A Midwest Construction Profile

Overheard Conversation Leads To Project of a Lifetime

Text & Photos by Craig Barner

Managing the construction of a 92-story building in Chicago takes brass.

In Tim Snyder’s case, brass is one of the qualities that got him the job.

It was September 2004. Snyder was overseeing the final stages of the 60-story Millennium Centre condominium in Chicago for London-based contractor AMEC PLC. One day he overheard a voice message while in the office of another AMEC executive.

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The message was from Andrew Weiss, executive vice president of New York-based The Trump Organization. He was seeking feedback from the AMEC executive for a candidate to manage the construction of the proposed Trump International Hotel & Tower.

“I remembered the phone number,” Snyder says.

As he was heading home on the Eisenhower Expressway later, Snyder called Weiss from his car and left a message. About 20 minutes later, the call was returned.

Snyder expressed his interest in the project, and later the same day he sent Weiss his resume. Interviews followed, and the project was Snyder’s in November 2004.

“I wanted to be on that job,” Snyder, 55, says.

Construction Manager Chutzpah

The chutzpah, resourcefulness and passion that Snyder exhibited to get the position as construction manager for The Trump Organization in Chicago is proving valuable because of the complexity of the task.

The building will be one of the top-10 tallest buildings worldwide and the second tallest in the U.S.—after the 108-floor Sears Tower—when it is complete in early 2009, says Geri Kery, operations manager of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. In mid-June the Trump project had reached the 41st floor.

Snyder’s ingenuity, savvy and heart are tested frequently because of the many rolls he has to fulfill.He was drill sergeant, celebrity watcher, secretary, editor, psychiatrist, coach and business agent on the day of the interview with Midwest Construction.

As expected, he is also technical expert in the gritty details of construction. For instance, urgent phone calls were made to schedule a meeting about problems that arose due to a change to the specification of the concrete for the floor slab of the 29th level.

The slab was originally specified to be 12,000-psi concrete but was changed to 16,000 psi, Snyder says. The switch was made because the outrigger beams and belt walls forming the building structure as part of the 28th floor were also 16,000 psi.

“It would have taken too much coordination to try to puddle the beams (on floor 28) and pour the floor slab (on level 29) with two different concretes,” he says. “So the concrete contractor elected to pour the whole thing at 16,000 psi.”

Another issue followed, light to moderate surface cracking, on the first two pours of the 29th floor due in part to the dryness of the normal-weight, 16,000-psi concrete. Adjustments were made to the recipe for the last two pours, and the cracking stopped.

The cracks were to be filled with epoxy, and a debate had arisen among several team members on whether to pressure-inject the epoxy or spread it with a squeegee for penetration via gravity.

Snyder, the field marshal, comes out because some team members had been dragging their feet on the resolution.

Without a plan in place for next week’s meeting with project architect, Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, the firm’s head of structural engineering “will throw up his arms and say, ‘What are we doing, guys?’”

Progress needs to be continuous so the schedule is met and occupancy can occur.

Snyder brusquely breaks the deadlock telling team members to decide quickly on how to proceed.

Paul James, senior vice president in Chicago of London-based Bovis Lend Lease Inc., the project’s construction manager, says pique is almost a job requirement because of the demanding nature of the project and the man overseeing it.

“Tim is very passionate about his job, about his projects and about his expectations of the industry,” James says.

Tenacious about Trump
Snyder applies that doggedness to himself

On the day of his interview, he was meticulous about ensuring the correctness of the mark-ups for the illustration of the tower’s phased occupancy plan and the wording of a letter with it to John Javorka, chief fire prevention engineer for Chicago’s Fire Prevention Bureau.

“For us it is critical to get the ability to occupy this building while we’re still building the upper two-thirds of it,” Snyder says.

Brett Bisceglia, interior project manager for Trump, credits Snyder for teaching him to focus on project schedule.

“We set logistical meetings, and Tim can look at a schedule somebody presents and see the faults immediately,” he says.

The phased occupancy plan lists the dates for three occupancies to occur this year, with the first on Aug. 10 for about 25 to 40 employees who will be in the building’s hotel offices, hotel lobby and parking garage. In addition, the illustration shows the key elements and notations of the building’s life-safety system, such as the fire fighter’s elevator, exit stairs and sprinkler and alarm systems.

It is unusual for a member of the owner’s staff to take the leadership role on this document, says Bovis’ James.

“Tim has involved himself so thoroughly with what’s going on that he has the knowledge to do this,” he adds.

Because of the documents’ significance, Snyder carries by hand a copy three blocks to the office of the Fire Prevention Bureau for the meeting.

The importance of details on the complex project comes out in a meeting Snyder had with Pat Leech, a fellow construction manager with Trump, and Justin Gilbert of Northbrook, Ill.-based Crane Construction Co. LLC. Gilbert is briefed on what the owner-controlled insurance policy entails and how Crane employees will be protected as they do their work for the project.

Snyder says during the meeting that paramedics staff the project every day, a clinic for minor injuries if they occur is located on Lake Street and that Northwestern Memorial Hospital administers advanced life support if it is needed.

Getting Personal

Indeed, the project’s human side emerges during the day. Kraig Riebock, an executive with Bovis, called to talk about a family illness.

“I learned a long time ago that there’s business, and there’s the people side of the business,” Snyder says. “When we lose that personal element, then we all become business machines. Then there is truly something lost.”

Snyder started learning the business in 1966 as a 14-year-old summer helper for a remodeling business operated by a paint and glass store in Monessen, Pa., a steel town about 30 mi southeast of Pittsburgh. His father was the bookkeeper.

Since 1976, when he took his first job professionally as a laborer, he has worked in multiple capacities on construction projects throughout the Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana and Missouri, and with six contractors. He owned his own company for two years in the late-1990s.

“It was a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour-a-day job,” he adds.

Snyder brings the expertise of 31 years of experience to the Trump, which he tours routinely.

While outside he inspects the planters and public areas in the early stages of construction and gets an update from Jacob Huffman, project manager for Mendota Heights, Minn.-based Permasteelisa, the curtain wall contractor. Falsework towers were being completed to support outrigger beans to support the canopy.

Inside, he tours some hotel lobby and climbed into the hoist. On the upper floors, he does a walk-through of several spaces, including some hotel-condominium units, ballroom, restaurant and garage, and took some photos along the way to note things he saw that need correcting.

He says he is proud that the complex project is moving along because “this is my Sears Tower.”

(Editor’s Note: A version of this story originally ran in the July 16 issue of Engineering News-Record.)

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