Hillman joined Swiss post-tensioning firm VSL in 1990 to work on a 385-m-long incrementally launched bridge in Utuado, Puerto Rico. Six months later, the project manager left the job. Hillman, then age 27, found himself in charge of completing a type of structure built only once before in the Western Hemisphere. And it was slowly collapsing.

It was an incrementally launched bridge being pushed across the piers by 1,000-ton rams supported on the abutments, says Elvin Wright, then VSL project superintendent. But the project was behind schedule and in trouble. Wright credits Hillman with saving the day. “One day he just shows up on site,” he recalls. “He looks like he’s about 20 years old now. Just think how he looked then—like he was out of high school. But he turns out to be this crack engineer.”