Chapel Talk by Headmaster Drew Casertano: MASC Ceremonial Opening for Students

Last August, I visited the construction site for the math and science center to get a closer look at the activity.  Mike Wolters, the project manager, kindly showed me around.  As he did, he explained that the major activity of the day was to bolt I-beam columns to concrete piers, cylinders of cement, and rebar buried deep into the ground.

As I watched the crane lower an I-beam column onto its pier, Mr. Wolters pointed to Denny Mitten, the project supervisor. Mr. Wolters told me that Mr. Mitten did all the calculations to check the construction drawings to make sure that each I-beam column fit properly on each bolt on each pier.  There are 40 piers in this building, each with 4 bolts.  An average vertical I-beam in MASC is 30 feet long and weighs 720 pounds. That day, Mr. Wolters, Mr. Mitten, and their crew installed 1200 feet of vertical I-beams (that is, the length of four football fields), totaling 28,800 pounds, or nearly 15 tons.  The holes in the base of each of those 40 I-beam columns had to fit over 4 bolts in each pier for a total of 160 connections. The margin of error on each bolt was just 3/8 of an inch.

As I watched the activity and listened to Mr. Wolters’ explanation, it occurred to me that concrete doesn’t bend.  Neither do steel bolts.  And steel I-beams aren’t all that flexible either.  As with hand grenades and horseshoes, “almost” wouldn’t count when installing these I-beams.  I began to appreciate even more the challenge and complexity of constructing a building like MASC.

For most of my life, I’ve taken buildings for granted.  I’ve taken for granted the warmth, comfort, and safety that they provide.  I’ve taken for granted their beauty, even.  This began to change when I became headmaster in 1990, and we began to renovate spaces and build new facilities in 1994.  Prior to 1994, the total square footage of all Millbrook’s buildings was about 90,000 square feet.  Since 1994, we have built over 150,000 square feet of new space: 2,000 at the Zoo education center, 85,000 in Mills, 36,000 in Holbrook, 25,000 in MASC, and about 9,000 in faculty homes.  In fourteen years, we have nearly tripled the amount of indoor space on campus. 

In that time, I’ve learned that buildings meet our needs, and they reflect and reinforce our ambitions and our values.  That is especially true of MASC, with its gold level LEED certification.  Really good buildings inspire us in the process; the best buildings do so for generations, as has been the case with this Chapel.

Really good buildings result from a combination of a smart and thoughtful programming committee, accomplished and creative architects, and equally skilled and inventive builders.  For MASC, we had exactly that rare combination.  Known as the COBRAS, the program committee was chaired by Todd Feitelson and Sis Roberts, and it included Martha Clizbe, Julia Heffernan, Ed Hagele, Luke Nagle, Tim Slater, and Alan Tousignant.  Since 1999, our architects have been Voith & Mactavish Associates, and we are fortunate to have the firm’s founder, Daniela Voith, and her partner, John Cluver, with us tonight.  Kirchhoff Construction has built MASC.  They are represented here tonight by the company’s founder, Joseph Kirchhoff, and the aforementioned Mike Wolters.  They all should be filled with pride about their work.  Please join me in thanking all of the COBRAS plus those at VMA and at Kirchhoff Construction for their exceptional efforts and the extraordinary building that they have produced.

Race Bottini and Ceci Weaver will now lead the VIth Form, followed by the Vth, IVth and IIIrd Forms, through the Abbott arch to the main entrance of MASC, where we will cut the ceremonial ribbon.  After that we will have brief tours of the building.