Richard S. Weeks, 73, who as a fourth-generation chief of family-owned Weeks Marine Inc., set brand-new market requirements in broadening the Cranford, N.J.-based business into a global company of building and construction, dredging, emergency situation action, tunnelling, seaside repair, aggregates production and associated services, passed away on Oct. 4 in New Vernon, N.J. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer, according to a household obituary.
Beginning work for the company as a teen at its Port Newark, N.J., shipyard in the 1970s, Weeks increased to president, CEO and board chair. Under his management, it grew from a New York City-area stevedoring business established in 1919 by his great-grandfather Francis into a multi-disciplined operation with 1,500 workers and income of almost $1 billion in 2022.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, acquisitions were essential to development and market growth. These consisted of M.P. Howlett in1983, Healy Tibbitts in1989, American Dredging Co. in 1993 and T.L. James in 1998. Weeks Marine likewise acquired McNally Construction, a leading Canada-based tunneling and marine specialist, in 2011 and went into the aggregates organization in 2016, producing North American Aggregates. The system was offered in 2015 to structure products huge CRH plc.
Structure A Project Legacy
Weeks Marine and its systems dealt with specialist Kiewit International on North American facilities tasks, consisting of the Willis Avenue Swing Bridge in New York City; the Euclid wastewater-stormwater storage tunnel in Cleveland; the Toronto-York Spadina train extension tunnel in Ontario and essential jobs for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Weeks Marine likewise was on the group changing the more than eight-decade-old Goethals toll bridge linking Elizabeth, N.J., and Staten Island, N.Y., in 2017-18.
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Other crucial jobs consist of building and construction of the Little Island park on the Hudson River in Manhattan, deal with the Tappan Zee and Gov. Mario Cuomo Bridges north of the city and the Pearl Harbor outfall in Hawaii. Throughout Weeks’ period, the business likewise reacted to emergency situations such as the clean-up following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Hurricane Katrina destruction in 2005, Superstorm Sandy effects in 2012 and undamaged healing of the United States Airways Flight 540 aircraft after its 2009 required landing on the Hudson.
Weeks Marine utilized the Weeks 533 crane for that specific extraction, among the biggest turning maritime cranes in the eastern U.S., with a 248-ft-long boom that might raise to 500 lots. The group’s strategy to raise the aircraft undamaged for more research study by federal private investigators won it the task over specialists that proposed to dismantle it initially, business authorities informed ENR at the time. “No one ever recuperated a jet lost in water. We didn’t understand how structurally sound it would be,” one stated.
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The retrieval was finished after a marathon 22-hour effort, when rivals had actually stated the operation would have taken a minimum of a week. “We reanimated it from the dead,” Weeks informed ENR, including that the business at the time had actually carried out over 2,000 heavy lifts without mishap.
The CEO ultimately managed Weeks Marine’s sale to Kiewit, which worked Jan. 1, 2023, for a concealed quantity. “Our strengths are complementary,” Weeks informed ENR at the time, including that the business was “well capitalized” and had a succession strategy in location. “It’s a good deal for both sides,” he stated.
“Ultimately, they didn’t desire any other business to purchase it other than Kiewit,” stated Eric Ellefsen, who prospered Weeks as president and CEO and stays in the function. “We originate from comparable cultures and our core worths line up.”
Coach and Role Model
Weeks was a previous president of Dredging Contractors of America and of the market heavy civil experts group the Moles, which together with experts group the Beavers acknowledged him for his impressive accomplishments in building and construction. He likewise was inducted into the National Academy of Construction and was a board member of The New Jersey Marine Science Consortium, New York Maritime Association and Waterfront Alliance.
Weeks likewise was a significant fan of the Rutgers University School of Engineering, to which his daddy, Richard N. Weeks, a business alumnus who passed away in 2025 at age 97, contributed $6 million for a 106,000-sq-ft innovative engineering structure and enhanced a $10-million undergraduate engineering scholarship– the biggest in Rutgers’ history at the time.
At the time of his death, Richard S Weeks. Had actually been taking part in a medical trial of daraxonrasib for innovative pancreatic cancer “as a possibility to assist others who may one day deal with the very same terrible illness,” stated the household obituary.
Having actually begun his profession working along with business staff members, Weeks comprehended operations. preserved strong ties with employees and was related to for his mentoring ability with youths.
“One time when we were aboard a substantial dredge operating in the Mississippi River beyond New Orleans, everybody simply called him Rich, he was among the guys, not the owner of the business. That was remarkable,” states a long time peer, Robert Alger, previous president and CEO of The Lane Construction Corp. and now a department president at AtkinsRealis.
Homages from existing and previous workers, some now in executive functions at other companies, explain him as “a force of nature and pillar of Weeks Marine,” as a “directing light for the company” who “stimulated the entrepreneurial spirit,” as someone “never ever larger than the individual beside him,” and as “a real legend in the market.”
A New Jersey native, he made a joint BA-MA in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
A event of Weeks’ life is set for Sat. Oct. 2411 a.m. at The First Presbyterian Church of New Vernon with a reception to follow at the Basking Ridge Country Club. In lieu of flowers, contributions might be made in his memory to either the Music Fund of the First Presbyterian Church of New Vernon or the Newark (N.J.) Boys and Girls Club.
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