TERRANCE STERETT
Driven to Build
ALL ABOUT TERRANCE
Driven to Build
Terrance is a results-oriented professional who can easily make things happen by turning thoughts into action and is energized by making things better. He is independent and moves quickly to action. He will always do what he says he is going to do. He is ethical and respects his teammates.
His passion for construction started with his love of cranes as a child. His grandfather started a crane rental business, and his father would bring him die-cast cranes to play with. This is where his passion for construction started.
After High School, Terrance was not ready for college. Instead, he planned to go into business with his father, who did specialized hauling. He thought he would go to college when he was mentally ready in the back of his mind.
He traveled around the country working as a tradesman for several different contractors doing road stabilization work which required operating equipment, driving material distribution trucks, and working on the survey crew. This was what he spent most of his time doing, but he also worked as a house framer and utility pipe installation on projects.
During one of the pipe laying projects, he became close friends with one of the guys that had been doing that type of work for years. He looked at Terrance one day and said, "get the hell out of here; you are too smart for this." Terrance took that to heart. He went back to college and started his civil engineering degree and ultimately his master's in civil engineering.
Terrance's father had started in the Civil Engineering program when he got back from Thailand during the Vietnam era but never finished. He told Terrance he always regretted that decision. That was the motivation needed to push Terrance to finish and graduate Magna cum laude.
FAMILY LEGACY
If It's Loud and Fast - I Love It!
THE STERETT LEGACY
In over a hundred years of organized powerboat racing, many dynasties have flourished. Before World War II, the Gar Wood family and the Horace Dodge family helped define state of the art in the water sport of kings.
In more recent decades, Schoeniths, the Schafers, Dossins, the D'Eaths, and the Webers have been among others. In the 1960s and 1970s, members of the Sterett family of Owensboro, Kentucky, made their competitive presence felt in Unlimited hydroplane racing. The father, Bill Sterett, Sr. started the ball rolling in 1966 with MISS CHRYSLER CREW. But their spine-tingling exploits in the sport that they loved will always be remembered for as long as men race boats.
USS STERETT, NAMED AFTER ANDREW STERETT
In 2007, Terrance was contacted by General Dynamics/Bath Iron Works in Maine, inviting him to the Christening of the most recent destroyer named after his ancestor Andrew Sterett. He was honored and traveled to meet distant family members that he had never met or even heard of. Come to find out, "The Apple Doesn't Fall Too Far From The Tree," as most of them were either engineers or lawyers. Terrance learned the story of what distant relative Andrew did and that there had been four destroyers named after him. At the time of the Christening, DDG 104 was the most advanced guided-missile destroyer on the planet. Meeting a portion of the crew was a humbling experience for Terrance.
USS Sterett is the fourth ship of the U.S. Navy to be named after Andrew Sterett, a U.S. naval officer who fought in the Quasi-War and the Barbary Wars.