Monday, Auguat 3 at 7:00pm | $5 suggested donation at door |
OMSI Science Pub presents:
Building the Panama Canal
with Paul Giroux, senior estimating manager, Kiewit Infrastructure West Co.
During the early 20th century strategic control of the oceans was essential to all of the great industrial powers of the world. In 1904 President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt would commit the brains of American engineering and the brawn of America’s industrial machine to build a canal of unprecedented scope and challenge.
Panama Canal’s successful construction was the result of the convergence of extraordinary men, machines, and methods. In the decades preceding Panama Canal’s construction, tremendous advancements were realized in every discipline of engineering. In the realm of heavy civil construction, these collective engineering advancements provided the construction technology that made Panama Canal possible. This presentation highlights how the right men, the right, machines, and the right methods all came together in 1904 to build a project of unprecedented scope and challenges.
Raymond “Paul” Giroux received his bachelor’s in Construction Engineering from Iowa State University in 1979. For the past 35 years, he has been with Kiewit Corporation, working on a wide variety of heavy civil engineering mega projects throughout the United States. Paul played a key role in notable projects such as the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore, several projects on the Big Dig in Boston --- including the new Zakim/Bunker Hill Bridge --- and most recently, the new San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge East Span.
Paul serves on the Iowa State University Civil Engineering Advisory Board, the Transportation Research Board, and is a corresponding member of the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) History and Heritage Committee. Paul was the recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Civil Engineering History and Heritage Award for 2013.