themselves faced with greater obstacles. Severe winter weather had choked the Potomac River with ice, which prevented the movement of Cianbro’s base steel from Baltimore to the jobsite at National Harbor. While Cianbro’s team would have liked to get started with assembly in January, it wasn’t until the third week in February that Cianbro’s barge and crane were able to navigate the Potomac. Now it was a battle against time. The month of March, which was spent primarily erecting the wheel, was very important to make up for the lost time due to the ice. During the months of April and May the team attacked the critical “finish” pieces of the project: the floating dock, the concrete deck, informational kiosk, loading platform, loading ramps, fencing, floating dock and canopies. The team took every advantage of good weather, and worked
longer hours and weekends to meet the goal. The support from Cianbro’s Equipment Group was impeccable throughout the project. Their exceptional level of support was underscored when they were able to secure a contract to supply the team with a critical piece of equipment necessary for erecting the spokes and ring beams: the world’s largest boom lift, which was the first model of its kind off of the Genie assembly line. “This was the perfect ‘Cianbro’ project,” said Senior Project Engineer Gabe Sloane. “Cianbro construction using Cianbro Equipment cranes on Cianbro barges to set Cianbro Fab Shop steel. It was the collaboration throughout the entire company and team that made this project a true success. No matter what came up, both the Equipment Group and the Fab Shop teams were always there to
THE WHEEL ROSTER Marvin Alvarenga Julio Arroyo Aaron Barbalate Leonard Brooks Miguel Cabrerra Tom Carranza Mike Cavalier Jake Gorman Will Harvey Eusebio Heredia Oscar Hernandez CJ Holden Bruce Hughes Paul Leighton Randy Matthew Juan Perez Will Portillo Gary Reed
Francisco Salazar Juan Salazar Gary Simmons Furron Spivey Trinidad Suarez Victor Ugalde Jose Vasquez Aric Dreher Joe Foley Gabe Sloane Wade Simons Kevin Jones Brenda Petito Brian Bacon
Richard Walkling Chris Crosby Jason Edmonds Josh Ritter Nick Rossi Malcolm Sanders Julia Smith Shawn Abramson Mitchell Ayres Rickey Bowman Steve Broznowicz Keith Campbell Frank Carter
Ray Collins Selvin Hernandez Jimmy Higgins Frank Hulseman Rick Jerome Matt Kling Gary Laskowitz Jesus Limon Durant Marion Patrick McShane Jeff Mikula Dennis Morris German Palestino John Pearson Hank Phillips Jamie Saavedra Eric Schindler Larry Winkler
Cianbro’s Chris Varnell tweets from the crane barge en route from Baltimore to National Harbor in February
help. It never mattered what time of day or what day of the week, they always came through.” The project finished exactly on time, with the last of Cianbro’s team members moving off the jobsite just as the organizers of a Grand Opening Celebration stepped onto the new Capital Wheel facility. The gala event took place on the Thursday before the long Memorial Day weekend, with Principal Owner Jon Peterson memorializing Cianbro’s efforts in his dedication remarks. “It wasn’t very long ago, back in January, when we had the announcement of the wheel,” Jon said at the podium. “It’s hard to believe that this was just 120 days ago – 120 days ago, there was nothing out on that pier. So, what we’ve done is a great accomplishment. And I want to thank Cianbro for doing that. They’re the contractor. They worked hour after hour to make it happen. So, how about a real round of applause for Cianbro!” 4 19,843 Project Safe Hours
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