A retrofit they hoped would never be tested
A company of Hokies share the pain and the praise

In the July/August, 2001, issue of Structure magazine, Mike Biscotte co-authored a paper on his role in “Retrofitting the Pentagon for Blast Resistance.” He ended the article somberly with the sentence, ”It is a design, however, that all involved earnestly hope never is tested.”

A month later on the now infamous date of Sept. 11, 2001, Biscotte, a vice president of Hayes, Seay, Mattern and Mattern (HSMM), heard the news that an American Airlines jet had crashed into the very side of the Pentagon that his company had renovated. The news was traumatizing to all Americans.

Biscotte’s pain, however, was more profound than many. For the past eight years, the 1980 Virginia Tech civil engineering graduate had been helping to direct the design and retrofitting of Wedge 1, the precise segment of the Pentagon where the terrorists crashed the plane. His solace was in the fact that the renovation is what saved many lives.

Media coverage about the reasons why so few lives were lost at the Arlington, Va., icon was extensive. HSMM’s structural reinforcement of the exterior walls kept the plane from penetrating further into the building. The blast resistant windows minimized the dangerous flying glass. The new sprinkler system and the fire doors that slammed shut helped contain the fire and smoke.

In the Wedge 1 section of the Pentagon, some 5,000 people would be at work on any given day. Fewer than 200 people lost their lives, and that number included the 64 on the plane.

“Our retrofit was certainly not designed for a plane hitting the building, but there is no question that it saved lives,” Biscotte says. His statement is corroborated by Les Hunkele, the program manager for the joint venture partners supporting the Pentagon renovation program. So when the new renovation commenced, Biscotte was back on the job.

The first retrofit of the Pentagon had not been an easy assignment. The original structure was built in the 1940s in 16 months. “Nothing was plumb, square, or level. The structure was conservatively designed to save time,” Biscotte explains. The Wedge 1 renovation was a three-year construction effort. The new renovation was completed in 12 months on a significant anniversary date — Sept. 11, 2002.

Since the terrorist attack, Biscotte notes that money is no longer the dominant issue when designing or retrofitting a building for the structural integrity to sustain possible terrorist attacks. “Prior to 9/11, we successfully defended our redesign of the Pentagon’s Wedge 1, but we had to do it several times. We had a lot of pressure to stay on budget. Now a bigger portion of DOD construction budgets are dedicated to this effort,” he says. Money is even dedicated to preventing chemical and biological attacks.

“It may sound corny but I do believe we are doing something for the safety of the country,” Biscotte says.

Biscotte became involved with blast-resistant designs in the 1980s when President Reagan heavily funded the development of weapon systems. In fact, Biscotte has spent the past 20 years working almost exclusively on Department of Defense contracts. His projects have included blast-resistant designs at Redstone Arsenal, Andrews Air Force Base, Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, Fort Bragg, and extensive work in and around Washington, D.C.

On the Pentagon project, several other Hokies played significant roles. Keith Almoney (BSCE 1996) performed the majority of the structural calculations for the exterior blast hardening. Bob Foard (BSCE 1964) led the conventional structural renovation design. Randy Leech (BSEE 1976) led the electrical and security electronic design. And Ed Colonna (BSEE 1977) provides continuing design and management services to the Pentagon Renovation Office for the ongoing renovation of the remainder of the facility.

HSMM is a company of Hokies. More than one-fifth of the 470-member architectural, engineering, and planning firm are Virginia Tech alumni. At its Roanoke, Va., headquarters office, 60 of the 220 employees are Tech graduates, and about half of these are CEEs. The president and CEO, Cecil Doyle, is a 1968 ME alumnus.

HSMM’s ties to Virginia Tech date to the firm’s founding in 1947. One of the four original founders wore maroon and orange. Currently, five members of the 12 board of directors graduated from Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering and one from the College of Architecture and Urban Studies.