Bridge to a New Era

PITTSBURGH - Few companies doing work with 21st-century infrastructure have as deep a history in the 20th century - and even the 19th - as American Bridge Co.

When the company was formed as part of U.S. Steel Corp. in 1900 by financier J. Pierpont Morgan through the merger of 28 other companies, 90 percent of the country's public and commercial bridge construction became controlled by American Bridge, a figure that no company comes even close to approaching now.

The company was briefly headquartered in Philadelphia, from 1901 to 1904.

Over the next century, it was part of the construction of some of the most iconic buildings and bridges in the world - from the Chrysler Building in New York City to the San Francisco Bay Bridge and most of the bridges in downtown Pittsburgh. It also contributed its expertise to the building of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in 1926.

Despite that history, not that long ago it was uncertain if American Bridge would make it to the 21st century.

Following the closure of its massive fabrication plant in Ambridge (a Pittsburgh-area town named after the company) in 1984 and its spin-off from U.S. Steel in 1987, American Bridge floundered for much of the next decade. It earned as little as $32 million in annual revenue in 1994, and bankruptcy was a possibility, before it began its long road back to relevance and increased revenue.

Michael Cegelis joined the company near that low point in 1995, helping set up its then-new Florida office.

He saw the company struggling from the inside, even as he knew well its history of success.

"My dad was an engineer for U.S. Steel and was frequently on loan to American Bridge," said Cegelis, 60, now the company's senior vice president of marketing and development. "So I kind of grew up knowing the company.

"Pittsburgh's economy has moved from a larger manufacturing base with thousands of shop-floor workers to technology-based," said Cegelis. "That's sad for places like McKeesport and Ambridge, but for a new generation that is ever more educated, there's a vibrant future.

"And we're thriving. There's a demand for what we do."

From that low of just $32 million in revenue in 1994, American Bridge hit a peak of $601.3 million in 2013, according to Engineering News-Record, a national magazine covering the construction industry.

Revenue dipped a bit to $466.4 million in 2015. But company CEO Paul Boechler, who began his job last June after working for 30 years in the oil and gas construction business, said the immediate future looks bright for this leaner version of American Bridge.

"The last few years we've worked really hard at reestablishing ourselves to be more agile in the type of project we do today," he said.

Being agile means that instead of the company's just showing up to build the part of the project the company bid on - say, construction of the bridge towers - many governments want bidders to take care of almost everything, from supporting the project to working with the customer and talking to residents, in addition to building the project and managing all of what used to be separate parts.

Not that American Bridge is doing all that work itself, with its 500 employees or 1,000 skilled laborers in the field.

It functions more as a general contractor, bidding on projects with partners who each handle a piece of a project, and then finding steel makers and fabricators who bid to provide the raw products needed for construction.

Bid partners also rely on American Bridge for the logistics of overseeing not only the engineering, but also ensuring that important aspects of a project get done. That might mean making sure that construction equipment is properly maintained or that all the necessary pieces are delivered on time.

President Trump's proposal to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure would help the company, Boechler said, but states generally have been spending more on infrastructure in recent years anyway.

To take advantage of that looming growth, he said, will mean adding to American Bridge's 500-person permanent workforce - a difficult task in a field that asks a lot of its employees, who have to travel from site to site, stay for two or three years, and then move again.

"It's hard. It's certainly a different lifestyle moving around," Boechler acknowledges, having lived that way himself in the oil and gas industry. "A big part of a company like us is developing the workforce."

Boechler hopes to increase the skilled labor - engineers, crane operators, etc. - by about 100 people over the next couple of years, a 20 percent increase.

American Bridge is working with partners on the nearly $4 billion Tappan Zee Bridge project in New York - the largest project in the company's history. It will replace the original Tappan Zee Bridge that was built by American Bridge in 1955.

"It's especially gratifying when you get to rehabilitate a bridge we built 60 years ago," he said. "We don't have to go out and get all the measurements for them, because we have them already."