Drexel Barrell Manager Recalls Pressure of Engineering Under Fire

While on assignment in Afghanistan, Wayne Curry traveled by Humvee to meet with the minister of water resources.

Photo courtesy of Wayne Curry

Few people view civil engineering as a glamorous occupation. The job demands technical skills and years of education. From there, a qualified engineer might go on to design everyday things—a paved intersection with traffic lights to protect motorists and pedestrians or a supply system that delivers clean water to cities.

Wayne Curry, regional manager of Drexel, Barrell & Co. in Grand Junction, discovered his engineering skills also provided a way for him to help people in war-torn countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, although he had to wear a bulletproof vest to get the job done.

He recently returned to Drexel Barrell from an assignment to build roads in Afghanistan.

“You have to be patriotic,” the 61-year-old said. “When I went over there, I thought I could assist in this effort to rebuild their infrastructure. It was the opportunity to help improve the lives of others in a way you couldn’t do in the United States.”

Perhaps some of the best preparation for tough, overseas assignments were the early years Curry spent working on his family’s ranch in Montana.

“It taught me to be able to deal with severe conditions at times and stay with it when difficulties arose,” he said. During his youth, he also discovered he was mechanically adept. “I liked to build things and there was a better future in engineering than there was in ranching.”

After receiving his engineering degree from Montana State University in Bozeman, Curry worked for a Helena firm for 10 years. Then in 1985, a fellow engineer encouraged him to go after a job overseas and Curry landed a position working in the Sultanate of Oman, a country about the size of New Mexico.

In 1990 he returned to Montana so he could enroll his two young sons in public schools, and eventually started his own engineering business. But when offered a USAID assignment, Curry returned overseas in 1998, engineering roadway and water projects in the West Bank and Gaza.

“Gaza wasn’t dangerous like it is now,” he says. “I could travel freely there if I was careful where I went.”

During his assignment, Curry wore a bullet-proof vest while working and during his meetings with USAID in Kandahar, as pictured here.

Photo courtesy of Wayne Curry

His biggest concern, he says, was the harassment he received from Israeli soldiers at security checkpoints. Angry that Curry was working for the benefit of Palestinians, a soldier would occasionally chamber a round in an assault rifle and point the gun at Curry’s head, the safety off.

“It was a bit unnerving,” Curry said.

In 2005, Curry accepted a 10-month USAID assignment in Iraq to reconstruct water systems and wastewater treatment plants. With more than 6.5 million Baghdad residents living in war-ravaged conditions, raw sewage flows freely, often flooding streets and spreading disease, especially among children.

“A lot of the systems were in disrepair, because there had been no maintenance for years,” Curry said. “Saddam put his money into building palaces.”

Despite a $2.5-billion budget, success was limited, Curry said. Materials were costly and hard to get, and construction-cost overruns were high. Timing also was a problem.

“We built these water treatment plants to increase their water supply,” he said. “But a lot of the treated water was lost because the pipeline networks were in such poor condition, it was leaking out before getting to homes.”

Later contractors managed to get many of the pipelines repaired, but it wasn’t easy. Security against insurgent attacks added as much as 40% to the cost.

“They’re still fighting—trying to kill each other, and they are having a hard time trying to rebuild the country,” Curry said.

“We were attacked a few times, too,” he said. “Since I was the representative of the State Department, I had to go out two to three times a week, so we were always a target.”

The most brutal attack occurred Aug. 9, 2005, when Curry’s armored Humvee was blown up by a car bomb in a crowded marketplace. Curry’s turret gunner was killed, along with 19 civilians. Another 90 were injured, many of them dying later of their wounds.

“It blew up about 20 ft from our front bumper and blew holes through the engine block. We were in the back seat. It was both luck and timing that we weren’t killed.

“We had some failures in Baghdad, due to frequent insurgent attacks, but we had a lot of successes, too. In Diwaniyah, we rebuilt a water treatment plant from scratch for 10,000 people.”

Another water treatment system plant was built in Kirkuk, Iraq, and serves some 500,000 residents.