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Learning & Development
Sales training has been a high priority for NRMCA’s Learning & Development team since the Association began overhauling its educational programs. To this end, as the Certified Concrete Sales Professional (CCSP) program concludes, NRMCA is excited to foster the development of sales professionals in the RMC industry through its successor, the Sales Symposium.
Association & Industry News
ConcreteWorks 2025 and the National Mixer Driver Championship, taking place October 9 - 14 at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, FL, offer a variety of sponsorship opportunities such as becoming a Chairman’s Reception sponsor at ConcreteWorks or an event sponsor for the driver competition. There are many other sponsorship options available, but they are selling out quickly. Now is the time to ensure your company's presence at NRMCA’s largest event of the year by securing your sponsorship today. Click here for all sponsorship opportunities. For more information, contact Jacques Jenkins at 703-706-4865 or jjenkins@nrmca.org. Join Dr. Elizabeth Moore and Dr. Marcos Miranda tomorrow, March 27, at 11 a.m. Eastern time for an engaging webinar on the cutting-edge carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) research happening at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) and Carbon Solutions. Discover how their team is exploring cost-effective CCUS infrastructure solutions that could deliver significant carbon reductions and cost savings at scale for hard-to-abate industries such as cement, steel and chemicals. With a focus on overcoming the unique challenges these sectors face, such as high emissions, capital intensity and complex processes, the researchers are paving the way for scalable, sustainable decarbonization strategies. Don't miss this opportunity to learn how innovative CCUS technologies are shaping the future of industrial sustainability. Click here to register. The Concrete Advancement Foundation is proud to fund the MIT CSHub. To learn more about the Foundation’s work, visit www.concreteadvancement.org or contact Julia Garbini at jgarbini@concreteadvancement.org. Click here more information about the MIT CSHub. 
The 2025 Fleet Benchmarking Survey is filled out by industry fleet managers and/or financial managers early each year, based on data gathered from the previous calendar year’s performance. The survey is used to establish industry benchmarking norms and procedures; information gathered will be published in the Fall 2025 edition of NRMCA's Concrete InFocus magazine. Entries must be e-mailed to Mitchell Freed, CPA, at mfreed@tfcpas.com by Friday, April 18. Click here for more information and to download the entry form. For more information, contact Kevin Walgenbach or Mr. Freed.
Buildings
On March 12, NRMCA Senior Vice President, Codes and Standards, Shamim Rashid-Sumar and NRMCA Senior Director, Building Innovations, Frank Mruk presented Sustainable and Resilient Concrete: Best Practices and Emerging Strategies Workshop to a very engaged audience at the 2025 New York Build Expo held in the Javits Convention Center in New York City. (Seen here is Rashid-Sumar at left along with Mruk, with Rashid-Sumar in top right hand corner addressing workshop attendees and Mruk below during the same workshop.)
New York Build is the city's largest construction and design show, featuring over 500 speakers across 14 conference tracks who shared their professional expertise and insights on the industry. The conference tracks included workshops accredited for AIA continuing education on topics such as international business, AI & digital construction, tall buildings and other relevant industry topics. The show is attended by over 40,000 visitors, including contractors, architects, civil engineers, realtors, developers, government agency and construction professionals. Build With Strength is a promotions partner for New York Build 2025. For more information regarding NRMCA’s promotional efforts in the Northeast Region, contact Frank Mruk at fmruk@nrmca.org.  Derek Torres of Build With Strength, Dee Dee Kennedy and Hayley Martin of the Maryland Ready Mix Concrete Association, contractors and ready mix professionals recently toured Heidelberg Materials’ cement plant in Union Bridge, MD, to better understand the impact it has on low carbon concrete. The plant is one of the largest cement plants in America. Before starting the tour, attendees (seen here) were given a presentation on how materials for the different types of cement are harvested and produced at Heidelberg Materials. Torres said attendees gained a deeper understanding on how different supplementary cementitious materials play their role throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast while also learning some myths on Portland Limestone cement. Besides touring the plant itself, they also saw how cementitious materials are meticulously tested and inspected to meet quality standards. "We would like to thank everyone present that day at Heidelberg Materials for its generosity in showing off the plant and facility," Torres said. "The efforts contribute to our goals of lowering the carbon footprint of concrete." Build With Strength is a coalition created by NRMCA that offers webinars and courses to architects, engineers, and building and fire code officials to promote safety and resiliency, and help place more concrete. Click here for more information on Build With Strength's education programs or contact Derek Torres at dtorres@nrmca.org. 
