view . fall 2012
7
When the twin towers of the World Trade Center crashed to
the ground on September 11, 2001,
Rick Corrent BASc ’99
was visiting his grandmother thousands of miles away in Italy.
“It was strange being so far away and hearing about this
tragedy back home,” says Corrent. He was concerned about his
friends and family who lived and worked in the US. “I can’t even
begin to imagine what it must have felt like for the people who
were in the building during the attack or those who lost loved
ones that day.”
Today, the UWindsor engineering graduate is the project
manager for the team rebuilding One World Trade Center from
those ashes.
Corrent, the son of an Italian immigrant who was a bricklayer,
says he has always loved construction. Although he accepted a
position at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Mich., where he had
worked during his co-op placement, he still longed to scratch his
itch to build.
Corrent left Ford in 2003 to start his own residential building
business in Windsor. But then, he and his wife, Gabrielle BASc ’99,
whom he met when they were engineering undergraduates, made a
life-changing decision.
“We wanted to experience a big city before we settled down
and had kids,” he says. “So we made a deal to live in whatever city
where one of us found a job first—Chicago or New York. I won!”
In 2008, they moved to NYC where he was hired by Collavino
Construction to be their project manager to help build One World
Trade Center (previously known as Freedom Tower). One of the
world’s most high-profile building projects, it is rising from the
crater where the Twin Towers once stood as part of a massive
construction project that will include other high-rise buildings, a
World Trade Center Memorial and a museum.
The company—one of only two Canadian companies chosen for
the work—is part of Collavino Group. Its sister company, PCR, was
the primary contractor on the University’s Ed Lumley Centre for
Engineering Innovation (see page 8).
“Our scope is all of the concrete,” Corrent explains. “Seventy
feet below the street is where we started with the concrete
foundation. Then, we’ve got all of the concrete going up to the roof.”
When it opens in fall 2013, the tower will stand 1,776 feet
tall—symbolizing the year of American Independence—the highest
structure in the western hemisphere.
This $3.5-billion (US), 104-storey building required 220,000
cubic yards of concrete—enough to fill 69 Olympic-size swimming
pools. “There’s also 27,000 tons of rebar,” notes Corrent. Rebar is
a metal bar used inside concrete to reinforce it. “It’s being built to
withstand any terrorist attacks and actually has been designed to
not fall down if a plane were to attack it.”
The offices start on the 20th floor, keeping them away from the
ground. The building’s base includes a 65-foot concrete “blast” wall.
“It can withstand the impact of any truck bomb.”
The building is expected to attain a Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certification, which will make it
the greenest building of its size in the world. It will collect rainwater
to water plants on site and assist its cooling towers. It will be heated
by steam and will use waste heat to generate electricity. Light sensors
will automatically dim lights when enough sunlight shines through the
windows, saving power and giving employees healthy, natural light.
“As the project manager, I’m responsible mainly for the
schedule, the costs, and day-to-day issues that come up—mostly
design-related. And the manpower, as well.” At one point, Corrent
employed 550 people.
He says he relied heavily on the problem-solving skills honed
during his degree. “In engineering there’s so many technical
courses, calculus, and deriving equations, but it’s really how you
approach and solve problems. And, most of my position here entails
doing that. I feel like I use my degree every day.”
Corrent has tackled massive challenges including last-minute
design changes the morning of a pour, co-ordination with structural
steel, work stoppages for visits by President Barack Obama and
Queen Elizabeth, weather issues such as Hurricane Irene and
excessive winds, as well as fires and union strikes. “We’ve been
through it all!”
It’s clear that the building’s impact on the city is far more than
physical, says Corrent. The day after construction on One World Trade
Center began, a woman who had lost her husband in the 9/11 tragedy
told him it somehow made her feel better to see that, “new life was
coming back to the site after so many years of seeing nothing but a big
hole in the ground. It makes you stop and realize how many people
care about this building and what it represents to them.
“It’s truly an honour to be part of this project. I hope it gives the
families and friends of the victims who were killed that day some
closure and peace.”
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TOP OF THE WORLD
Rick Corrent BASc ’99
Student writer Jason Rankin is entering his second year in the Digital Journalism
program at the University of Windsor (see page 34).
ALUMNI PROFILE
BY JASON RANKIN
