Meet the CROSS-US team

Glenn has had a career-long passion for learning from failures. He spent 45 years at Simpson Gumpertz and Heger (SGH), where he engaged in the design, investigation and rehabilitation of building structures, building envelopes and other structures. He was SGH’s CEO from 1995 through 2016 and its Board Chair from 2016 through 2018.

Glenn was Co-Founder of the ASCE Technical Council on Forensic Engineering (now the ASCE Forensic Engineering Division). He is Past President of SEI, a past Director of IStructE and a Board Member of the Charles Pankow Foundation.

Kevin is a Professor of Architectural Engineering at Penn State University, where he has been on the faculty for over 39 years and served as AE Department Interim Head for 2 years. He has received numerous teaching and advising awards including being named a Penn State Teaching Fellow.  Professor Parfitt teaches courses in structural engineering, engineering capstone, and building failures and forensics. His areas of expertise include building performance and evaluation, building damage assessment, building collapse, architectural systems failures, forensic engineering, site specific snow studies and disaster recovery. Prior to joining the PSU faculty Kevin worked for a number of prominent architectural and engineering firms. Kevin also serves as an independent industry consultant in investigating and evaluating structural distress and failure.

Kevin is active in ASCE including the Forensic Engineering Division. He is a founding member of the Architectural Engineering Institute and served as Editor of the Journal of Architectural Engineering for a number of years. Kevin has followed CROSS since its inception in the UK and has advocated for it in industry and amongst his students.

Glenn has had a career-long passion for learning from failures. He spent 45 years at Simpson Gumpertz and Heger (SGH), where he engaged in the design, investigation and rehabilitation of building structures, building envelopes and other structures. He was SGH’s CEO from 1995 through 2016 and its Board Chair from 2016 through 2018.

Glenn was Co-Founder of the ASCE Technical Council on Forensic Engineering (now the ASCE Forensic Engineering Division). He is Past President of SEI, a past Director of IStructE and a Board Member of the Charles Pankow Foundation.

Laura is Director of the Structural Engineering Institute, ASCE.  She has over 25 years’ experience in the Architectural/Engineering/Construction industry with expertise in structural engineering consulting and design. Her expertise includes private and public educational, institutional, museum, religious, recreational, and residential projects; including historic preservation, existing condition assessments, investigations, structural code upgrades, flood zone design, new buildings, additions, renovations, public and private project peer reviews, and Special Inspection.

In his current role as Western U.S. Regional Manager, Craig leads a team of risk engineers specializing in construction professional liability and builders risk insurance assessments, claim reconciliation and claim prevention consulting services for design professionals, contractors, subcontractors and owners.  In his previous role, Craig provided technical guidance and recommendations as a subject matter expert to customers and business partners in support of Zurich’s professional liability book of business.  He was instrumental in the resolution of several highly complex, multi-million dollar customer claims.

Craig recently completed service as an Associate Member of the ASCE 7-22 committee, and also lead an industry task force within the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) Erectors Committee in authoring a PCI Journal article on the problems and associated risks with improper structural grouting of precast concrete load bearing elements.

Herrmann is Partner Emeritus of Hardesty & Hanover, a transportation consulting engineering firm headquartered in NYC specializing in fixed and movable bridges. He is a Fellow of both the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) and ASCE and served as ASCE’s President for 2012, SEI’s President in 2017, and Chair of ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure Advisory Committee in 2009.

An advocate for improving our nation’s infrastructure, he has testified several times before Congress and been interviewed many times by the media, most notably appearing on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” Registered as a Professional Engineer in multiple states, he graduated from Valparaiso University with a BSCE and NYU POLY with a MSCE.

Norma Jean completed ten years as one of two civilian civil engineer Commissioners on the Mississippi River Commission (MRC), nominated by President Obama. She was 2017 President of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), chairing that organization’s Board of Direction that year. 

Norma Jean is currently on the Executive Committee of CROSS-US, on the Board of Governors of COPRI and locally serves on the ASCE New Orleans’ Chapter of the Structural Engineering Institute as well as several non-profit organizations such as the Water Institute of the Gulf, SciHigh and GNOSTEM. She also has served in the past on several National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) committees and task forces, most recently serving as chair of the Board-level NCEES Education Committee and is an Emeritus Member of NCEES. 

Norma Jean was named by the Governor of Louisiana to LAPELS, Louisiana’s licensing board for professional engineers, serving as Chairman of the LAPELS Board in 2011-12. She, her husband, two engineer daughters and engineer son-in-law all reside in New Orleans.

Judy is the Associate Chief of the Materials and Structural Systems Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She provides leadership in the development and coordination of statutory processes for making buildings safer and oversees the National Construction Safety Team (NCST), National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), and the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP).

Before her role in the Division Office, Judy was the Director NIST’s Disaster and Failure Studies (DFS) Program, where she led a multidisciplinary staff responsible for conducting fact-finding investigations focused on: building and infrastructure failures; successful building and infrastructure performance; evacuation and emergency response systems; and disaster recovery and community resilience.

Judy is a Director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), on the Executive Committee and Expert Panel of CROSS-US and co-founded SEI’s Committee on Multi-Hazard Mitigation.

Alastair was a founding member and Director of CROSS, and then Structural-Safety, from 2005 to 2021. In 2021, he became a Consultant and a member of the CROSS Technical Board. 

Previously CEO of a consulting firm, he has extensive experience in the design and constuction of major building and structural projects in the UK and internationally. He has had a long interest in safety and forensic engineering, and has a Sir Arnold Walters Medal, a Lewis Kent Award and a President’s Award from the Institution of Structural Engineers. The American Society of Civil Engineers presented him with their Forensic Engineering Award for 2021 and, in the same year, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers. 

Author of numerous publications, for many years he was visiting professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Liverpool, and is a Past President of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers.