David Nevins Interviews Tim Regan, President & CEO, Whiting-Turner Contracting Company Dr. Esa Davis, Associate Vice President for Community Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine

Timothy Regan grew up in the Gardenville neighborhood of northeast Baltimore City. He attended Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, graduating in 1973. Regan then graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. Upon his graduation, Regan worked with the Maryland State Highway Administration in construction inspection. In 1980, he moved to Whiting-Turner as a project engineer, where he now serves as President and CEO. As Regan began his career with Whiting-Turner, he worked on utility, public works and heavy industrial projects including water, wastewater, power and waste-to-energy projects. As part of that work, and in partnership with a Whiting-Turner superintendent, Regan received a patent for a Telescoping Scaffold used to help construct two three-million-gallon egg-shaped concrete digesters at the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant in East Baltimore. In the early 1990’s, Regan was part of a team that led the expansion of Whiting-Turner’s presence in the life sciences industries, including biotechnology, pharmaceutical processing and federal laboratories. These industry clients included various private biotechnology companies, as well as the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Bureau of ATF.

Following the passing of longtime President and CEO Willard Hackerman in 2014, Regan succeeded his mentor. Under Regan, Whiting-Turner has continued to grow and expand. The company has added over 30 new locations, expanded their national programs and grown annual revenues to over $12 billion.

As President and CEO, Regan oversees Whiting-Turner’s 60+ entrepreneurial-led regional locations across the United States. Whiting-Turner is ranked third largest domestic builder by Engineering News-Record with over 600 active projects nationally and 60,000 trade partner craftspeople working in concert with 4,600 Whiting-Turner management and supervisory personnel. He is tasked with keeping the company in alignment with its core values of integrity, excellence, experience and leadership. He also leads the charge in Whiting-Turner’s commitment to safety, which he considers a foundational value of the company. Additionally, he leads the company’s philanthropic endeavors and its focus on creating the industry’s most welcoming jobsites and workplaces.

Regan sits on the board of many distinguished organizations. These include the Board of Directors of the Greater Baltimore Committee, the University of Maryland Clark School of Engineering Board of Visitors, University of Maryland College Park Foundation Board of Trustees and the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation.

Much like his predecessor and mentor Mr. Hackerman, Regan has a passion for helping others and lifting the local community. This is exhibited by his co-founding of TouchPoint Baltimore with his friend and Exelon Utilities’ CEO, Calvin Butler. Located at Mondawmin Mall in West Baltimore, TouchPoint Baltimore is partnered with three high-performing non-profit organizations with the goals of creating a workforce pipeline and scaling collective social impact by leveraging the strengths of each organization for the betterment of the local neighborhood and its residents. In addition to TouchPoint Baltimore, Regan and his wife Joanne purchased the former Target retail building at Mondawmin Mall with the goal of making it a hub for various organizations including local entrepreneurs, TouchPoint’s new home, Whiting-Turner’s mid-town office, as well as several healthcare service organizations. The hope is that The Village at Mondawmin will help to unleash significant human and economic potential in some of the historically underserved communities of West Baltimore.

Esa M. Davis, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.A.F.P., is a Professor of Family and Community Medicine, the Associate Vice President of Community Health, Senior Associate Dean of Population Health and Community Medicine at the and Director of Health Equity for the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing at the University of Maryland Baltimore. She is also the Principal investigator and Director of the Transforming Bio-medical Research and Academic Faculty Through Opportunity, Training and Mentorship (TRANSFORM) program.

Dr Davis’s research areas include understanding perinatal determinants of adverse maternal cardiovascular health outcomes and in improving treatment strategies for tobacco use disorder in both hospitalized and presurgical patients. Her research has contributed new knowledge on the relationship of perinatal risk factors for maternal obesity, racial inequities, and adverse maternal and child health outcomes, including gestational diabetes, peripartum cardioyopathy and hypertension disorders of pregnancy. She has conducted randomized comparative effectiveness and pragmatic trials on screening strategies for gestational diabetes, strategies to reduce postpartum hypertension, and using family home visitation to improve maternal cardiovascular health, and strategies to treat hospitalized tobacco users after discharge. Her research has involved multidisciplinary teams and partnerships with community-based organizations. Her research has been funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), National Institutes of Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She has served on national committees including National Academy of Sciences, American Heart Association Research Committee, and chaired Peer Review Sub-committee. She currently serves on the US Preventive Services Task Force, the American Heart Association Funding and Quality Certification Committees.

Dr. Davis is a practicing board certified family physician, who maintains a primary care practice and has focused on providing women health services to underserved communities.

She teaches and mentors students and trainees across all levels and disciplines. She has extensive teaching and mentoring experience and has won several research and teaching awards. She is dedicated to improving the career pathway for underrepresented minorities and women in science and medicine.

She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and minor in Chemistry. Dr. Davis earned her M.D. from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and completed a residency in family medicine at Overlook Hospital in New Jersey. She completed her postdoctoral research fellowship as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and a National Research Service Award Fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She earned her M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.  She is married to a cardiologist and has two teenage children.

David Nevins is president & CEO of Nevins & Associates, a highly regarded strategic communications company and proactive public relations partner. The firm’s regional and national client base is a unique mix of organizations across a variety of industries including: healthcare, professional service firms, finance, not-for-profits, distributors, state agencies, national media companies, technology, political and grassroots campaigns, real estate development, sporting events, and more.

With more than 30 years of experience in marketing, public relations, and community and government relations, David is a talented and seasoned executive. Prior to founding Nevins & Associates in 1983, David served as the Director of Marketing for both Towson University and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In 2001, he was tapped by the CEO of Comcast to employ his marketing expertise as President of the company’s regional sports network, Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic. David is a Past President of the Board of Governors for the Center Club and is a former Chairman of the Board of Regents for the University System of Maryland, a position to which he was appointed by the Governor of Maryland. David has chaired the Maryland Public Broadcasting Commission and the Maryland Higher Education Loan Corporation, served as President of both the Jewish National Fund and the Towson Business Association and was a member of the PNC Bank board.

David is highly involved in the business, civic, and political communities, and his many years of active leadership in numerous organizations have built a network of contacts that he regularly puts to use for the firm’s clients. For more information, visit www.nevinspr.com.