Two longtime and stalwart ENR editors recently retired: Executive Events Editor Jan Tuchman and Research and Associate Editor Scott Lewis.
Tuchman stepped down in 2022 from her 21-year job as editor-in-chief to serve as ENR’s executive editor for events. This month will be the first time in 48 years that he will not be on the magazine’s staff, a fitting time to reflect on what he has achieved.
Tuchman’s journey began in Akron, Ohio, where her architect father let her join him on site visits as a child. Journalism became his passion and he completed a master’s degree at the University of Colorado. He moved to New York City to take the job at ENR and covered major news events, including reporting on the aftermath and industry impact of the devastating Mexico City earthquake and licensing hearings after the Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse. His ability to mobilize ENR’s coverage on key issues affecting the industry and his leadership skills led to five promotions to positions of increasing responsibility.
During her tenure as editor-in-chief, Tuchman guided ENR as the digital revolution reshaped both the construction industry and journalism. At the same time, he led the ENR as changing demographics and workforce needs opened up construction to new groups of people in workplaces and offices.
Through ENR’s coverage of bias in the workplace and its support of key events such as the Innovative Women in Construction event, now more than 20 years old, Tuchman has done much to advance issues for those which for a long time have been underrepresented in construction.
There is also a more transcendent aspect to Tuchman’s career, in maintaining high standards of journalism at ENR and in service to this field and to construction. With an emphasis on reason and unity, and many hours of associational service and public appearances, he helped preserve the industry’s identity in the face of differences that have often threatened to tear it apart.
A native of New York City, Lewis joined ENR in 1997 after 17 years as a reporter at NBC News. Since then, her phone and email inbox have received a steady stream of inquiries from subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Many times a day, Lewis’s colleagues would hear him over the cubicle walls at ENR’s New York City headquarters explaining our exclusive cost data to subscribers or guiding readers to the sources of information
Tuchman asked Lewis to produce articles on building records. “We had a three-minute conversation,” he says. What evolved into one of the most popular features on ENR.com detailing world record structures. Lewis’s role evolved in other ways, with extensive research in support of ENR content and interactions with archivists, librarians and licensors of that information. His thoughtfulness and dedication as ENR’s “historian” led to his popular series this year to commemorate its 150th anniversary.
Fortunately, both won’t be stepping far from ENR’s orbit. Lewis plans to continue writing and Tuchman will continue to program ENR’s Los Angeles and NY/NJ Infrastructure Forums as a consultant.
Scott Blair
Chief Editor
