All Promotion Hands Lend Support in New York Pervious Placement

New York Concrete Promotion Council Executive Director Greg Novitzki recently discussed with NRMCA Senior Director, National Resources Doug O'Neill a pervious concrete project for a place of worship that sought a solution for its stormwater management issues. "The story of how this meeting came about is an example of how our promotion partnerships are supposed to work," Novitzki said.

 

It started with New Jersey-based Ken Justice, promotion director for the Portland Cement Association's Northeast region and a pervious concrete expert, calling Novitzki to discuss a project. Novitzki followed up with the engineer who called him about the project and learned that the project's owners had worked with pervious concrete successfully in the past, but needed help to convince them of its durability. With the help of Jerry Keahon of NRMCA Producer member Eastern Concrete and their admixture representative Mike Allen with BASF, Novitzki and his team were able to convince the owners' representative and general contractor that a pervious parking lot the engineer had designed for them would work in the often harsh Northeast environment. As a result, the producer is working on touring projects with them this week so they will know that they are not "the first" to try pervious.

At about that same time, O’Neill received a call from the engineer looking to submit the project assistance under Design Assistance Program (DAP) on this project since he’d had good results with a previous submission last year in Connecticut. O’Neill then spoke with his frequent promotion collaborator Jim Langlois at the Connecticut Concrete Promotion Council who had referred the engineer to NRMCA. Langlois explained the project was actually located in New York, but made suggestions on potential contractors being considered for the project. O’Neill then made the call to Novitzki to discuss the DAP submission. The DAP is now being processed; it also includes the option of using conventional concrete where there had been asphalt proposed.

"Seems that everyone had some input/contact with one or more of the players in this project which helped spread the feeling of confidence to our owner and his representative," Novitzki said. "It is a truly great example of how promotion works. We didn’t have any territory fights, nor procedural disagreements, nor grandstanding, nor ego problems. When we met on site last Friday, behind us we had experts from New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania along with national representation from PCA Northeast, BASF and NRMCA. That’s power in promotion!"

For more information, contact Doug O'Neill at doneill@nrmca.org.