Engineering
With supply challenges on traditional supplementary cementitious materials (SCM), new materials are entering the marketplace. Even fly ash sources, now referred to as coal ash, are changing because of efforts to harvest material from legacy disposal sites and the ability to use bottom ash from coal burning facilities. These materials need to be determined if they improve the properties of concrete.
SEO
Registration is still open for this year’s spring Environmental Course being held in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, May 5 - 7. Course attendees will be educated on industry-specific environmental issues that impact ready mixed concrete production, including the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, Discharge Permits, Stormwater Management, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Solids Management, Hazardous Materials, Recycling, Spill Prevention Plans, Air Quality Management, Environmental Auditing and much more. Those who should attend include plant managers, environmental managers, compliance managers, executives or anyone with fiscal and/or environmental responsibilities that should know the details concerning a company’s responsibilities when it comes to environmental compliance and stewardship. Click here to register or for more information. You may also contact meetings@nrmca.org. Registrations for NRMCA’s spring Safety Course being held in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, May 5 - 7 are still being accepted. This 2.5-day course teaches participants about OSHA safety compliance, beginning with why safety is so important and details the reasons why an effective safety program actually saves money through loss prevention and control. Participants learn about the silica rule, electrical safety, machine guarding, fall protection, hazard communication, confined spaces, personal protective equipment, emergency action plans, maintenance shop safety, chute handling and much more. Click here for registration information. For more information, contact meetings@nrmca.org. For years, the NRMCA Safety Contest & Benchmarking Survey has been a safety performance and incentive/award program aimed to foster safe practices at ready mixed concrete plants across the nation. The survey is a per-plant contest open to facilities operated by NRMCA member companies in good standing in 2024. Companies with more than one division are encouraged to distribute entry blanks to individuals responsible for keeping safety records at each plant location. The deadline to e-mail entries to Mitchell Freed, CPA, at mfreed@tfcpas.com is Friday, April 4. Click here for more information and to download the survey entry form. For more information, contact Kevin Walgenbach or Mr. Freed. 
Pavement
On Thursday, March 6, the Mississippi Senate passed HB 150, legislation that would increase the maximum gross weight allowed for ready mixed concrete trucks on state roads, that was introduced by state House of Representatives Transportation Committee Chairman Steve Massengill. On March 17, the bill was signed into law by Governor Tate Reeves. The law takes effect July 1.
NRMCA Senior Director, Local Paving, Luke McHugh was recently invited by the Illinois and Indiana ready mixed concrete associations to their Designing Concrete Pavement Seminars that hosted more than 100 engineers, contractors, students and ready mix producers (some seen here) on how to recognize the clues of overdesigned concrete parking lot pavements and how to use PavementDesigner.org in conjunction with ACI 330 to design more cost effective sections. For more information, contact Luke McHugh at lmchugh@nrmca.org. The first research brief, Assessing the impact of overdesign on concrete embodied emissions, illustrates how overdesigning concrete mixtures for strength increases the embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with concrete mixtures. The brief is based on the analysis of 115,000 batch information of 30,000 unique mixtures from 57 plants in the U.S.
Calendar
*Please click here to access your 2025 NRMCA Course Calendar where you can learn more and register for one or more educational offerings. You may also click here for a list of conferences and events which contains relevant links to each of the events and NRMCA staff members listed below. October 10 - 14, Orlando, FL 
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