Blog

The year was 1965. Construction finished on the St. Louis Arch. The popular soap opera, “Days of Our Lives,” debuted. The Beach Boys’  “California Girls” and “Help Me, Rhonda,” were climbing the billboard charts, and “The Sound of Music” became the musical movie of the year. It was also the year Darrel Grider joined the O’Shea Team.

Darrel had worked as an apprentice for a local realtor building houses in what would become Cherry Hills and Indian Hills in Springfield. But the residential work dried up and Darrel was laid off. As is often the case, when one door closes another opens. For Darrel that door was the opportunity to work for O’Shea. His career at O’Shea, which would span four decades while working under four O’Shea family members

In April, O’Shea hosted the Illinois Department of Transportation’s Engineering Explorers (EE) Post #6 program in O’Shea University. The program is a part of the Boy Scouts of America Learning for Life, and it introduces students from high school freshmen through college freshmen to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) topics/activities and other engineering-related fields.

During their visit to O’Shea, the students listened to a presentation from Mike Sunley, senior project manager, Janelle Fanning, project manager, and Adam Schmidt, project engineer. The group learned about how engineering relates to construction. Mike, Janelle, and Adam also highlighted a few of their projects successes and challenges throughout their O’Shea careers.

O’Shea Team News sat down with Senior Project Manager Brian Beneke and Project Manager Dan Sullivan to learn more about the “lean” processes - pulling planning and BIM coordination/clash detection - used at Taylorville Memorial Hospital (TMH).

Steve Ludwig, chief estimator, was “born to build” as the second generation of his family to work in the construction industry.

“I grew up with blueprints (remember actual blueprints?) rolling around in the back seat of my father’s car. Over time, I started to notice the projects he was involved with. When we were going around town together, he would introduce me to people from the industry.”

Powell graduated from UIS with a degree in business management. She has spent the past six years with Illinois Retina Center and the Central Illinois Retina Institute as a certified ophthalmic associate.

Get to know one of our Project Engineers, Dan Schafer!

Hawkins graduated from Greenville College with a degree in organizational leadership. She comes to O’Shea after six years with Stetson Building Products as an operations manager for their Decatur location. She resides in Sidney, Ill.

Ritter comes to O’Shea Builders from Taylor Studios Inc. in Rantoul after eight years of serving as a project manager and three years overseeing the design & project management departments. She also worked for Bonham Construction in Mahomet as a project manager. 

O’Shea recently hosted two students from the Capital Area Career Center for job shadow days. Matt Mangold and Logan Young were very interested in learning more about O’Shea Builders after David O’Shea III, Nick Clemens, and Dan Sullivan spoke to the CACC Building Trades students back in January.

The CACC visit is one of many school outreach efforts that O’Shea has undertaken over the past several months as part of our 2020 Strategic Plan initiative to build our “Farm Team” and help educate students about the many fulfilling career options in the trades. Since last October, members of the O’Shea field and office teams have visited Porta High School, Springfield High School, LLCC’s Highway Construction Careers Training Program, and CACC. 

Dooley recently earned his Bachelor’s degree in construction management from Bradley University. While in school he worked at Midwest Construction Professionals in Morton. 

Maybanks, a native to the Peoria area, received his Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management from Bradley University. Maybanks joins O’Shea from River Construction where he served as a project manager for 12 of his 16 years there. 

Alexander comes to O’Shea from Nigro Construction, Inc. in Las Vegas, NV. While at Nigro Construction Inc., Alexander gained experience with project management and served as a superintendent for projects in retail, hospitality, and healthcare.