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Building can be a slow process, but with a strong foundation and determination, it becomes possible to envision the past and the future in the same structure. When Terry Carbaugh ’82 graduated, he could look back on a “structural slant” in his coursework.
“I loved structural analysis — concrete design and the building of the concrete canoe,” he says.
Recently the long-term employee of Turner Construction built a new level to his career: project executive of the New York Business Unit. The civil engineering graduate joined Turner in 1985 as an assistant superintendent on the 61 Broadway renovation in lower Manhattan. He was promoted to superintendent in 1989 and became project manager in 2001.
He has worked on many notable projects, including The Buckley School, Americas Tower, Montefiore Medical Center, Hudson River Valley Critical Care Center, Rockefeller University, Times Square Tower, and IAC/InterActiveCorp, his most recent assignment.
Despite many years with the same company, Carbaugh’s experience has been varied, with projects focusing on building projects devoted to education, health care, and commercial companies primarily in New York City. Though some people assume long-tenured employees lack initiative or a sense of daring, “it is just these qualities that have kept me a Turner employee,” he says. “From day one, Turner places a lot of responsibility upon the individual and allows a lot of freedom to do the job. Couple this with the ever-changing atmosphere of New York and one can see why I feel that the past 20 years seem like five.”
Carbaugh says Lafayette prepared him for “dealing with people and conveying my ideas and opinions clearly to others who may have a completely different agenda. The whole Lafayette experience from the classroom to the fraternity lunch room prepared me for this.”
What he misses most about his college days is the camaraderie of the rugby team or his fraternity brothers.
“There was never a day that did not include a few laughs and an experience that would forever change my life for the better,” he notes.
Vincent Viscomi, Simon Cameron Long Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, influenced Carbaugh through “the plain and simple technique that he used to convey the messages in his course work,” he says. “I try to emulate him every day with my dealings with others.”
Carbaugh and his wife, Debra Carpenter ’84, have brought their three children to campus at several reunions. Though they range in age from 5 to 11, “college is not too far off, and I believe they are all to be future Pards because they all enjoy the Reunion — maybe more than my wife or I do,” says Carbaugh.
There he goes again, building for the future.