Orion Announces New CFO, New HQ
Orion Group Holdings Inc., a leading specialty marine construction and construction company, announced June 10 that Scott Thanisch, the current executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, will depart the company to pursue another opportunity. Alison Vasquez, a someone with extensive financial leadership experience, will join Orion as the company’s executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer effective June 23. Thanisch will remain in an advisory position until July 1 to facilitate a smooth transition.
Vasquez has more than 25 years of public company experience in both finance and accounting. Before joining Orion, she served as senior vice president and chief accounting officer at KBR Inc., where she led a team of more than 350 financial professionals spanning accounting, tax, external reporting, internal controls, global shared services, financial systems and government compliance. During her tenure at KBR, she served in various roles, including vice president and chief auditor, vice president of investor relations, vice president of FP&A, and vice president of finance.
Prior to joining KBR in 2016, she served as chief auditor at Energy Transfer LP and then Noble Corporation plc. She started her career in 1998 providing assurance and advisory services at Arthur Anderson and then at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Vasquez holds both a Bachelor of Business Administration degree and a Master in Professional Accounting degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a certified public accountant in Texas.
Travis Boone, Orion’s president and CEO, said, “We are excited to welcome Alison to Orion and to the executive leadership team. With over 25 years of deep public company experience in finance, accounting, auditing, and investor relations, Alison’s proven leadership skills, mergers and acquisitions experience and focus on predictable execution of financial and strategic goals in a global construction company made her a natural fit for this important role in Orion’s next phase of growth and profitability.”
Austin Shanfelter, chairman of the board, said, “We are truly honored to have Alison join Orion. She brings the right skills and construction experience at the right time in our development as a company. Under Travis’ leadership, we are continuing to build an outstanding team to drive long-term value.”
Orion Group provides services both on and off the water in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada and the Caribbean Basin through its marine segment and its concrete segment. The company’s marine segment provides construction and dredging services relating to marine transportation facility construction, marine pipeline construction, marine environmental structures, dredging of waterways, channels and ports, environmental dredging, design and specialty services.
Orion’s concrete segment provides turnkey concrete construction services including place and finish, site prep, layout, forming, and rebar placement for large commercial, structural and other associated business areas. The company is headquartered in Houston with regional offices throughout its operating areas.
The company is in the process of moving its headquarters to East River, a new mixed-use development located on Buffalo Bayou, near the Houston Ship Channel. East River, for which Orion did the concrete work, won a Houston Business Journal Landmark Award for a mixed-use development. The development spans 150 acres and is the largest such project in the Houston area.
