Chicago, March 6, 2008 – Anne T. Sullivan, AIA has joined Thornton Tomasetti, Inc., a leading structural engineering and design firm, as vice president in charge of establishing a historic preservation practice sector in the Chicago office. Bill Bast, principal of Thornton Tomasetti, made the announcement.

As a senior associate with Johnson Lasky Architects in Chicago over the past 15 years, Ms. Sullivan was involved with a number of Thornton Tomasetti projects, including Edgewater Beach Apartments exterior wall restoration in Chicago and the Martin Mitchell Mansion structural evaluation in Naperville, Ill.

"Anne has almost two decades of experience in preservation work that will allow Thornton Tomasetti to establish a leading presence in the Chicago area and expand the company's historic preservation services nationwide," said Bast. "She is an excellent communicator who will be an outstanding resource to our clients and has also given much to the profession through her teaching and volunteer activities."

Sullivan’s addition to the Thornton Tomasetti team will provide synergy between the New York and Chicago offices in the historic preservation practice, said Eric Hammarberg, vice president who heads the historic preservation practice in New York. He has known Sullivan since they both worked at Robert E. Meadows PC Architects in New York 20 years ago, when she was an intern earning her master’s degree in historic preservation at Columbia University.

"I have strengths in constructability while she has more experience in historic preservation," he said. “The New York office has a lot of experience with specialty contractors. That, combined with Anne's breadth and depth of clients should broaden the regions in which we can provide these services."

Sullivan holds both a B.F.A. degree in art history and a B.S. degree in architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an M.S. degree in historic preservation from Columbia University in New York with a concentration in building material conservation.

She has been a registered architect in Illinois since 1993, and has been an instructor in the M.S. Historic Preservation Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for more than 15 years where she teaches historic building technology. She is also vice president of the Association for Preservation Technology International, an international organization dedicated to promoting the best technologies for conserving historic structures and their settings.

With her previous firm, Ms. Sullivan worked on numerous building restoration projects—including H.H. Richardson’s Glessner House Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry, both in Chicago, and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Fabyan Villa at the Kane County Forest Preserve in Batavia, Ill.

She recently completed a comprehensive historic structure report for the Ragdale Foundation, an artists’ community in Lake Forest, Ill., housed in the 1899 arts and crafts building that was once the home of prominent Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw.

"I’m excited about the potential for providing additional preservation services to Thornton Tomasetti’s clients, and building new relationships in the region," said Sullivan. "I know a number of people in both the Chicago and New York offices and am familiar with the skills they bring to the table. There aren’t many firms that provide engineering, architecture and historic preservation expertise."

About Thornton Tomasetti (www.ThorntonTomasetti.com)
Thornton Tomasetti provides building engineering services to clients worldwide on projects of all sizes and complexity. From the tallest towers and the longest spans, to innovative building systems and materials, the firm is committed to creating the best solutions through its technical ingenuity, pursuit of excellence, and responsiveness to client needs.

Founded in 1956 as Lev Zetlin & Associates, today Thornton Tomasetti is a 650-person organization of engineers and architects, collaborating from offices across the United States and in Hong Kong, London, Moscow, and Shanghai. Services cover structural design, building evaluation, and remediation to optimize building efficiency and performance. Thornton Tomasetti mobilizes rapidly to provide disaster response investigations, and deliver expert consulting services and testimony for legal and insurance purposes.

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