TZL 1563 (web)

ON THE MOVE BLACK & VEATCH NAMES PROVEN ENERGY, NATURAL RESOURCES EXECUTIVE STEVE MECK AS GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY LEADER’S GENERAL COUNSEL Global sustainability and critical infrastructure leader Black & Veatch has appointed Steve Meck as general counsel and chief compliance officer. He also will serve as secretary of the Black & Veatch board of directors. Meck will lead the team in providing the full suite of legal support and advice needed to enable Black & Veatch’s multi- billion-dollar annual business. He will drive enterprise-wide compliance and integrity in all transactions undertaken by Black & Veatch’s global workforce of roughly 12,500 professionals.

Meck brings extensive experience in commercial contracts, enabling advanced technology investments and securing large-scale projects, including in the mining, petroleum and construction industries. Given his more than 20 years of working in United States, Japan and Australia, Meck brings an essential global perspective to propelling complex engineering projects toward execution in the fast- moving critical infrastructure space. That requires a contemporary understanding of megatrends, clients’ priorities, regulations and new technology sources. “We are very excited to have Steve join us – with his personal energy and client-

savvy approach – to lead our global legal, risk and compliance activities,” Black & Veatch Chairman and CEO Mario Azar said. “How we manage risk and performance on behalf of our clients is the core of our strategic differentiation in how we deliver value at scale as an innovative market disruptor.” A lawyer by trade, Meck has served as general counsel and chief compliance officer at The Weir Group PLC – a 150-year-old manufacturer of highly- engineered products for mining, industrial and construction sectors – and held leadership roles with mining giant BHP in Australia and the United States.

5. Don’t end a sentence with a preposition. This grammatical command stems from prepositions needing objects. Prepositions get lonely and need a noun or pronoun buddy to act upon, affect, or reference . The noun or pronoun are the objects of the preposition’s affection, if you will. When you don’t have an object for a preposition, you may get sentences that lack clarity and feel like they were cut off before they ended. For example, pretend I say, “Can we get burgers from?” You’d be waiting for me to finish my sentence to tell you where we’re getting the burgers. The problem is when writers torture a sentence within an inch of its life to avoid ending on a preposition, despite having no issues with clarity. For instance, pretend I write, “Which box does that go in?” The sentence’s meaning is clear despite it ending in a preposition. What to do instead: Avoid ending on a preposition if you’re looking for a formal tone for your document. However, avoid forcing your writing to meet the “don’t end on a preposition” guideline if it results in wordy or awkward sentences. My point in explaining these grammatical rules and when you can (and should) break them is not to arm a sea of rebel writers and overturn grammar practices. I’m not downplaying the practice of good grammar. Rather, my aim is to empower you with the knowledge that you’re not forced into a box with only one way out when you write. But, let’s face it, you can’t break the rules meaningfully and logically unless you learn the rules in the first place. So, learn about grammar. Brush off the dust from Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (the modern-day “do this and not that” for writing and grammar). When you learn and internalize the “rules,” break them as long as you have a logical and specific reason for doing so. Elizabeth Preston, Ph.D., is an executive consultant for Hurley Write and the producer and co-host of The Writing Docs podcast. Connect with her on LinkedIn .

ELIZABETH PRESTON, from page 11

grammatical logic behind this. Someone simply declared this guideline to be canon. Who is that person? No one knows. However, I’m guessing that person may have been a parent with a toddler who loved telling long-winded stories by stringing together sentences with “and” as well as “but.” If this was the case, then I understand. What to do instead: Consider your reader. Would they find starting with “and” or “but” informal or incorrect? If so, avoid using “and” or “but” at the beginning of sentences and opt for more formal transition words, or connect your sentences with a comma plus “and” or “but.” If you don’t think that your reader cares, break this “rule” if it clarifies the writing or makes it more concise. 3. Paragraphs should be three to five sentences long. The three-to-five-sentence paragraph had good intentions when you learned it in elementary school. It aimed to encourage students in the beginning stages of writing to explain their ideas sufficiently (well, as sufficiently as a second grader can). But, we’ve all moved on from the second grade, and it’s time to move on from the three-to- five-sentence paragraph. What to do instead: Have one main idea per paragraph. When you start a new main idea, start a new paragraph. Your paragraph can be one sentence or seven sentences. Let content and your reader’s desires dictate paragraph length. 4. Avoid any repetition. The idea behind avoiding repetition is to promote a smooth flow in your writing so that a reader doesn’t stop reading. Readers aren’t fans of choppy writing. But today’s readers are often skimming rather than reading documents in their entirety. Repetition acts as a neon- orange sign to readers. What to do instead: Use repetition to emphasize concepts and keywords. Avoid repetition that doesn’t have a logical reason for existing in your document.

THE ZWEIG LETTER DECEMBER 2, 2024, ISSUE 1563

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