Temple Alum, Engineering Executive, Receives 2016 College of Engineering Gallery of Success Award

Gregory A. Kelly, the president and chief executive officer of the Americas operations of one of the world's largest engineering and professional services firms, is the College of Engineering's 2016 Gallery of Success awardee. From his Manhattan office, Kelly, who earned a BS in civil engineering and construction technology from the college in 1979, heads the U.S. & Latin America region of WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff. His workforce of 7,500 employees generates nearly $1.8 billion in annual revenue in such engineering sectors as transportation & infrastructure, buildings, industrial and energy and the environment.

Gregory Kelly, pictured with mechanical engineering student, Deondre Robinson.

The massive, high-profile projects completed or currently underway under Kelly's leadership include: the structural design for the new One World Trade Center; $20 billion worth of underground New York City subway projects; the new retractable roof for the U.S. Tennis Center's center court in Queens; and the yet-to-be-built high speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Recently, Kelly has twice testified before Congressional committees on public-private partnerships.

"I tell our engineers all the time that it's not just about the engineering," says Kelly, a Broomall, Pennsylvania native who now resides in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. "We have great bridge, tunnel and airport designers, but that bridge or airport is usually the solution to an economic challenge that involves moving people from point A to point B.

"What gets me and our employees inspired is the opportunity to actually shape cities and regions and influence how people live, work and play, how they get around and secure energy."

For that broader perspective, Kelly credits his experience at Temple. He was a four-year letterman with the men's swim team and also met his wife Michele, with whom he has five children, on campus. (She earned her Temple business degree in 1982). While he was at Temple, one of his internships—working on the Center City commuter tunnel—ultimately led to his career with Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB).

"My experiences at Temple—both in the classroom and in the urban environment that surrounds it—really opened my eyes to the role that cities play, how they function, and how what we do as engineers has a meaningful impact on how those cities operate," says Kelly, an elected member of the National Academy of Construction. "I not only learned how to be an engineer, how to design and build projects, but more importantly why we build them."

Committed to passing on his passion for engineering, Kelly chairs the Salvadori Center, a non-profit organization that uses New York City's built environment as part of its innovative science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs to educate and inspire city school children.