When Things Go Bad - The John Hancock Tower Project, Chicago - 2014FT

Kelly McBride, Century Building Solutions
This presentation is a narrative of the John Hancock Tower accident from the perspective of the contractor. Eighteen months into a 2-year job, what should have been a great project turned tragic in a matter of moments on a blustery Saturday in March of 2001, when four people were killed by a falling scaffold just off Michigan Avenue. Kelly McBride, the former Senior Vice President of AMS Architectural Technologies, Inc. will provide a dramatic timeline of the accident, and present the critical factors of the accident chain that caused the failure of the custom swing stage rigging, which resulted in the 100’ by 6’ truss platform detaching from the building, breaking apart and falling to the street. The events that followed included potential criminal charges, a week of media coverage across the nation in newspapers and television, and a massive lawsuit that featured attorney Johnny Cochran that settled for millions of dollars, providing valuable lessons in crisis management, project pressures and the importance of safety.