Project Manager

Tishman West Management Corp. has been appointed by Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. as exclusive leasing and project manager for the 75% leased, 120,000-square-foot Oakbrook Plaza, completed in Laguna Hills in 1984.

The radar-evading F-35 fighter jet, a nearly $400-billion weapons program under development for more than a decade, is facing its worst turbulence since Washington decided to buy it in 2001 - when it was billed as the most affordable, lethal and survivable military aircraft ever built for the U.S. and its allies. At a time when federal spending is under a microscope, the plan to develop and build 2,443 airplanes is hundreds of billions of dollars over budget. The F-35, known as the Joint Strike Fighter, has been delayed by glitches in its onboard computer systems, cracks in structural components and troubles with its electrical system.

Bryan Mitchell Price, a scientist and project manager, died Sunday after an off-road accident. He was 29. Price, born Nov. 3, 1970, was a lifelong Ventura resident. He graduated from Buena High School in 1988 and from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1995. For the last six years he had worked as a scientist and a project manager, most recently at Secor International Inc. in Thousand Oaks. He enjoyed driving off-road vehicles, water and snow skiing, fishing and boating.

The Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that it has reached a settlement with a Pasadena firm, Gateway Science & Engineering, over alleged billing improprieties. The company will continue to supervise the $450-million building program at Los Angeles Mission College. The district had alleged that Gateway approved payments to the construction company FTR International for work it had not performed at a 90,000-square-foot fitness center on the campus The project was plagued by delays and allegations of faulty workmanship, which were detailed in a Times series last year on the community college district's $6-billion campus reconstruction program.

Ernst N. Abelmann, a longtime construction executive, has died in Glendale. He was 76. A resident of Glendale, Abelmann died Tuesday of heart failure after a lengthy battle with heart problems, said Nat B. Read, a family friend. A native of Frankfurt, Germany, Abelmann began his career in the construction trade in Johannesburg, South Africa. During World War II, he served as an intelligence officer in the South African Army on loan to the British. He achieved the rank of major.

The project manager in charge of all construction for the $310-million expansion of John Wayne Airport is stepping down, it was announced Thursday. Richard J. Begley has been project manager for HPV, the consulting firm hired by the county to oversee the expansion, since 1986. Some consider him the most knowledgeable expert on the expansion, the largest public works project in Orange County history. Begley is leaving to become president of a subsidiary of Ralph M. Parsons Co.

Dennis Freeman, a youth sports supporter and career project manager for Taft Electric, died at home in Ventura on Tuesday following a brief illness. He was 61. Freeman was born in Omaha, Neb., on Jan. 20, 1935. He moved to Ventura County 50 years ago. After graduating from Oxnard High School in 1951 and Ventura College in 1953, Freeman was sent to Korea, where he served two years in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

The radar-evading F-35 fighter jet, a nearly $400-billion weapons program under development for more than a decade, is facing its worst turbulence since Washington decided to buy it in 2001 - when it was billed as the most affordable, lethal and survivable military aircraft ever built for the U.S. and its allies. At a time when federal spending is under a microscope, the plan to develop and build 2,443 airplanes is hundreds of billions of dollars over budget. The F-35, known as the Joint Strike Fighter, has been delayed by glitches in its onboard computer systems, cracks in structural components and troubles with its electrical system.

* Fred Fuller has been named senior project manager for R.D. Olson Construction in Irvine. Before joining the company, he owned and operated the Florida Building & Improvement Co. Before that, he was vice president and senior construction project manager at the Macerich Co. in Santa Monica. * James W. Landis has been appointed senior managing director in the Orange County office of Charles Dunn Co. Inc. He was formerly with the Seeley Co.'s Orange County retail division.

So what if Leonard L. Davidson comes to work in kilts. Or Bermuda shorts. Or a camouflage jacket he calls "disruptive patterning." He is a Scot, you know, but cracks that he's not Scotch. "Scotch is what you put into a Scot," he giggled. Davidson, 38, is a different sort. He calls himself a "weird project manager," a person good at finding things that are impossible to find, or so he says.

