Posted on May 28, 2025
Gerard A. Neumann Jr., 83, a former U.S. Navy Seabee officer who became, at age 38, CEO of family- owned New York City-based marine and sewer contractor Spearin, Preston & Burrows, died April 5, said a family obituary. He also was president and labor relations director of the General Contractors Association of New York who negotiated union contracts and helped mediate many labor disputes, and is a former president of industry professionals group The Moles and an executive committee member of the New York Building Congress.
Spearin, Preston & Burrows became the marine construction division of Massachusetts contractor Modern Continental in 2001, which itself was merged into a division of Quincy, Mass., contractor Jay Cashman Inc. in 2004. Neumann retired from the company in 2007 and was an independent expert witness consultant. He also briefly worked for Kiewit, says his son Mark, who is the company’s New Jersey-based infrastructure east commercial director.
Neumann’s first project for Spearin, Preston & Burrows was as an assistant superintendent for a cable laying project at Cook Inlet in Anchorage, Alaska, says the family obituary.
He also managed firm construction of major marine projects in New York City and elsewhere, including Pier 40, which was built in the 1960s as a cruise port and became a waterfront park in the late 1990s, Battery Park Ferry Terminal and the former Wall Street heliport, recently renamed as Downtown Skyport as it undergoes a major upgrade to become a multi-modal aviation hub.
Neumann endowed a Seabee scholarship in 1972 and was also a trustee of the College of New Rochelle.
The family requests that donations in Neumann’s memory be made to Parkinson’s research through the Michael J. Fox Foundation, https://tribute.michaeljfox.org/tribute-page.php?id=3163
