Laura Toole, has joined Sam Schwartz Engineering, PLLC (SSE) as VP and director of business development. She brings 30 years of experience in business development, marketing, public involvement and executive management. She also serves as a board member of the Women's Transportation Seminar Foundation and was formerly president of Michael Baker Engineering, Inc. She received her bachelor of arts degree from Vassar College. SSE has also hired Jon Gerlach, Anwar Abdullah, Chirag Gandhi, Jessica Nepomiachi and Alex Rothberg. Formerly from N.Y.C.'s dept.of design and construction, Gerlach joins SSE as a CAD technician in their transportation planning dept.; Nepomiachi and Rothberg have joined their community outreach team as critical liaisons for communities affected by large construction projects; and Abdullah and Gandhi have joined the dept. of construction engineering and inspection as inspectors. Kate Sargent and Aviva Laurenti, P.E. to have been promoted as project managers. Preeti Choudhary, EIT and Erwin Alonzo, EIT were promoted to transportation engineer II. Erich Arcement, P.E., PTOE, SSE's senior VP and general manager of New York, has been chosen as one of the winners of ENR New York's "20 Under 40" award. This award is given to the industry's rising stars who go above and beyond their workload in order to give back and contribute to their industry and local communities. Michael Porto, a member of SSE's Second Avenue Subway public involvement team, started off the New Year by becoming a board member of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (BGI). The BGI has served as a catalyst for conceiving, designing and implementing the 14-mile Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. Projects The Sierra Club named SSE Chicago's "The Streets for Cycling Plan" one of the 50 best transportation projects in 2012. SSE was the lead consultant for this plan, identifying over 100 miles of protected bike lanes as well as additional streets for buffered bike lanes, separated bike lanes and neighborhood greenways. In international news, the December 2012 inauguration of SSE's Aruba Tramway Project in Oranjestad, Aruba, was attended by the Prime Minister and hundreds of other Aruban citizens as well as Sam himself who demonstrated the first self propelled tram and spoke at various ceremonies .