• May 26, 2026

May 26, 2026

Every project leaves an impression, but for Tom Charles, Vice President of Florida Operations, one build stands above the rest. Though his career has spanned many successful endeavors, the Kirkman Road Extension in Orlando, Florida remains a defining moment of technical complexity and professional growth. The project was essential to expand mobility and connectivity in one of Central Florida’s most vital corridors, serving a major tourism and employment hub near the I-Drive area and Universal’s expanding development. Tom noted “the project required the team to remain adaptable while maintaining focus on overall objectives, which made it both challenging and rewarding.” Ultimately, this project reinforced the importance of coordination and communication, ensuring that even the most complex urban infrastructure can be delivered with quality and meaningful public impact.

A Project of Unmatched Complexity

The Kirkman Road Extension project brought together a wide range of challenging technical elements:

• Construction of a 1.7-mile roadway extension from Carrier Drive to Universal Boulevard along Florida State Road 435
• Construction of a signature elevated roundabout ramp at Epic Boulevard, refined to a Florida I-beam girder structure
• Reconstruction of the Sand Lake Road interchange with a wide-span prestressed Florida I-beam girder bridge and lightweight concrete deck
• Installation of precast utility tunnels, advanced stormwater management, and intelligent transportation systems with adaptive signals

Engineering in an Active Corridor

What made the project truly memorable wasn’t just its scale, but the precision required to build within a constrained and heavily active urban corridor. In lieu of traditional construction approaches, the team relied on 3D corridor modeling and Building Information Modeling to coordinate complex roadway, bridge, and utility elements.

The environment demanded constant awareness, particularly when crews had to perform work directly beneath energized high-voltage transmission lines. Tom recalls that operations had to be carefully sequenced once the constraints of the corridor were fully understood. Custom pile-driving operations and strict safety protocols were implemented, and innovative maintenance-of-traffic strategies were deployed across all phases. The team even maintained barrier-protected work zones and nighttime operations to keep tens of thousands of daily vehicles moving safely throughout construction.

Rising to the Challenge

Tom is especially proud of how the team navigated these engineering challenges while delivering work recognized with a Roads & Bridges Top 10 award. “The team was able to take on those changes, work through the challenges, and maintain the overall project objectives,” Tom shared. He believes that the pressure of the project provided the perfect environment for development.

Lessons That Last

Working on a build of this magnitude continued to shape Tom’s leadership philosophy, which centers on coordination, communication, and adaptability. During the project, he was responsible for overall project leadership and support, a role that required a deep understanding of stakeholder needs and field execution. “My approach is to provide oversight with checks and balances while allowing the team to use their judgement and move swiftly,” Tom said. The experience of leading a large group through evolving conditions allowed him to learn lasting lessons on how to bring a team together.