Alumni, Industry Partnership Builds
World-class Structures Lab at OSU
Adam Huffer
OSU News Bureau
405-744-6260
3/7/2003
The OSU/A&M Regents meeting in Stillwater
on Friday approved the construction of a laboratory facility that will
dramatically advance construction technologies in the state and is the
culmination of a three-way partnership between the public and private sectors
and the university.
The board approved plans by OSU’s School
of Civil and Environmental
Engineering to build a new structures engineering research laboratory on a site
near the intersection of McElroy Avenue
and Willis Road in the
northwest area of campus. In the offing for nearly two years, the project began
with initial commitments from several of the state’s premier construction
industry firms, including W&W Steel Co., Frankfurt-Short-Bruza Associates, FlintCo Inc.,
Manhattan Construction Co., Lippert Brothers and Cobb
Engineering. Approximately 30 companies have committed materials and services
to the project, and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, the Oklahoma
State Regents for Higher Education and alumni of the School
of Civil and Environmental
Engineering have provided financial support.
"This project is extremely exciting to us,” said Dr. Gorman Gilbert,
professor and head of the school. “We are committed to having the finest
structures engineering program in the nation and not only does this world-class
lab help us attain that goal, but it is also the result of a rare partnership
between the private sector, the public sector and the university.”
OSU College of Business Administration alumni Bert Cooper, CEO and board
chairman of W&W Steel, and his son, Rick, the company’s president and chief
operating officer, spearheaded the endeavor by donating nearly $300,000 in structural
and miscellaneous steel for the 20,000-sq.-ft. facility. They also took a
leadership role in fundraising and obtaining commitments of labor and materials
to fund the $2-million project, the cost estimated by volunteer construction
management coordinator, FlintCo.
Moreover, the W&W Steel executives participated in collaborations
between other industry representatives and OSU research faculty on plans for
the lab. OSU Architecture alumnus Jim Bruza of
Frankfurt-Short-Bruza contributed schematics and preliminary
architectural designs. The facility will feature a massive reaction floor,
20-ton crane, fabrication and electronics shop areas and offices for graduate
students.
“This laboratory is desperately needed because Oklahoma
has no structures research facility to support the testing and collaboration
our industry needs,” Bert Cooper said. “Concrete is a big competitor of ours,
but we recognize that anything we can do to further the economic feasibility of
concrete, steel and other construction industries in the state benefits all of Oklahoma.”
"Our industry’s forward momentum is dependent upon research and
development of new products, and we need a facility in the state where that can
occur,” Cooper said.
Products designed and fabricated by W&W Steel were used in the expansion
of the General Motors plant in Oklahoma City
and have earned a national reputation through projects such as the Pepsi
Center in Denver,
the St. Paul Wild hockey arena and the new San Antonio Spurs arena. However,
the $125-million-a-year firm has also sent its research projects across the Red
River.
“Oklahoma is home to one of the
largest steel manufacturers in the country, but W&W Steel has had to send
its new products to the University of
Texas to be tested,” Gilbert said. “We
at OSU, and our industry peers, want to keep structures research and its
funding in the state.”
Gilbert calls OSU’s eight structural engineers in the
School of Civil
and Environmental Engineering and the School
of Architecture the nation’s best
structures faculty. The new lab facility will advance the ongoing projects of
the group, including studies on off-shore drilling platforms, bridge supports
and new concrete reinforcement techniques.
“We expect to compete successfully for high-profile, national research awards
and funding from the likes of the National Cooperative Highway Research program
and the National Science Foundation,” Gilbert said.
The School of Civil
and Environmental Engineering will break ground on the facility during a noon ceremony Wednesday, March 12.
For information about this page, send e-mail to Adam Huffer.
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