A measure of fortitude

Project manager’s experience, management style help bridge reach milestone

By Angelle Bergeron

Listen closely and you can almost hear Allan Nelson exhaling a sigh of relief.

The project manager for the joint venture partnership building the $266.8 million U.S. Hwy. 90 Bridge over St. Louis Bay in Mississippi met the first milestone May 16 and won a $5 million bonus. The milestone was achieved despite widespread devastation in the area, a limited workforce, no housing, a breakneck schedule and serious delays in the test-pile program.

When Granite Construction Inc. of Watsonville, Calif., and Archer Western Contractors of Atlanta, Ga., delivered two lanes of traffic on the 1.9-mi bridge only 16 months after receiving the notice to proceed, the joint venture did not simply restore infrastructure to the region’s economic recovery.

GAW and the project team provided “a national symbol – a symbol of reconstruction and recovery for the citizens of the Gulf Coast,” says Winchester Falbe, resident engineer for HNTB Corp. of Lake Mary, Fla., which provided design and CE&Iservices on the project. 

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Leading the list is the upcoming $4.2 billion Thyssen Krupp steel plant near Mobile. It will create 2,700 jobs when it opens in 2When GAW had completed 100% of the pilings, caps and columns, 97.5% of the girders and 64% of the decks for the first milestone in April, Nelson’s said, “It feels pretty damn good.”

Although the contractor still faces a $50,000-per-day penalty for each day exceeding the Nov. 30 milestone to deliver six lanes of traffic on two adjacent >> bridges, it’s now almost like coasting downhill.

“There’s an awful lot done that I don’t have to worry about any more,” Nelson says.

The old bridge was almost completely destroyed in August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge lifted about 99.5% of the decks and bents off of pile caps. At the time, Nelson was in California, working out of Granite’s home office on a highway project in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

He arrived in Mississippi Feb. 1, 2006, and “thought television hadn’t done it justice,” he says. “People just have no idea what it was like here. I’d seen devastation from tornadoes, but this was completely different. The extent of the destruction is unbelievable. We’ve met a number of people around here and what they’ve gone through is really heartbreaking.”

Although Nelson has been in construction since 1967 and delivered many high-profile projects, it didn’t take him long to realize this project was different when measured in personal significance to those struggling to survive. He recalls meeting a local man who “hadn’t seen a piece of his home since the storm. When he found out I was working on this bridge, he almost cried. He said, hurry up and get it done.”

He laughs, telling the story about the Rotary Club that offered to throw a crawfish boil if GAW delivered the bridge in two or three months. But his face shows something much more vulnerable when he talks about Max Williams, a man who is about his age, close to retirement and lost everything to Katrina.

“I heard the only thing he found was his refrigerator,” Nelson says of Williams, vice president of sales for Gulf Coast Pre-Stress Inc. of Pass Christian, Miss., one of six prestress suppliers for the project. 

Nelson says he and everyone involved in the project were compelled to perform when they saw the suffering people and realized the importance of the bridge. Drawing from throughout the Gulf Coast region, as well as the combined resources of GAW, Nelson built a team of 300 employees, equipment, materials and subcontractors. GAW built work camps to house employees and offered monetary incentives for those who remained throughout the duration of the contract.

Most of the people on the project had never worked together before, so it was a challenge to “make them work together as a team and get the bridge together in record-setting time,” Nelson says.

To forge bonds among team members, Nelson organized a fishing trip for superintendents and set numerous, mini-milestones throughout the project that were rewarded with barbecues, parties and T-shirts.

“The one thing we have in common is getting the bridge done on time, and team members take a certain amount of pride in being able to say they worked on the bridge,” Nelson says.

The project manager attributes his leadership skills in part to his military training. He served two years of active duty as an officer in the U. S. Army’s 5th Infantry Division

“In the military, you can demand respect because of your rank, but the best way is to earn it,” Nelson says. “Support your people, take care of your people and they’ll take care of you.”

Indeed, Nelson, and the whole GAW team were “good people to work for,” Williams says.

“Once Allan moved into the project, it was pretty obvious it would be a pleasure to work with him,” Williams adds. “It’s almost like the old days, when you shake hands and that’s your contract. That’s the kind of man Allan is, and he expects the same from others.”

Although the project manager kept a constant eye on the project, he worked more as a partner with subs and suppliers in resolving any problems that arose.

“It’s not like, it’s your problem, take care of it,” Williams says. “He asks, ‘What can we do to help you?’”

While driving test piles, GAW encountered soil conditions that “presented some unusual geotechnical challenges that put workers a month or two behind,” says Steve Twedt, assistant district engineer of construction for the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

Still, Nelson never wavered in his commitment to deliver the bridge on time.

“Allan Nelson has always remained confident, and we think his confidence and his attitude are part of the reason they made it,” Twedt says. “People never conceived they couldn’t do it. A lot of that success had to do with Allan-his attitude, his ability to locate resources and bring them in there and his optimism. I think that optimism was contagious, and his supervisors and everyone working with him were affected by that.”

HNTB’s Falbe adds: “A normal project like this would have taken two to three years of construction to meet the May 16 milestone, and we’ve done that in 11 months. He (Nelson) has always been confident that we were going to make the deadline.”

The first piles weren’t driven until June 15, 2006. Nelson ramped up the schedule to work seven days a week and motivated the team to “optimize their performance,” says Brian Kaub, Granite’s director of large project business.