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...industry professionals feared responding because some
critics are family members of 9/11 victims. Fire code consultant
Richard C. Schulte used his
professional training, experience and logic to advocate that
the public was being misled into believing that tall buildings
could, and should, be made terrorist-proof. His words have
resonated with the industry, and Schulte, who runs a one-man
operation near Chicago, has come to symbolize the frustration
and concern of professionals coming to terms with the attack’s
impact on future building design and construction.
 Faced
with a shortage of skilled workers, the union sector of construction
is eyeing returning and unemployed military veterans to fill
the gap and launch new careers. The new employment opportunities
are coming from Helmets to Hardhats, a Web-based recruitment
program run by a labor-management board of trustees. The brainchild
of Joseph Maloney, secretary-treasurer
of the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Dept.,
it has grown from one veteran placement in a building trades
apprenticeship program in 2003 to 13,540 placements by fall
2004. Next year, H2H will expand to recruit construction managers.
John
Moores, owner of baseball’s San Diego Padres and
the city’s designated developer of a new sports village
district, went where no developer has before. He risked millions
of his own money to transform San Diego’s most derelict
district into a vibrant 24/7 community that could be a model
for other urban sports development. Moores’ unique deal
with the city obligated him to develop a ballpark, and more
than $300 million of residential, hotel and retail space.
The controversial program was halted by opponents for 13 months,
which cost the team $65 million, but it has now far exceeded
expectations. Moores’ development has been a catalyst
for $1.2 billion in additional private projects in the 100-block
district, and property values have soared.
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| Sticking
it. New material is like steel-belted duct tape. |
A
new product called Hardwire inexpensively and elegantly fills
a niche between carbon fiber and steel rebar in reinforcing
structures ranging from big-box store floor slabs to public
buildings threatened by terrorist attack. George
Tunis created it in a Maryland garage, using the same
steel-belt technology long applied to reinforcing radial tires.
The material, dubbed "steel-belted duct tape," is
applied using common construction tools and adhesives to retrofit
or repair structures. The military is researching Hardwire
as lightweight vehicle armor, and its use in bolstering plywood
may make frame houses hurricane-resistant.
Tasked
with launching the massive $18.4-billion U.S.-funded effort
to rebuild Iraq, retired U.S. Navy Adm. David
J. Nash stepped up to lead the Pentagon’s streamlining
of a complex military procurement process to rapidly award
reconstruction work, even as hostilities continued. Under
Nash’s direction, the Iraq Program Management Office
mobilized contractors, workers and equipment to the war-torn
country. Despite insurgent attacks and escalating security
concerns and costs, more than $1 billion in construction contracts
was put in place between March 2004 and Nash’s departure
from Baghdad in September.
Thomas
Rogér, a vice president at Gilbane Building
Co., channeled his post-9/11 grief over the loss of his daughter
Jean, a flight attendant on American Airlines’ Flight
11, into a crusade to impart an engineer’s technical
savvy and a survivor’s sensibility into the delicate
process of reconstruction at the World Trade Center site,
particularly the memorial to victims. Roger’s role as
pro bono technical director to the largest 9/11 family group
has involved almost weekly trips to Ground Zero from his New
Haven, Conn., job as project executive for that city’s
$1.2-billion school reconstruction. He has carved out a key
role in helping reconcile survivor emotions and the physical,
economic and political realities of site reconstruction.
In 2000, Richard H.F. Jackson
was chosen to lead FIATECH, a new consortium of facility and
infrastructure builders and owners. He was tasked with helping
the construction industry find useable technologies to improve
project delivery. Propelled by Jackson’s missionary zeal
in turning fragmented problems into clear action plans, FIATECH
has become a powerful agent for innovation and change. Its
Technology Development Roadmap, delivered in 2004, has already
identified technology answers for project delivery problems.
Practitioners, academics and funding sources, both inside
and outside industry, are finally getting a clear message
about construction’s needs and are coordinating efforts
to meet them.
Completion of Iraq’s Highway 1 construction project had
languished for two decades, but when the U.S. invaded in 2003
it became critical as the lifeline for endless convoys and
the country’s economic rebirth. U.S. Navy Lt.
Li-Ping Sung, project manager and liaison to local
contractors, U.S. diplomats and Iraqi politicians, steered
the project through insurgent violence and political minefields
to meet a tight deadline to finish a 144-km highway gap in
advance of a massive troop rotation. Military commanders recognized
the Highway 1 project as the most important construction job
for U.S. forces in Iraq.
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| Corrosive?
Industry was warned that lumber could impact fasteners.
|
Development
of practical devices to monitor flood scouring that can cause
catastrophic bridge failures by loosening supports long eluded
inventors until Joe Scannell,
president of U.S. Engineering Solutions, developed ScourWatch.
Now used by many state highway departments, the automated
data service gathers localized, real-time rainfall data, tracks
movement of storms, and matches volume and velocity estimates
to bridge-specific engineering data supplied by states. When
bridge safety parameters are at risk of being exceeded, ScourWatch
alerts engineers to assess the danger and take action.
Gary Johnson, senior environmental
engineer at the Connecticut Dept. of Environmental Protection,
crafted a nitrogen credit trading program for the state’s
79 wastewater treatment plants to curb harmful nitrogen discharge
into Long Island Sound. Instead of adopting a traditional,
prescriptive regulatory approach, Johnson’s plan gives
utilities flexibility in reaching stricter nitrogen limits
under a three-stage timetable. In 2002, the program removed
2.8 million lb of nitrogen from effluent streams.
As manager of engineering R&D for metal fastener manufacturer
Simpson Strong-Tie Co. Inc., Mark G.
Crawford led an intensive effort to determine corrosive
effects on fasteners and connectors of new types of pressure-treated
lumber in the marketplace in 2004 that did not contain chromated
copper arsenate. It was phased out due to health concerns.
Discovering that some new lumber was up to twice as corrosive
to steel fasteners, he launched a national campaign to spread
the word on best practices for using fasteners on such materials.
The effort helped alleviate potential for failure of improperly
used fasteners on structures.
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| Critical
Path. Gasoline trucks line up to travel Iraq's
Highway 1 to supply U.S. troops. Completing its construction
was critical for logistics. |
CH2M Hill’s surprise acquisition of engineer Lockwood
Greene from bankrupt J.A. Jones, a risky move that took effect
in 2004, typifies Ralph R. Peterson’s
innovative leadership that makes him a role model for the
21st-Century industry CEO. CH2M Hill has grown 15% a year
since he took over in 1991, an astounding rate for an already
large firm. Under Peterson, it has been an innovator in technology
development and value pricing, breaking long-held industry
norms. He has bolstered employee ownership value without sacrificing
attention to corporate governance, even as a privately held
firm. And, most importantly, Peterson has emerged as a statesman
for issues that affect the industry and the world.
(Photo top by Hardware LLC, middle by
Arch Chemicals, bottom by Tom Sawyer for ENR)
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