D&B engineers a leadership change in the firm’s 60th year

Woodbury-based D&B Engineers and Architects has announced changes in its leadership capping a long transition process for the 60-year-old firm. 

Steven Fangmann, who joined D&B in 1996 and served as its president and CEO for the last eight years, is stepping down to become the firm’s chairman of the board. Fangmann will be succeeded by William “Bill” Merklin, who has spent his entire 30-year career at D&B and now takes its helm. 

Fangmann said the succession plan has been in the works for several years. 

“I looked at succession planning the minute I became president,” he told LIBN. “I looked at succession planning for the newer and younger vice presidents coming up, giving them more responsibility, and that we should have a plan in place for them to move up in the company and to develop others…They’re mentored by the higher-level staff members. First, they get involved with projects at different levels and then they get into a project management role eventually, and that moves into other roles in the company.” 

Fangmann, who spent 16 years at the Nassau County Department of Public Works before getting into the private sector, said D&B’s promotion protocol gives the firm a leg up when competing for talent, bolstering a staff of about 175 professionals. 

“It’s a benefit that people are looking for, especially the younger people who believe they should be president the second day they arrive,” Fangmann said. “It’s an incentive and helps with hiring, which is difficult today. We have other firms that are out there fighting for the same individuals.” 

Merklin joined D&B in 1995 as a young engineer in the firm’s water supply division, and he’s been heading that group since 2000, and he’s also been overseeing the civil engineering group. Merklin said navigating the COVID pandemic and the new drinking water regulations that were enacted during that time to control emerging contaminants have been his biggest challenges. 

Merklin has also been involved in D&B’s years-long leadership transition process. 

“It’s not like we’re just flipping a switch,” he said. “We put together a senior management committee a few years ago, which included me and a few other people stepping into senior vice president roles at the same time I become the president. So, we’ve had a whole group of people working on this transition for three or four years now.” 

Now that he’s behind the big desk, Merklin shared some of his strategy for growing the firm.  

“We’ve always looked at organic growth,” he said. “We focus so much on client relationships and a high level of service that the next job just always comes to us with our existing clients. But that also then prepares you to be in a uniquely good position with new clients because you have a history of successful projects that you can show them.” 

Founded in 1965, D&B, which also has offices in Islandia, White Plains, Albany, East Syracuse, Somerset, N.J. and Trevose, Pa., has worked on many major infrastructure projects on Long Island, in the New York metropolitan area, and a few other states, with a special emphasis on wastewater management, drinking water quality and supply, and environmental remediation. The firm is currently working on the Carlls River Sewer Extension Project, which is part of Suffolk County’s Coastal Resiliency Initiative. 

In addition to Merklin’s new role, other D&B management changes include Philip Sachs, who becomes senior vice president of Water Supply; Olga Mubarak, who becomes senior vice president of Wastewater; and Christopher Koegel, who becomes senior vice president of Construction Management. Current senior vice presidents and principals Robert Raab and Joseph Marturano transition into newly defined roles focused on strategic initiatives, client relations, and mentoring the next generation of D&B leadership, according to the company.