Pete Distefano

Relentless Ally

Award-Winning Infrastructure Project Leadership

Balfour Beatty’s infrastructure projects across the U.S. are incredibly complex balancing acts of countless trade partners, staff teams, government agencies, safety and traffic concerns and more. Managing that degree of complexity requires a leader who remains cool under incredible pressure, prioritizes client communication and who is willing to test the boundaries of possibility in the pursuit of ever better project outcomes.

Operations Manager Pete Distefano, a 20-year Balfour Beatty veteran, may be quick to share his accolades among an equally incredible team, but his leadership on Southeast infrastructure projects produces results that speak for themselves in accelerated schedules and cost savings. Through relentless client advocacy, creative preconstruction and operations solutions and more, Pete accepts nothing less than excellence for the projects that keep our economies and communities moving like Effingham Parkway, Maysville Bypass and Surf City Bridge Replacement.

Conjuring Time Out of Thin Marl

On all these projects and, more recently, the Harkers Island Bridge Replacement in Harkers Island, North Carolina, Pete cultivates high-performing teams for whom collaboration is the central driver of innovation, all in the name of reducing risk for the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT).

Protracted delays on infrastructure projects are so common that they have virtually become a pop culture trope. But Pete’s leadership on Harkers Island – a monumental project replacing a 3,200-foot, fixed-span intracoastal bridge – led to substantial completion a year ahead of schedule. This warp-speed finish is a nearly unheard-of feat in highway and bridge construction.

The secret, according to Pete: leaning on the expertise of his team, top to bottom, and a willingness to identify innovative solutions, especially during preconstruction with ample lead time to make them happen. Using traditional methods to prepare for and place the bridge-supporting piles, for example, would have required significant excavation work.

“Operations Vice President Jay Boyd had the idea to save significant time by using a probe to punch through the hard subsurface layer of marl that necessitated excavation,” recalls Pete. “The idea was fairly simple but also ambitious and required NCDOT approval with assurance that the idea was feasible.”

Our team worked to negotiate a change order and project credit, but that financial incentive was contingent upon the idea succeeding. With now universal stakes – financial, schedule and Balfour Beatty’s reputation for operational excellence – Pete rallied the team to make this innovative idea a successful reality.

Achieving substantial completion a year ahead of schedule is a staggering accomplishment on its own, but the time saved can reap further dividends. From savings on labor to minimizing community impact and the intangible benefits of opening an arterial roadway far earlier than expected, our team delivered critical goals for NCDOT.

“As a team, we understand how critical these projects are to the communities where we live and work,” Pete says. “Our roadways and bridges move goods across the state, people to work and students to schools. Our work matters, and any effort to accelerate that work is never effort wasted.”

Through it all, Pete kept the entire project team united around the mission, maintaining a collaborative spirit as they worked through the challenges at hand and identified the best and most efficient path forward.

From Operations to Industry Leadership

As the Harkers Island project neared its ambitious early completion, the construction industry at large took notice – both of the project’s constructability merits and of Pete’s stellar leadership. In addition to the punch-driven piles, Pete and the team identified an opportunity to pursue other avenues of innovation, including testing state-of-the-art industrial exoskeleton systems for increased safety during formwork.

Pete was invited to the JEC Summit on Building and Infrastructure in Paris, France, to present on the project’s successes. In addition to the punch-driven support piles, the new Harkers Island Bridge is one of the first of its kind in the U.S. to eschew traditional steel-reinforced concrete in favor of glass and carbon fiber reinforced polymer fiber throughout its concrete structures. As steel-less, non-metal materials, GFRP and CFRP are far less prone to corrosion over time, an especially critical consideration for maximizing the lifespan of a coastal bridge structure.

Harkers Island also represented a significant accomplishment in terms of environmental protection and safety considerations. Federal and state regulations prohibit pile-driving activities in coastal waterways after a certain date each year to protect fish spawning grounds.

“Through months of team grit and overtime work, careful coordination with our environmental and safety teammates and state representatives, we kept the project moving while still protecting a vital coastal economy and ecosystem,” praises Pete.

Industry organizations also duly recognized the incredible successes of the entire Harkers Island project team, and this time with hardware. The Carolinas Associated General Contractors (CAGC) honored the team with a 2024 Pinnacle Award for exceptional delivery of the $60 million project, presented during CAGC’s 104^th Annual Conference in Charleston, South Carolina.

“I’m incredibly proud of the feat our team has accomplished at Harkers Island, and especially because I know it was such a team effort,” Pete adds. “We understood the mission, understood the value of acceleration to our client and we pulled out every stop to make it happen safely, environmentally consciously and affordably.”

A True Construction Professional

Even as Pete’s project leadership and Balfour Beatty’s expertise garner accolades, awards and conference appearances, Pete maintains that he loves his job not for the recognition, but love of the construction process itself. Indeed, even for the excitement of using heavy civils machinery and state-of-the-art aerial videography drones.

“Our Buildings teammates build incredible projects, but on the infrastructure side, the machines are bigger,” Pete says with a wry smile. “That still excites me, but I enjoy even more that we get to build the infrastructure that will connect people, places and business for decades to come.”