Ken Champion ’75

from XAVIER Magazine 2020|2021, Connections & Bonds, Xavier High School, Middletown, CT

Jack Gastler ’74

Ellis Island… Statue of Liberty… United Nations…

Ken Champion ’75 Has Built A Career Preserving History

Ken Champion ’75 has worked on some of the most famous landmarks and buildings in our country, among them the restoration of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, and the modernization and renovation of the United Nations.

He’s come a long way from the late ’60s when his parents were building a home in Clinton and the contractor gave him scraps of lumber to build a multi-level treehouse. One problem: when the leaves fell off the trees, the treehouse, not a work of art, looked like a shanty, according to Champion. Down it came.

“It has been quite a ride,” Champion said of his 40-year career. He is the President and Founder of Champion Construction Management Services, Inc., based in Orlando, Fla.

His first big project was Walt Disney’s Epcot Center, which opened in 1982. The Statue of Liberty project was completed in 1986 for a centennial celebration.

“Imagine being on a ferry boat out to take over the renovation of the Statue of Liberty,” Champion said. “A little kid from Randolph Road.”

There’s nothing little about Champion, from his physical stature (6-foot-7) to his stature in the construction management business.

Champion played basketball for Artie Kohs at Xavier, and the Falcons’ 1974 team went to the Class A semifinals. Champion had a school-record 56 blocked shots that season. Champion and his wife Mary have five grandchildren, four boys. He thinks they will be on the tall side. “I have a feeling Mike Kohs will be looking for them,” he says of Artie’s son, now the Xavier basketball coach.

The Xavier experience remains special to Champion.

“I liked the discipline, the support and confidence that teachers, coaches and Brothers, in no particular order, gave you,” Champion said. “You’re a young man and impressionable, and you listen … they give you a heck of a foundation, and a lot of confidence.”

He carried that to Central Connecticut State University, where he played basketball, got a degree in construction management, met and would later marry his “college sweetheart” Mary, and charge forward to a fascinating career.

He’s led plenty of multi-million dollar projects, not to mention many that have topped a billion dollars, a far cry from the treehouse days.

“They’re very high-pressure deliveries,” Champion said. “It goes back to the wiring that Xavier gave you: how to react, how to deal with things, how to keep your composure, how to have faith. And it’s a confidence … you were expected to do the job, do the right thing.”

One of his commercial projects was a $5 billion phase of Hudson Yards. He also managed major terminal builds for Delta Airlines at LaGuardia and JFK Airports in New York.

“Hudson Yards, we were going six days a week, 3,000 construction workers,” Champion said. “It’s a massive undertaking. LaGuardia, JFK, same thing … I don’t know, it’s a gift of peace and confidence that we know how to do this.

“You get everyone on the same page. Kind of like Xavier Falcons sports. You do your job, execute, and I walked out of there in 1975 with all the ingredients. It’s what you can do with it ... you know, Falcons don’t do well in the backseat. Xavier teaches you leadership, accountability, all that when you’re a teenager, if you’re open to it. If you are, you can do anything. I really believe that.”

In the late 2000s, Champion was fishing at the end of a workday in Florida when the phone rang. The caller was Michael Adlerstein, with whom Champion had worked on the Ellis Island-Statue of Liberty project. Adlerstein had been Chief Historic Architect for the U.S. Department of Interior and now was Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations.

“I need you for one more dance,” Champion remembers Adlerstein telling him. “Will you move to New York?

Champion’s response: “The U.N. … I said absolutely.”

The 2 million square foot campus had not been renovated in 60 years. These days, Champion says he is trying to take the foot off the gas a bit, fishing with the grandkids or taking them down to the basement of his home where there is a massive model railroad with various lines that took about five years to complete. What the heck, he’s used to big projects that take time.