Recently, NRMCA Senior Director, National Resources, Doug O'Neill presented to the Connecticut offices of Terracon,  an engineering consulting firm with more than 130 offices nationwide that consults on projects for several of NRMCA’s National Account clients. Accompanying O’Neill was Connecticut Concrete Promotion Council Executive Director Jim Langlois who provided the local perspective. The audience on this visit was Terracon's Geotechnical Engineering Services group which is usually responsible for pavement design recommendations.

Most designers in the Northeast are unfamiliar with ACI 330, so the presentation was met with many questions and concerns focused on topics including subbase requirements and the addition or subtraction of welded wire mesh for typical concrete parking lots, O'Neill said. NRMCA’s Design Assistance Program was offered as a way for participants to slowly get comfortable with ACI 330 by having NRMCA provide the design and joint layouts for some of their upcoming projects.

"In the end, we were invited to present ACI 330 to other offices in the New England region," O’Neill said.

Another interesting outcome of this meeting was the revelation that Terracon is working with a national retailer to review some of its concrete parking lot failures to evaluate what went wrong and what could be done to avoid future problems. O’Neill readily agreed when asked if NRMCA would be willing to assist them in the review and evaluation for its client.