Dzenana Mruckovski, former public works director for the city of Crestwood, Mo., is the new director of facilities in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, announced Gary S. Wihl, PhD, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities.
Mruckovski succeeds Tom Simmons, who retired May 6 after nearly half a century of service at Washington University.
Mruckovski is responsible for managing and supervising the academic, research and administrative space needs in Arts & Sciences, which include state-of-the-art scientific labs, computing facilities, performance spaces, departmental office suites, and work spaces for individual faculty.
She oversees the planning, maintenance, renovation and operation of the 41 buildings occupied by the 41 centers, departments and programs in Arts & Sciences as well as the creation of any new buildings.
“This position impacts all aspects of our activities: from the research facilities of our faculty, the offices of our staff, to the classrooms in which our students learn,” Wihl says.
“There is a vast amount of coordination, planning and oversight involved. I’m delighted to have recruited Dzenana, who has the creativity, technical preparation and management experience to handle the demands of the position.”
Mruckovski served as director of public works for Crestwood from August 2008 until joining Arts & Sciences in April. She had been Crestwood’s assistant director of public works for a little more than a year before being named director.
Among her duties, she was responsible for the daily operation of Crestwood’s Public Works Department, including engineering, planning and zoning, street maintenance, building maintenance, park maintenance, code enforcement and animal control for the city of nearly 12,000 residents.
Prior to her positions with Crestwood, she was project engineer for the City of St. Louis from 2001-07.
Among the city projects she provided management and engineering services — from the contract to completion — are the St. Louis City Justice Center, an $80 million project; Multi-Modal Terminal Building at $13.1 million; the St. Louis Police Department Forensic Laboratory at $8.1 million; and the Mel Carnahan Courthouse renovations at $4 million.
Mruckovski is a native of Bosnia who came to the United States after fleeing her country’s civil war, settling in St. Louis in 1994 with her family when she was a teenager.
She earned a bachelor of science in civil engineering in 2001 from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a master of science in engineering management in 2004 from the University of Missouri-Rolla, now the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
“Dzenana interacted with several of our faculty and administrators in a rigorous interview process and impressed everyone with her achievements, energy, work ethic and intelligence,” says Dennis J. Martin, associate dean in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences.
“She is an excellent listener, and since joining us in April she is proving to be just what we need as we embark upon a number of complex renovations and construction projects on important academic spaces.”