– Pierre Rideau, Project Manager at Findorff
My interest in concrete began long before I joined Findorff—it started with DIY projects around my childhood home in France, continued throughout school, and then ultimately propelled me into my professional career. After graduating from a Paris/Liverpool structural engineering exchange program, I started my construction career working on a variety of projects, from schools to a music conservatory to luxury apartment complexes. The common thread on these projects was the amount of concrete in their design, driven by the French building code that uses concrete as the main material for fireproofing and acoustic concerns.In June 2016, I moved to Wisconsin and joined Findorff, where I put my expertise in complex concrete projects to good use. My first project was Epic's Jabberwocky, the second largest underground parking ramp in the United States. This project demanded the highest level of quality on a massive scale. We would regularly place over 1,000 cubic yards in ten hour-long concrete slab pours. With such quantities, the smallest impact on productivity had far-reaching effects. It was impressive to see the level of coordination needed to accurately put in place that amount of material day-in and day-out.
My more recent work on Shine Technologies – Isotope Production Facility required an even more exact and highly calculated approach than past projects. Extreme accuracy was vital to meet the requirements of working with nuclear grade construction, with NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) Quality Level (QL)-1 Standards. With five full-time inspectors on site and regular NRC inspections, all the work accomplished needed to be highly precise. The structure is composed of many mass concrete walls, with thicknesses varying from 4′ to 11′-8″, in a very tight footprint. The complexity of the work was heightened by the vast quantity of cast-in-place items (embeds, conduit racks, anchors, sleeves, etc.) to be placed in wall formwork that already needed to present multiple specificities (brick ledges, boxouts, elevation changes, grade A finish, etc.).
It has been fun and rewarding to utilize my knowledge of complex concrete structures on projects that require this unique skill set. I am lucky to be surrounded by talented field and office teams who helped make these projects a success.
