and East Asia, he has delivered diverse projects with both consistency and innovation.

A member of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering; the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers, Yacknowitz received a BE in mechanical engineering from City College of New York.

"I'm excited to have this opportunity to contribute to the success of such a dynamic practice," said Yacknowitz, who joined the firm in 2003. "Arup's Seattle office has doubled in size over the past three years, and the city is such a nexus for technology and manufacturingI look forward to building our team in ways that will allow us to better serve this expanding, forward-thinking market."