Whether he was employed in the public or private sector, Carl Sciple drew on lessons learned in nearly a quarter century as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Before working as an engineer and in management positions on the federal and state levels, the West Point graduate, who served two tours in Vietnam, encouraged soldiers to make their own decisions.
“That’s dangerous, some would say, because if you encourage a person to use initiative, they might make a bad decision,” said Sciple while accepting the 2016 ENR New England Legacy Award on Dec. 8 in Boston. “But you know something, nine times out of 10, they make a great decision, and it’s worth giving them the confidence to take a chance to do something.”
The 77-year-old leader regularly offered such advice to his colleagues until he retired in December from MOCA Systems. Working out of the firm’s Boston-area office, he served as Northeast director for the design and construction software development firm. Previously, Sciple had spent 23 years working for the Massachusetts Port Authority and taught construction management at Wentworth Institute of Technology.
He mentored dozens of young professionals and is a lifelong member and past president of the Society of American Military Engineers Boston Post. He has served on the Harvard Historical Society and the Wetlands Protection Committee in Wellesley, Mass. He also is past chair of the Construction Manager Certification Institute. Sciple recently stepped down from the board of the Construction Management Association of America’s New England Chapter; he helped found the group in 1995 and served as its president. The chapter honored him with several awards, including its Distinguished Service Award in 2008 and 2012.
Current CMAA New England President Kay Barned-Smith says Sciple is “encouraging, supportive of his teammates and his staff and always full of helpful information.”
军事生活
Sciple出生于马萨诸塞州艾尔的一个军事家庭，在他的父母在1940年代后期分居之前就四处走动。他在纽约州西点的美国军事学院附近的康沃尔郡康沃尔郡（Hudson）与母亲一起度过了成长的岁月，Sciple最终于1961年毕业于该学院，然后在德国驻扎了三年。他于1965年返回美国伯克利分校，在那里获得了土木工程学位。
“It was totally different,” Sciple says of attending UC Berkeley as a military officer during the Vietnam War. “I loved my time there, and the students were totally respectful.” Sporting a military crewcut, Sciple says he teased his classmates about having long hair. “I said, ‘I’m the only one here doing my own thing.’”
研究生院之后,Sciple被部署到越南nam. In 1967, he was the company commander for a unit erecting a “float bridge” across a river in a remote jungle in hostile territory. Sciple’s team flew in the 150-ft-long bridge and had to quickly prepare the river banks and assemble the bridge so that an infantry convoy could cross the river. The convoy included armored personnel carriers containing .50-caliber machine guns.
Sciple回忆说：“我们可能和我们一起有一个步兵队，但我们是战斗工程师，所以我们有自己的火力。”“当我活跃的军队时，这可能是我最好的项目之一。”新利18备用网址
Sciple深情回忆起他甚至没有建造的另一个军团项目：波士顿的查尔斯河大坝和锁。该项目于1970年代后期完成，在他被驻扎在那里，包括一个充满土壤的水坝和洪水控制的抽水站，以保护上游地区免于洪水泛滥。该系统还通过减少盐水侵入和组合污水溢出来提高水质。
When the project won the 1984 Presidential Award for Design Excellence in Architecture, Engineering and Urban Planning, Sciple was invited to the White House to accept the award. White House officials balked when Sciple suggested it was more appropriate to invite the chief of construction in his place. He asked his predecessor, General Ernie Edgar, to attend and was told he should take the credit since he would be blamed if the dam failed. “I went down and I received the award, even though I really wasn’t the person on the front line on that job,” he says.
但是，Sciple负责在军团管理600多人，并从事工厂和民用工程项目（例如Cape Cod Canal）。新利18备用网址这条运河是在他负责监督它之前建造的，但是，有两个高速公路桥和一个铁路桥梁，这条运河是维护的“挑战”。Sciple确保了桥梁的钢铁状况良好并被涂漆。
他还监督了桥梁上8英尺高的自杀障碍。他说：“这并没有消除自杀，但这是减少自杀的主要因素。”“（障碍物）是钢，它瘦而坚固，你真的无法爬上它。”
Sciple left the Corps in 1985 to work for Massport and ultimately served as the deputy director of the capital programs department. Massport oversees Logan International Airport, from which the planes departed that crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Sciple called 9/11 “a gut check,” but says he’s proud to have helped Logan become the first major U.S. airport to meet the post-9/11 federally mandated deadline for baggage-screening protocols.
到2002年底，Massport已实施了一个新的行李筛查系统，包括增强和扩大的行李处理室，并带有用于爆炸物检测系统的空间。Sciple表示，当时许多机场使用削减公共场所的Make Shift解决方案遵守了联邦授权，但是Massport的1.46亿美元项目在没有侵犯客运区的情况下实现了“枪支”的目标。
“我们不仅检查个别乘客有限公司mpletely and baggage completely, but we also had to fortify the terminals so that cars couldn’t just drive up and into them,” Sciple says. “There’s subtle protection means that have been incorporated around the terminals and around public facilities so cars and trucks can’t get into them.”
Sciple is also proud to have facilitated Logan’s modernization initiative, a multi-year, $1-billion planning, design and construction program to upgrade terminals, roadways, fueling systems, central cooling and heating plants and electrical substations. “It was a fascinating, complex job on a site that always had to be in operation,” he says.
Sciple also began teaching as an adjunct professor at Wentworth School of Technology in Boston in the early 2000s. After leaving Massport in 2008, he helped develop the school’s first master’s degree program in construction management. Mark Hasso, a Wentworth professor of construction management who won the 2015 ENR New England Legacy Award, says Sciple is one of the “most visible proponents” for the industry who helped establish its “principles and practices. Carl is clearly a professional, mentor, teacher and colleague and he is viewed by his peers as an outstanding leader.”
After leaving Wentworth, Sciple worked for several private-sector firms, including MOCA Systems, where he spent four years. “He treats everyone with respect,” says MOCA President Sandy Hamby. “He is the true definition of an officer and a gentleman.”
在他七个月前退休的那一天，Sciple和他的妻子（有两个孩子和三个孙子）被送入马萨诸塞州哈佛大学的1795年农舍。
Sciple度过了他的日子，修理了这座2500平方英尺的房子，该房屋的谷仓和马车屋位于城镇中部的一英亩位置。他还在管理一个建筑项目。他聘请了承包商在房屋前面建造排水系统。在制定了该系统本人的一些计划之后，Sciple将笔记与承包商进行了比较，并最终告诉他：“我希望您获利。只是不要以我为代价做太多。”
