Building
Roads, Bridges and a 35-Year Career in Infrastructure
By Pam Droog
Thomas P. Dunne, Sr. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Fred
Weber, Inc.
Don't
call Fred Weber, Inc. "just a road-building company" in front
of the company's chairman and chief executive officer, Thomas
P. Dunne, Sr. "We're in the transportation business," he explains.
"We do highways, airports, MetroLink, barge transportation, and
provide rock, asphalt and sand to the construction industry. And
there are times we have up to 2,000 trucks hauling materials for
us in a single day."
However,
when Dunne first joined Fred Weber as a summer laborer, it was
basically a road-building company. "My father was friends with
Old Man Weber," which is what everyone affectionately called Fred
Sr. "Old Man Weber encouraged me to go to college and study civil
engineering. As long as I liked it and did well, he said he'd
provide me with a summer job," Dunne says. "What I really wanted
was to play professional football. But as I get older, it seems
I went the right way."
Old
Man Weber died in 1963 and Dunne graduated from Washington University
with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering in 1965.
Soon after he went to work for Fred Jr. as a field engineer, supervising
culverts and bridges. "When I came along we were doing about $4
to $5 million worth of work a year," Dunne says. "Now we're doing
$150 million. It's been very exciting to say the least to see
the company grow year after year."
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Fred
Weber, Inc.
- Founded
in 1928 by Fred Weber, Sr., who was hired to lay pipe
and excavate portions of Fox Creek Road.
- Employs
more 600 people in 11 area locations and operates more
than 400 pieces of mobile equipment.
- Employee-owned
since 1986, with more than $150 million in annual revenues.
- Two
divisions: Construction Services--bridge building, heavy
grading, concrete and asphalt paving. Materials Services--seven
quarries, two sand plants, sanitary landfill, seven conventional
asphalt plants, portable drum mix plant; jobsite blasting
and stone crushing.
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A
lot of the excitement for Dunne has been the incredible changes
he's seen, notably in technology and equipment. In the not-too-distant
past, cost accounting and estimating "literally were done by hand
with a calculator," he says. "Now it's all computerized and extremely
efficient." Equipment, he notes, has gotten safer and better.
"When I first started working on bridges in '65, there was no
such thing as a net or safety line. You were just up there in
the wind," he says. "Now with the sophistication of the equipment,
a lot of the tedious, back-breaking, scary work is a thing of
the past. A lot of safety and protection are now built in."
Dunne
says he's worked on a lot of interesting projects, but one of
the most fascinating is the current Page Avenue Extension bridge.
"It's what we call an environmental bridge. It never touches the
ground, it just cantilevers out from the piers," he says. This
type of bridge has never been built in Missouri, and Dunne has
enjoyed working with Walter Construction of Calgery, Canada that
pioneered the technique. He also mentions resurfacing Busch Stadium,
big downtown sewer projects, runway additions at Lambert International
and the 1,200-acre WingHaven planned community in St. Charles,
in which Fred Weber, Inc. is a partner.
"We
wrote our company history a few years ago and tried to pinpoint
the major arterial and secondary roads we've worked on," Dunne
says. "By the time we got done, the graphic designer said, 'Why
don't we just mark the ones you haven't done?' We have literally
worked on every major thoroughfare in the metro area in one way
or another."
Dunne's
son, Thomas Jr., runs a Fred Weber marine operation in Naples,
Fla., and his daughter, Cynthia, manages the company's local golf
complex.
Dunne
serves on the RCGA's Executive Board and the newly created Regional
Business Council, the Archdiocesan Development Appeal, Saint Louis
University Presidents Council, SSM Health Care Central Region
and Forest Park Forever. He also volunteers for St. Patrick's
Center, CBC and Chaminade. "I have a bad habit--I can't say no,"
he says. "But I try to be selective. Just sitting through meetings
isn't for me. I want to see something happen as a result."
Pam
Droog is a St. Louis-based free-lance writer.
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