Honda Center owners Henry and Susan Samueli were joined by Anaheim city leaders Wednesday in a groundbreaking ceremony for a $20-million project described as the most extensive upgrade in the venue's history. The city maintains a strong interest in luring the NBA's Sacramento Kings. Anaheim is awaiting a March 1 deadline Kings owners have for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson to reveal a financing plan to build an arena in Sacramento. "We can envision a day fans will attend NHL hockey, concerts and NBA basketball games here," Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait said at the ceremony, dropping in the NBA's old advertising slogan for effect.

A Texas architect who admitted paying bribes to influence the awarding of school construction contracts in that state later helped manage major construction programs at community colleges in Southern California. Most recently, Louis M. Cruz was a project manager for a $616-million building campaign at Long Beach City College. Previously, he held similar responsibilities at the Los Angeles Community College District, managing $190 million worth of construction. Cruz was a central figure in a corruption scandal in San Antonio, Texas.

Can an iconic 26-foot mural bridge the gap between a big-box retailer hoping to build a 148,000-square-foot store on a prime Warner Center corner and residents who oppose it as ugly and out of place? The ceramic tile mosaic by acclaimed artists Marlo Bartels and Astrid Preston was placed on the front of a Home Savings and Loan branch at 21818 Victory Blvd. in 1989. It depicts the juxtaposition of homes and businesses in Woodland Hills. The former bank building is now a copy shop and shipping center, and it is earmarked to be demolished to make way for a new Costco.

On the surface, Malibu Lagoon would seem a shining example of a restored wetland, a rarity along Southern California's built-up coastline. In an estuary that was once filled with dirt to create baseball diamonds, snowy egrets and black-crowned night herons now hunt for fish along the grass-covered banks of tidal channels, while sparrows and red-winged blackbirds perch on tule reeds swaying gently in the sea breeze. But beneath all that are stagnant, polluted waterways with steep banks so poorly constructed when the lagoon was restored that state parks officials say they must be drained, dredged and rebuilt to meet even basic water quality standards.

To its backers, the long-planned shopping mall at the southwest corner of Slauson and Central avenues would provide a crucial boost for a blighted industrial strip. To its detractors, it's a giveaway of taxpayer money to a Florida-based mega-developer and a politically connected community group with a dubious track record. The Slauson Central Retail Center, conceived almost two decades ago in the aftermath of the L.A. riots, has been mired in years of litigation and has become one of the city's most contentious development projects — a symbol of how difficult it can be to build in Los Angeles in the face of well-financed opposition.

Mission artifacts that could be more than 200 years old were discovered during an archaeological survey near the San Gabriel Mission, an environmental consultant said Wednesday. Pottery, brick, livestock bones and remnants of a masonry waterway associated with a mill built in 1823 were among the artifacts discovered Tuesday during the dig. Archaeologists also recovered items linked with the building of the Union Pacific Railroad in the late 1800s.

The Los Angeles Coliseum's project manager said Wednesday that all earthquake repair work may not be complete until December, and the stadium capacity for next fall's football games could be as low as 50,000 while repairs continue at upper levels. But even as Don C.

Community Redevelopment Agency employees returned Tuesday to their workplace, an office that has been remodeled to include a bullet-resistant window and a new intercom system that will require all visitors to identify themselves before being allowed in.

The drillers have gnawed through a mile of rock here, almost down to a 600-million-year-old layer of sandstone where they hope to bury about 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide -- equal to the annual emissions of 220,000 automobiles. The $84-million project, of which $66.7 million comes from the Energy Department, will help determine whether storing greenhouse gases underground, so-called sequestration, is a viable solution for global warming. The project by Archer Daniels Midland Co.

A project to replenish sand to Waikiki's Kuhio Beach has been completed, with some parts of the beach growing by 40 feet in width. State officials finished the $475,000 project Friday. It restored an estimated 9,500 cubic yards of sand to Kuhio Beach.