Lammie

James (Jim) L. Lammie, former President, Chief Executive Officer, and later non-Executive Chairman of Parsons Brinckerhoff (now WSP), died on Nov. 9, 2022 in Atlantic Beach, Florida. He was 91.

Jim was well-renowned as a passionate advocate for advancing the engineering profession. With dedication and zeal, he made a significantly positive impact in many communities worldwide. During his decades-long leadership at Parsons Brinckerhoff, Jim advanced a dramatic expansion of the global business, with a specific focus on transportation, and nearly doubled the organization’s revenues, pushing the firm into its position as a global changemaker.

Prior to joining Parsons Brinckerhoff, Jim had a distinguished 21-year career in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers serving as leader of a Vietnam construction battalion as well as serving as the Commander and District Engineer of the San Francisco District, among other highly esteemed roles.

Jim entered the private sector with Parsons Brinckerhoff after retiring as a Colonel from the U.S. Army. He led the joint venture serving as general engineering consultant to the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), overseeing milestones including the system’s 1979 opening and the completion of Atlanta’s downtown Peachtree Center station.  When he took command of the MARTA project, he commented on how much fun it was to watch a project grow.  This sense of growth was central to so much of Jim’s leadership at Parsons Brinckerhoff.

Across the globe, he was the driving force behind several other game-changing projects, including the start of the $14+ billion roadway through Boston and under Boston Harbor, known as the Central Artery/Tunnel Project; the $8 billion Taipei transit system; the U.K.’s West Coast Route Modernization Project; and transit systems in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Jim stepped down as CEO and director in 1996, taking on special projects. By 2006, he had retired as a full-time employee of Parsons Brinckerhoff and joined the Board of Directors. He went on to serve as the non-Executive Chairperson of Parsons Brinckerhoff and fully entered retirement once the firm was acquired by Balfour Beatty.

His many industry awards include the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) lifetime achievement Opal award and the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) pinnacle Golden Eagle Award.

With a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a master’s in civil engineering from Purdue University, a master’s in military art from the Command and General Staff College of the U.S. Army, and an MBA from George Washington University, Jim was a highly regarded academician and lecturer, offering a seminal lecture series on ethics and leadership at his alma mater – the U.S. Military Academy.
Jim’s colleagues remember him as a passionate, community-minded leader with an unparalleled drive and dedication to colleagues working on the ground. His leadership style focused not on lecturing or chiding but on leading by example.

Jim Lammie was the definition of a leader and continually preached the importance of ethics, stating: “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of The New York Times.”

Jim will be greatly missed.

- Jim Doebler and Bob Prieto, 2022