NRMCA Senior Director of National Resources Doug O’Neill recently visited the Michigan Concrete Association (MCA) and discussed how national/state synergies can be improved with MCA Executive Director/CEO Dan DeGraaf and Directors of Engineering Kerry Sutton and Steve Waalkes. Developing a way to work together on promotional activities is challenging and requires a high level of communication, O'Neill and his MCA colleagues said.

"'Full Loop' promotion is trying to tie the efforts of local promotion teams, state associations and NRMCA together to better affect the marketplace," O'Neill said. "NRMCA is offering up specific project information to our partners who are interested in developing plans for attempting to convert projects to concrete parking lots. In many cases our efforts nationally to affect conversions fall short because we don’t know the local marketplace or have not developed the right relationships with the local design community.

Full Loop Promotion attempts to get the local concrete industry players involved, be it RM producers, cement reps, admix personnel or state promoters. "In most cases, the local team has the right relationships already developed and can use those connections to advance our cause," O'Neill continued.

"The team at MCA knows how to promote concrete. It already has a very successful Streets and Local Roads effort along with having a concrete parking lot market that accepts concrete as an alternate, so Michigan is a state that other states can look to for guidance," O'Neill said. "For example, when the topic of another state adopting SLR’s to its promotion efforts comes up, the team at MCA started firing suggestions and tips on how to proceed. It had already done these things and knew what worked and what didn’t. Part of 'Full Loop' promotion also includes cooperative communications which is why we plan to continue our quarterly conference calls among the state associations within my region. That’s where we plan to share the suggestions MCA has for our other partners."