October 8, 2003
Hesprich expands horizons
Local graduate builds longest span cable-stayed bridge in North America
Carol South
Special to the Herald
Lori (Lather) Hesprich is ascending to the top of her profession - literally.
A 1980 graduate of Traverse City Senior High, Hesprich is a civil engineer. Succeeding in a traditionally male field, Hesprich is now project manager for the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, S.C. Hesprich is the bottom line, the buck-stops-here person for this huge civic construction project. When completed in 2006, the Cooper River Bridge will be the longest span cable-stayed bridge in North America.
"The towers that support this bridge will be 600-feet high," Hesprich said. "You walk up these stairs and you're looking right down at the water."
No stranger to hard work, Hesprich is immersed daily in myriad project management details. With the words 'We're pouring concrete in an hour,' frequently ringing in her ears, she is the person to answer contractor questions, unsnarl snarls and keep all facets of the large project running smoothly.
Despite the job's demands, the 1984 civil engineering graduate of Michigan Tech University is in her element.
"I work on site and the client is the contractor," said Hesprich, who came aboard the Cooper River Bridge project in January 2003. "They are very driven and the schedule is really intense. Their favorite line is, 'We're pouring in an hour,' so it's not like you have a couple of days to figure out an answer."
"The biggest challenge on this project is that the area is subject to hurricanes and earthquakes, so it has to be designed to handle both of these," she noted.
Hesprich works for Parsons Brinckerhoff, a worldwide corporation based in New York. She spent eight years in Hawaii with the firm, working as deputy project manager on the Admiral Clarey Bridge in Pearl Harbor and helping design a $1.7 billion dollar mass transit system.
"Work was getting real slow in Hawaii," recalled Hesprich, who has been with her current firm 12 years. "I didn't want to leave, but there was really not a lot to do there."
"I was supposed to work on a mass transit project, but it is still not done," she noted. "Mass transit is so political, people are very emotional about their transit."
After Hawaii, Hesprich spent three years in Texas, assisting as an engineer on transportation studies.
Hesprich is a Traverse City native, born into a family whose roots in the area stretch back generations. Despite growing up in a cold climate and schooling in an even colder one, she wound up in Hawaii because of one consideration: the cold.
Working in Grand Rapids after a few years out of college, she thought of a Traverse City friend who worked in Los Angeles and how nice California weather must be. Her friend sent her the classified ads and Hesprich spotted an add for a civil engineer in Hawaii.
Intrigued, she began exploring her option with that firm. Hesprich got cold feet, however, when she had to take the offer blind - the company was unwilling to fly her out for an interview.
Not long after, she was on a job site one day during winter, freezing. She called the firm back to arrange an interview, scheduled interviews with three other places and paid for her own trip to Hawaii. With four offers pending, she accepted one and headed for Paradise.
"It was just booming out there, I took the best offer," she recalled.
Hesprich credits her parents with encouraging her throughout her life, never questioning her interests, career or ambitions. Another influence was a former Leelanau County extension agent she worked with during summers, helping to plant trees and install irrigation.
"He would always tell me to do something and then go back to Lansing, telling me it had better be done when he returned," she said. "I learned from him to be self sufficient and do things on my own."