Spire Welcomes New Construction Experts to Support Texas Growth
SPIRE WELCOMES NEW CONSTRUCTION EXPERTS TO SUPPORT TEXAS GROWTH
1. austin independent school district
bond program
The AISD Bond Program is a $1.1 billion demolition, renovation, and new construction initiative to modernize and expand learning spaces, allowing Austin’s schools to keep pace with the city’s growth.
Spire has been growing rapidly over the last decade and has welcomed four new experts to its Austin headquarters office, broadening its presence in Texas. Mr. Joseph Pille, PE has been added to Spire’s Project Management team to augment the Austin Independent School District (AISD) Bond Program group, serving as a Project/Campus Manager for three of the 18 schools included in the project1. To supplement the Dispute Resolution Support team, Spire has welcomed Mr. Ario Mirfatahi, Mr. Andrew Darko, and Mr. Steve Purugganan. These experts will support Spire’s growth in providing litigation support to clients in construction-related disputes, including the analysis of project documents, claim evaluation, and damage quantification.
We are thrilled to add Mr. Joe Pille, Mr. Ario Mirfatahi, Mr. Andrew Darko, and Mr. Steve Purugganan to our team! To learn more about our new team members, please continue reading below.
Mr. Joseph Pille, PE brings over 30 years of AEC industry leadership experience in the education, government, commercial, and marine construction sectors. Most recently, Mr. Pille managed a team of more than 60 people tasked with carrying out various facility construction projects on a large, public research university. Mr. Pille also served as an Assistant Vice President for a privately-owned commercial real estate firm, where he supervised all construction efforts and provided leadership to a taskforce of architects and engineers. His areas of focus include project management, engineering design, and synthesis of testing reports. Mr. Pille is a certified Professional Engineer (PE) and holds a Master of Science from the University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Missouri.
Mr. Ario Mirfatahi is an international leader in the AEC industry with experience on large-scale infrastructure, government, and power projects around the globe. In his previous work, Mr. Mirfatahi specialized in dispute resolution and project management for a large Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) company, where he supervised subcontractors, corrected design flaws, and mitigated contract conflicts, claims, and change orders. Mr. Mirfatahi’s skills include claim evaluation, project management capabilities, damage quantification, and technical analysis and programming. Mr. Mirfatahi holds two Master of Science degrees from Rice University and Carnegie Mellon University, and a Bachelor of Science degree from Sharif University of Technology in Iran.
Mr. Andrew Darko, LEED AP BD+C, began his career managing contracts for a large, national building company, focusing on the preparation of requests for information, ensuring contract compliance, mitigating conflict, and maintaining schedule adherence. Mr. Darko’s excellent work on projects, individually worth up to $530 million, earned him the opportunity for upward mobility within the same building company, going on to lead the performance of cost control efforts, change order resolution, and management of project engineers. His skillset includes cost analysis and forecasting, financial reporting, contract document review, and quality control, and he is proficient in Primavera P6. Mr. Darko received his Bachelor of Science degree from Texas A&M University.
Mr. Steve Purugganan’s career has centered around risk assessment, schedule maintenance, and project management, most recently for a national, interdisciplinary engineering consulting firm. Mr. Purugganan specializes in the analysis of daily reports, schedules, and project documents to mitigate project conflicts and claims and resolve contract disputes. He has experience with implementing these skills on large-scale, complex projects, and has provided his expertise on projects valuing more than $300 million. His skills include Primavera P6, MS Visio, and conflict resolution. Mr. Purugganan holds a Master of Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Davis.