Obama Presidential Center features work of South Bend company

A quote from former President Obama's 2015 speech honoring the 50th anniversary of the March on Selma is displayed at the top of the new Obama Presidential Center.

The recently opened building in Chicago features an excerpt from the speech given by the 44th president near the top of the building, and the letters and panels come from a business in South Bend.

"You'd have to go back six years to the beginning for our involvement in this project, we were introduced to the project by a company that we had been associated with for a number of years prior to that, out of Virginia called Fine Concrete. They had been working with the architect for a couple years prior to our involvement and proposed a collaboration with us where we used all of our skill sets," said Craig Heaney, president of Envel Facade.

From there, Heaney and his team at Envel Facade got to work, and being a part of such a big project was both daunting and exhilarating.

"It's thrilling to get the project, but also a little terrifying at the same time so we knew we had a lot of work ahead of us, we had to put together a team of people that could execute the work and build it over the next four years or so, and we were very lucky, we had a great team on the project, that did a fantastic job," said Heaney.

Once the assembly of the panels were completed, the next challenge was getting them to Chicago. With each one weighing several thousand pounds, this was definitely not light work.

"Once they were all finished, they were in our yard out back here, and we worked with a trucking company out of Chicago, to bring in 30 flatbeds, load them up with a crane here in our yard, and ship them to a staging area in Chicago, and as the job site became ready for the panels, we would haul them in one by one, and erected them, which was a challenge in itself. I was there for every day of the installation, so I got to see the last panel go up and that was a huge relief.  I think it was only a month after I got there that the sight was a little more completed, and you could take it in and appreciate it a little more, but seeing it for the first time, all done was just a massive relief and very rewarding for the entire team to see that," said Heaney.