Page 352 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

Rich Fregulia was instrumental in getting us the equipment we needed. He pulled some rabbits out of his hat for us.
– Joe Whelan, equipment supervisor, Kiewit Infrastructure West Co.
The real eye-opener for Whelan happened even before he walked the site at Oroville. “We flew out to our Northern California office for an internal meeting to review what the job entailed, and then met with Peterson to notify them of some rough quantities of equipment we would need. When we showed up at the San Leandro dealership, there were twelve to fifteen guys sitting around the ta- ble waiting for us. That meeting was when I really started to get a feel for the monumental task ahead. From that meeting, it was basically ‘get ready for the long haul.’ ”
For Peterson, the mad dash was on to locate the machines Kiewit needed. “Rich Fregulia was in- strumental in getting us the equipment we need-
ed,” says Whelan, of Peterson’s salesman. “I don’t know where he went to get stuff, but he pulled some rabbits out of his hat for us. He kept us in the know on when we’d be receiving things. Peterson also provided us with loaners while we were wait- ing for our new equipment, which you just don’t see very often.”
At its peak, Kiewit had over 1,000 pieces of equip- ment on the dam, including 150 pieces of heavy equipment, 100 pickups, 13 giant Liebherr cranes, plus light towers, generators, and chillers. “We brought equipment in from all over the nation and Canada,” says Whelan. “The equipment never quit rolling in all the way up through October of 2017. Every time there was a quantity increase or they wanted us to do something more, we would add more equipment.”
PHASE ONE (2017)
Going in, Kiewit knew that time would be its big- gest challenge. It had just five months to get both spillways ready for the next rainy season. “Even be- fore we started, we had a hundred people helping us gear up for the job,” says Jeff Petersen, Kiewit’s executive project director for the Oroville Spillway Emergency Repair Project. “From estimating to getting contracts reviewed to inspecting equip- ment nationwide and getting it all mobilized. And that was just getting started.” From there, Kiew- it moved in and set up a support camp, complete with offices, conference rooms, parts stock, repair shop, parking lots—the works. And then began the real job of excavating the dirt and debris left over from the massive spill.
Kiewit had been on the job for a month when DWR called in the team to discuss some revised goals. The regulatory agencies wanted the main spillway operational by December 1 instead of December 30, the original deadline. That meant the concrete work had to be completed by Novem- ber 1 to allow it to cure for potential operation on
(L-R) Duane Doyle Jr. with Kiewit’s Joe Whelan onsite in August 2017
350 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG