ISSUE 72
INSIDE OUT
NEWSLETTER WINTER | 2019
BergerABAM: An innovative history and a bright future work, they also registered their own engineering firm, a sister company called Anderson and Anderson Consulting Engineers in 1952. Bolstered by the national expansion of the highway system, population growth, and their ideal factory location in Tacoma, the brothers managed to get their first contract, an alternative design for the Tacoma City Light Building in 1953. Several years later, they hired Halvard (Hal) Birkeland as a principal in the engineering firm in 1956, and two years later they hired Bob Mast. This paved the way for the now widely recognized name and acronym ABAM.
Changing the Industry
Let’s ask the beam. Art Anderson explaining the behavior of a prestressed concrete beam.
Over 66 years ago, BergerABAM started with two brothers from Tacoma, Washington, Art and Tom Anderson, who believed in an innovative material we now take for granted: prestressed concrete. Together, they pioneered and adapted precast, prestressed concrete for practical use in the American and Pacific Northwest market, transforming the nation’s construction industry. Today, their legacy is BergerABAM, a multidisciplinary engineering firm with nine offices in the United States, creating engineering solutions around the globe. As we move into 2019 with new opportunities for growth, we are looking back to see how far we have come.
Our Foundation In 1951, the Anderson brothers founded Concrete Engineering Company, later named Concrete Technology Corporation (CTC). Their mission was to manufacture precast, prestressed concrete, an idea still in its infancy in the American construction market. To bid on engineering
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The firm was founded on the idea of engineering highperformance structures, and ABAM worked diligently to develop high-efficiency structural elements that eventually found their way into common use. By the 1960s, the State of Washington adopted new standards for using prestressed concrete as new highway jobs were developing. Work began to pick up, and the team found success in new opportunities, such as logging road bridges, highways, pier construction, and buildings. Iconic projects from this era included Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, which Art and Tom took from design to completed construction in just 99 days using their concrete. They advanced to using prestressed concrete piles and slabs for piers, which were stronger than traditional wood and concrete piles and could support heavier loads. (continued on page 2)
To update your contact information, please email newsletter@abam.com EDITORS/CONTRIBUTORS Nora Bretaña, Danny Christian, Karen Harbaugh, Lauren Obermark, Jana Roy, Diann Scherer, and Kelsey Hilmes DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Ailoan Che and Kelsey Hilmes