News & Events
City Tech Taps Construction Industry Exec Carl J. Cosenzo ’67
to Deliver 2005 Commencement Address on June 2
-- He oversees projects from Brooklyn to the Bronx, including reconstruction of the Stillwell and Atlantic Avenue subway stations --
New York City College of Technology (City Tech) will mark the annual rite of passage for graduating students at its 65th Commencement Exercises on Thursday, June 2, beginning at 10:30 a.m., in the Theater at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. President Russell K. Hotzler will confer 1,766 degrees, including 1,063 associate and 703 baccalaureate.
Delivering the commencement address is New York City College of Technology alumnus Carl J. Cosenzo, executive vice president and operations manager, Schiavone Construction Company, Secaucus, NJ. Cosenzo, who graduated from the College in 1967 with an associate’s degree in construction technology, will receive the President’s Award.
“Carl Cosenzo provides a great example of what you can do with a degree from New York City College of Technology, hard work and determination,” said President Hotzler. “Carl has gone on to manage the affairs of one of the largest construction companies in the region and has personally administered over $2 billion in construction contracts. He has never forgotten his City Tech roots, and is the founder of the Schiavone Construction Company Scholars Program at City Tech. We are very proud of him, as we are of all of the graduates in the Class of 2005.”
The Class of 2005 valedictorian is Bensonhurst resident Nicole Caruso, 19, who is graduating in only three years with a bachelor of science degree in human services and a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Of Italian, Cuban, German, Dutch and Cherokee Indian descent, Caruso is a symbol of the diversity of the student body at City Tech and The City University of New York. Her future plans include earning a master’s degree in education and becoming an early childhood teacher.
Carl J. Cosenzo ’67
Commencement Speaker & President’s Award Recipient
Carl J. Cosenzo has 38 years of experience in the heavy construction industry, with the last 17 of them as an executive at Schiavone Construction Company. During his tenure there, the company has been awarded major contracts for highway, bridge and tunnel construction, foundations, sewerage treatment plants, subway construction and deep foundation installations.
Among his projects were the recently completed reconstruction of the Atlantic Avenue Station and the ongoing reconstruction of the Stillwell Avenue Station in Coney Island and the Times Square Station, all for the New York City Transit Authority. In addition, he is presently overseeing the construction of Water Tunnel Number 3 – Manhattan Aqueduct and Shafts; the first phase of the Croton Water Treatment Plant, located in Van Cortland Park, the Bronx; and the construction of the new South Ferry Station for the New York City Transit Authority. He is presently overseeing projects in New York with a total value in excess of $1 billion dollars.
Other projects that have been completed during Cosenzo’s tenure were the Arthur Zankel Theater located underneath Carnegie Hall and numerous bridge and highway contracts for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, New Jersey Department of Transportation, New Jersey Highway Authority, New York City Department of Transportation, New York State Department of Transportation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
After receiving his associate’s degree in construction technology, Cosenzo started his career at M.W. Kellogg Company as a cost engineer, then worked for five years as a project engineer and construction superintendent for Edward B. Fitzpatrick Associates and for three years as chief estimator for Fitzpatrick Construction Company.
Cosenzo began his tenure at Schiavone as a project superintendent on the 63rd Street Tunnel Project and senior estimator. Positions of vice president and chief estimator, executive vice president and chief estimator, and now executive vice president and operations manager soon followed. He also chairs Schiavone’s executive board.
He is the past president of the Associated General Contractors of New Jersey and a trustee of Associated General Contractors of America and of the Construction Industry Advancement Program. In addition, he is a member of the American Society of Highway Engineers.
Cosenzo lives in New Jersey, with his wife, Jeanette, and two of their four children. He was born in Canarsie, Brooklyn, and was raised in Middle Village, Queens.
5/4/05
