Rich Allen

Richard K. Allen has an extensive engineering and construction background with strong North American industry knowledge coupled with construction-industry legal experience. He is the former chief operating officer for Stantec Inc.’s global operations—now a $4 billion, 22,000-employee international design and consulting professional services firm. Mr. Allen’s leadership at Stantec focused on the aggressive growth and profitable operations of Stantec’s global-wide locations. Before serving as Stantec’s COO, Mr. Allen was their east regional operating leader responsible for that unit’s financial performance while actively involved in the company’s U.S. operations acquisition and integration programs, strategic planning, budgeting and project contract and dispute resolution activities.

Mr. Allen was the past president and CEO of Dufresne-Henry, Inc. a New England-, New York- and Florida-based consulting engineering firm. He led Dufresne Henry through its ownership transition and later that company’s sale to Stantec in 2006.

An attorney and a construction dispute arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association, Mr. Allen’s was a former general partner at Gadsby Hannah, LLP (now McCarter English LLP) serving as chairperson of the design and construction law practice with a concentration on litigation, arbitration and dispute resolution as well as transactional advisory services to the design and construction industry. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Allen worked for consulting engineering firms as a project engineer and manager on numerous public work-related projects throughout New England and the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. Allen is a registered professional engineer in several states in the U.S. He earned his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and his Master of Science degree in civil engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle after completing graduate research at McGill University in Montreal. He also has a law degree from the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce Law Center and is a member of the bar in several states and has appeared before state, federal and appellate courts.