AASHTO Journal, 1 November 2013
The People’s Choice winner in the America’s Transportation Award competition (see related AASHTO Journal story here), Missouri Department of Transportation, is donating its $10,000 prize to a children’s cancer research organization in honor of one of its own.
MoDOT’s winnings for its Safe and Sound Bridge Improvement Program will be donated to CureSearch for Children’s Cancer, a cause close to KTU Constructors’ project director for Safe & Sound Harry Koenig. Koenig lost his son Jake to a form of children’s cancer in 2006. Since then, Koenig and his employer Kiewit have been raising funds to find a cure through multiple “JakeFest” golf tournaments. To date, Koenig’s efforts have raised more than $1 million.
“We are thrilled to have won this award. It was truly a unique project that benefited all Missourians, and was successfully completed through the efforts of our employees and our many partners in the Missouri engineering and construction communities,” said MoDOT Director Dave Nichols in a statement. “We are happy to contribute this prize to the CureSearch Effort. Harry Koenig’s leadership was a huge factor in the success of Safe & Sound, and we are honored to be able to contribute to an effort that he is so passionate about.”
MoDOT’s $685 million Safe and Sound Bridge Improvement Program completed work on 800 bridge projects across the state more than a year ahead of schedule, greatly improving safety for those who utilize those bridges each day. MoDOT began the program in 2008 with a goal of improving those 802 bridges, 250 of which were identified as rehabilitation projects while the others were completed through a design-build contract. The program was initially projected to run through the end of 2013, but MoDOT completed its final bridge 14 months ahead of schedule, improving safety for users much sooner than expected while cutting down on detour and delay time at the repair sites.
Additional information on CureSearch is available here. Additional information on the JakeFest is available here. You can read more about the America’s Transportation Awards competition here.