In Commonwealth Engineering and Construction, Varello has created a company that addresses the need to provide innovative and cost effective engineering and construction services while maintaining a positive and supportive work environment for the company’s employee-owners.

In reuniting with Commonwealth CEO Paul Varello, Kirchner notes the pair has an opportunity to bring the value of their many years of experience to a new generation of engineers. The concept of mentoring is central to the company’s charter, as is a system of rewarding innovative approaches to efficiently executing work processes.

Kirchner is a registered professional engineer in Texas and a member of various technical societies, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the National Society of Professional Engineers. He sits on the Advisory Board of a major geotechnical firm and is also a past chairman of the Executive Board of the Houston Business Council and the Industry Advisory Board of the Center for Construction Education at Texas A&M University. He holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Miami and a master's of science degree in Business Administration from the California State University at Northridge.

Lloyd G. Kirchner is Senior Vice President of Commonwealth Engineering and Construction, LLC, responsible for Operations. Kirchner came to Commonwealth from a similar capacity at Capstone Turbine Corporation where he held various executive positions, including the management of Engineering and Operations.

Prior to his affiliation with Capstone, Kirchner worked for Amoco Corporation. During his last three years with Amoco, he was a member of the Worldwide Engineering & Construction Group and was assigned to the Polypropylene No. 2 Project, a $137 million effort to build a 200,000 MTPY petrochemical plant in Geel , Belgium . As Commercial Project Manager during FEL, he implemented foreign currency hedging strategies and led negotiations of engineered equipment and construction subcontracts which contributed to a 9 percent cost under-run. Shortly after groundbreaking, Kirchner assumed the role of EPC Manager. In March 1997, the project was completed ahead of schedule, producing on-specification polymer at design rates within seven days of initial start-up, and achieving a safety record with no lost time accidents.

Kirchner had initially joined Amoco Production Company as a Facility Engineer in the West Texas District in 1985 after receiving his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University . Early in his Amoco career, his assignments included Production Engineer, Automation Engineer and Project Engineer. From 1989 to 1994, Kirchner worked in the Worldwide Engineering and Construction group in various executive roles. He received an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1991.

Donald F. Coleman is Commonwealth's Sr. Vice President Commercial. Coleman has over 30 years experience in the E&C industry, including key positions in marketing, sales, operations and business strategy for Fluor. He has been involved in setting strategy and business design for Commonwealth from the earliest meetings held to conceptualize the company. He brings to our clients innovative and flexible approaches to address customer needs in an environment of high demand for critical process plant capital project resources.

In the E&C industry, he has held several sales and marketing leadership positions, and as an individual contributor led over a hundred successful campaigns in energy and chemical markets. These encompass refining and petrochemicals, production module fabrication, sub-sea production, sub-sea pipelines, and gas processing efforts. Major projects were located in the U.S., Norway, Saudi Arabia, Korea, among others, and utilized both open-shop and union construction execution. He also has negotiated several strategic partnering and alliance relationships in E&C. Coleman has served on a major corporation office leadership team, and on several sales/people development boards. Other background outside the E&C industry includes wind-turbine capital equipment and advanced aerospace composites fabrication. He also serves on the Advisory Board of a leading Texas minority-owned geotechnical firm.

Coleman holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College, and an MBA from the Drucker Center, Claremont Graduate University.

Donald G. Hilton P.E.  is responsible for leading the engineering team to provide our clients with a market advantage by effectively executing projects with a “get it done” attitude.

Don brings over 30 years of engineering design, fabrication and construction experience in the chemical and refinery arena. Don has been involved in both domestic and overseas projects with the design, procurement, fabrication, delivery and start-up of all types of mechanical equipment. Don holds a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Lamar University, and a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Houston.  He is a registered engineer in the state of Texas.