Repealing Section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, there is an epitaph on the wall above where Sir Christopher Wren--one of England's greatest architects--is buried. The epitaph reads in part:

Here ..... lies ..... Christopher Wren, who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.

A similar epitaph would be entirely suitable for my dear friend, the great businessman, engineer, philanthropist, and devoted Baltimorean Willard Hackerman, who died yesterday at the age of 95.

In 1938, Willard was a 19-year-old civil engineer who had just graduated from Johns Hopkins University. He went to work for the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company in his native Baltimore. G.W.C. Whiting and LeBaron Turner had started the construction firm in 1909. In 1955, Whiting promoted Willard to be the president and chief executive officer of the firm, and he served in that capacity until his recent death.

Whiting-Turner issued a press release which stated:

Mr. Hackerman led Whiting-Turner from a modest-sized local and regional contractor to a highly-ranked nationwide construction manager and general contractor working in all major commercial, industrial, and institutional sectors.

Last year--Willard's 75th year with the firm--it reported $5 billion in revenue. The firm, which has 33 regional offices and more than 2,100 employees, is ranked fourth in domestic general building by Engineering News Record and ranked 117th on the list of America's largest private companies.

As the Baltimore Sun noted, Whiting-Turner Contracting Company built the new University of Baltimore School of Law last year, the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, the National Aquarium, and the M&T Bank Stadium. The firm's clients included Yale and Stanford universities, the Cleveland Clinic, Target, IBM, and Unilever, and the Hippodrome Theater. If you seek his monument, look around you.

Through Whiting-Turner, Willard teamed with then-mayor William Donald Schaefer to help transform Baltimore by building the Convention Center, Harborplace, and the Aquarium. These statistics and lists attest to Willard's incredible skills as an engineer and businessman, but they don't begin to capture the magnitude of his accomplishments, his charitable contributions, or his generous spirit.

Willard and his beloved wife Lillian have been lifelong supporters of Johns Hopkins University. He helped to reestablish the university's stand-alone engineering school in 1979, and secured the school-naming gift from the estate of his mentor, G.W.C. Whiting.

Other activities include funding the Willard and Lillian Hackerman Chair in Radiation Oncology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, construction of the Hackerman-Patz Patient and Family Pavilion, and the Hackerman Research Laboratories at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. He and his wife also provided major support for the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Building at the Wilmer Eye Institute.

In 1984, Willard and Lillian donated a mansion on Mount Vernon Place adjacent to the Walters Art Gallery to the city of Baltimore, which in turn entrusted the property to the gallery--now known as the Walters Art Museum--to house its collection of Asian art.

In December 2001, Mr. Hackerman gave the largest gift in the history of the Baltimore City Community College Foundation to establish the Lillian and Willard Hackerman Student Emergency Loan Program, which provides no-interest loans to BCCC students. If you seek his monument, look around you.

Timothy Regan, the Whiting-Turner executive vice president who will succeed Willard as the firm's third president in its 105-year history, noted:

He is a legend for his good works, and the irony is that most of his good works are not even known.

The Sun recounted a story Baltimore architect Adam Gross told about accompanying Willard through a newly completed project at the Bryn Mawr School. According to Mr. Gross, Willard asked the school's headmistress how many women were graduating with engineering degrees. Then, a few days later, he sent a sizable check to the school to provide scholarships for women in engineering. ``He was like that. He did deeds that nobody knew about,'' Mr. Gross said.

Willard was a man of quiet strength who professionally and charitably enriched his beloved Baltimore. He was an active alumnus of Johns Hopkins University who gave back to the school and its hospital in countless ways. He was a humble man and rarely stood still to take credit for his many successes because he had already begun to tackle the next challenge. Despite being at the helm of one of the largest general building companies in America, Willard never outgrew his city or his fellow citizens. The Meyerhoff, the National Aquarium, and M&T Bank Stadium all stand as enduring monuments to a great man. His benevolent legacy extended to the synagogue where my family and I worship, Beth Tfiloh Congregation, where he will be missed as a man of great faith. Willard Hackerman was a true son of Baltimore.

My thoughts and prayers go out to his wife Lillian, their daughter Nancy, their son Steven Mordecai, their five grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren, and his extended family at Whiting-Turner, all of whom loved him deeply.

I encourage my fellow colleagues, my fellow Baltimoreans and Marylanders, and all Americans to celebrate Willard Hackerman ``who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. If you seek his monument, look around you.''

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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