Built on Grit: The UT Alumnus Behind Texas’s Tallest Tower 

Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare. The quote from Angela Duckworth’s acclaimed book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, paints the wall of a conference room on the jobsite for the Austin skyline’s newest resident, the 74-story, 1,025-foot Waterline Tower. As Texas Engineer Emory Sweeney, a lead superintendent at DPR Construction, the general contractor of the development, tours me around his second home for the last four years, it becomes apparent that Duckworth’s words were not an arbitrary interior design choice. 

A mosaic of progress photos adorns the opposing wall of the trailer. “It took six months just to ensure the foundation was safely in place,” Sweeney explained, as our eyes lingered on the canvas portrait of machinery utilized to install the steel beams that would come to support the structural feat, now complete and hailed as Texas’s tallest building.  

Constructing the city’s first “super-tall” took more than four and a half million hours of labor clocked in over 48 months, two months ahead of the projected completion date. For Sweeney and team, the assignment was a marathon, not a sprint. It’s fitting that they had a long-distance runner leading the charge.

A short walk over from the trailer, we find ourselves amongst the clouds, 73 floors above downtown Austin. Peering down from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the tower’s penthouse suite, the surrounding buildings resemble small figurines in a Lego version of the city. But this Lego city was not built in a day.  

If endurance is rare, then this Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering alumnus is an outlier. At only 30 years old, Sweeney received the Waterline assignment. Now 37, he has added lead superintendent of Texas’s tallest building to his list of titles, alongside father, husband and Texas Longhorn. 

From Longhorn to Lead Superintendent

For the Texas native, it was UT or bust. Originally planning to study business, he pivoted to civil engineering after recognizing its broader applications to construction, a field that intrigued him.  

“As a freshman, I was thinking about what I enjoyed doing, which I thought was going to be construction, and I knew a technical engineering degree would set me up for success in that field since I had two uncles who were engineers. But I also wanted to leave the door open in case I wasn’t happy with that career path, because I don’t think people really know what they want to do at that age, and that’s okay; that’s what learning is for,” shared Sweeney. 

Ultimately, that clarity came quickly, notably through his geotechnical course with professor Loukas Kallivokas, and a fateful encounter with his now-employer at the Cockrell School of Engineering Expo. There, Sweeney connected with a recruiter at DPR, where he secured an internship before his final year of undergraduate studies. 

Sweeney’s work ethic and curiosity set him up for success. He landed a full-time offer at DPR as a project engineer before graduating from The University of Texas at Austin in 2011. In the years that followed, Sweeney received multiple promotions at the firm, propelling him towards his assignment as lead superintendent on the complex Waterline project. 

Leading Waterline

The mixed-use development, which began construction in 2022, is nothing short of a masterclass in collaboration. Since the early stages of the assignment in 2020, the Longhorn led a team of 14 superintendents to develop and execute the overall plan for construction of the tower, which features a hotel, office, residential and retail space along Austin’s newly renovated Waterloo Greenway.  

Naturally extroverted, Sweeney thrived in his responsibilities as a liaison between DPR and other development stakeholders, communicating the overall state of the project and helping to find efficient and safe solutions to challenges that inevitably arose.  

“One of the most notable challenges that arose was figuring out how to stack all of the building’s uses together. There are all sorts of nuances and differences between how to build a hotel versus how to build an apartment versus how to build an office, so we had to work together as a team unit to understand those complexities,” said Sweeney. 

In many ways, the role of lead superintendent was to serve as a mentor and coach, ensuring the team was set up for success in their respective areas of the build and encouraged through the hardships of a multi-year project.  

Luckily for the team, the Longhorn is no stranger to going the extra mile, or 26.2, at that. Sweeney has run six marathons, instilling in him the stamina and resilience needed to meet roadblocks hard-hat-on. 

“Despite the best plan, there are things that are going to come up. I don’t think it’s about avoiding those issues; it’s how you react to them. And a strong marker of resilience is how the team reacts to adversity. Our team being able to maintain that resilience through the life of this project, knowing that it was a challenge going in, is something I’m really proud of.” 

It was by acting on his own curiosity that Sweeney built a foundation of knowledge that equipped him to lead such a large project at a young age. He now makes it his mission to instill that outspoken curiosity in the peers he coaches, whether they are fellow superintendents or interns, just as he was not that long ago.

The Next Finish Line 

Genuine confidence and passion shine through as Sweeney describes his leadership philosophy. It’s no surprise that this “kid” was given such an integral role in the construction of the 24^th tallest building in the country. Chat with Sweeney for five minutes, and you’ll understand. But that assuredness did not develop overnight. It was cultivated in the environment of trust and personal development embedded in DPR’s culture. 

With this monumental contribution successfully under his belt, the father of two reflects on the tangible outcome of a company that genuinely invests in its employees. For Sweeney, one of the most rewarding aspects of construction and engineering is seeing the physical results of his work. He takes pride in being able to point to Waterline and tell his daughters, “Dad helped build that.” 

Although he’s tying a bow on the Waterline Tower project, there’s already a new challenge present for Sweeney: his first Ironman. The CAEE alumnus began his training while working on the tower, quickly figuring out how to balance his priorities as a professional, father and hybrid athlete.  

For this Longhorn, the demands of Ironman training mirror those of construction. Both require daily discipline and commitment to a long-term goal. The training hasn’t been easy, but he approaches it much like he approaches the challenges that arise on a construction site: stay focused, put in the work and keep moving toward the finish line. 

If Sweeney’s professional perseverance is any indicator of how the race will go next spring, this Texas Engineer should cross the finish line with no problem.