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Association & Industry News
The MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) newsletter for June is now available. This month’s edition includes information on the recent Advisory Conference, ACPA presentation, research brief on a new approach for building resilience assessment and more. For more information on the CSHub, please visit its homepage. 
ConcreteWorks
Discover the perfect platform to showcase your products and services and maximize your reach by connecting with potential customers at NRMCA’s ConcreteWorks 2023. Reserve your spot by June 30 to be included in the first round of booth assignments. The Exhibitor Prospectus for this year’s event is available online. The application process utilizes a priority point formula for the assignment of exhibit space. Applications and payment received prior to June 30 will be part of the priority assignment process. Past exhibitors in NRMCA’s ConcreteWorks will be assigned first by priority number. New exhibitors will then be assigned in the order in which they were received. Applications received on or after June 30 will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis by exhibition management. NRMCA’s ConcreteWorks 2023 will take place in person September 29 – October 3 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, TN. For more information, please contact Senior Director of Meetings Jessica Walgenbach at jwalgenbach@nrmca.org. The exhibitor prospectus, registration and hotel information can be found here.
Engineering
The NRMCA Annual Concrete Technologist Training and Certification Program (Short Course) is scheduled for September 11 - 15 at a location near BWI airport in Baltimore. Interested persons are encouraged to register now. The number of available slots is limited. Registrants will be informed of the actual location to make hotel reservations when the location is finalized. The Technical Short Course provides a fundamental understanding of concrete, aggregates and concrete-making materials, requirements in industry codes and standards and proportioning concrete mixtures. Attendees have the opportunity to obtain industry-recognized NRMCA certifications: NRMCA Levels 2 and 3 Concrete Technologist Certification. The course is intended for quality, sales and other personnel with a technical role with ready mixed concrete companies and suppliers to the industry. New hires in these roles can also benefit from attending. A significant amount of technical content is covered that requires the attendees to have a basic concrete technology background and at least a high-school level of math. Registrants will be provided with pre-course study content about three weeks before the course to prepare. Click here for more information, including a link to register. For more assistance, contact NRMCA's Jeff Bowers. SEO
Last week, the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) published its updated Spring Unified Regulatory Agenda. The Unified Agenda is the clearinghouse for public access to federal regulatory agencies’ respective regulatory actions, covering 60 departments, agencies and commissions. Included in the spring agenda are new timelines and updates on issues including OSHA’s Heat Illness Prevention, Union Walkaround rules, and Tracking of Injury and Illness rule. Also included are DOL’s overtime rule, Davis-Bacon rewrite and Independent Contractor rule, DOT’s Automatic Braking Systems and Side Underride Guards proposals, FMCSA’s Safety Fitness Procedures and Electronic IDs, EPA’s Heavy-Duty Truck Emissions and Fly Ash updates. Plus, NLRB’s Joint-Employer rule, and Election Procedures revision, to name two more agenda items. Click here to view the updated regulatory proposals/rules and their timelines. For more information, contact Kevin Walgenbach at kwalgenbach@nrmca.org. 
Buildings
NRMCA Fundamentals of Concrete on-demand webinar series presents the nuts and bolts of concrete materials, mixtures, and construction practices, from the materials used to make concrete, the standards they must meet, the way it’s made, delivered, placed and finished. If you're a design professional, contractor, concrete producer or supplier to the concrete industry, this course is a must. If you are new to concrete, this is your crash course on your way to becoming a concrete pro. If you’ve worked with concrete for a long time, this will be an excellent refresher on the latest methods, techniques and standards for concrete. The course is taught online in three parts of three hours each. Each part costs $100.
For more information, contact Lionel Lemay at 847-922-7995.
Headquartered in Washington, DC, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has more than 200 chapters and is the largest design organization in the world with over 96,000 members. Its AIA 23 Conference held recently in San Francisco had 475 exhibiting companies, 25 sponsors and more than 15,000 attendees, including NRMCA Senior Director, Building Innovations, Patrick Matsche and his colleagues Donn Thompson, Brandon Wray, Derek Logan and Frank Mruk. They were joined by Sara Svendsen and Scott Kelly of NRMCA Producer member Ozinga Concrete, Chicago. (Seen here, from left to right, are Scott Kelly, Ozinga director of technical services; Brandon Wray and Donn Thompson.) Activity at the booth which featured Build With Strength, PaveAhead and the Portland Cement Association's Shaped by Concrete messages saw a steady stream of creative thinkers looking to NRMCA as the leading expert on lowering concrete’s carbon footprint and creating sustainable and resilient communities. Participants to the conference requested guidance on a range of topics, including EPDs/LCAs, what can be done today, current market conditions, forward thinking advancements, low carbon procurement policy structures and best practices to bring new technologies to market. For more information, contact Patrick Matsche at pmatsche@nrmca.org or 415-672-5275. NRMCA recently verified product-specific Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for cement products produced by NRMCA Materials Division member GCC. The three EPDs correspond to different cement products produced at GCC cement plant locations:
Public access to all three EPDs is available on the NRMCA EPD webpage. Each of the above EPDs were developed by GCC and verified by Labeling Sustainability, a verifier in NRMCA’s EPD program. For more information on the EPD verification program, view the webpage or contact Matthew Lemay at mlemay@nrmca.org.
NRMCA’s Matthew Lemay presented a 30-minute education session on the topic of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) at the joint convention of the Concrete & Aggregates Association of Louisiana (CAAL) and the Arkansas Ready Mixed Concrete Association (ARMCA) on June 5. The annual convention was held in Miramar Beach, FL, from June 4 - 7 and was attended by over 100 members of each association. The demand for sustainability and transparency is increasing in markets throughout the United States, including the Southeast. EPDs are a key tool for the concrete industry to communicate our environmental impacts and meet these demands. Ready mixed concrete producers located in the southeast have achieved global warming potentials (GWPs) below the national average through the use of locally available supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as fly ash and slag. Third-party verified, product-specific EPDs allow ready mix producers to take credit for these innovations in a credible, transparent way which is recognized by industry and green building standards such as LEED. For more information on the EPD verification program, view the webpage or contact Matthew Lemay at mlemay@nrmca.org. 
NRMCA is still accepting applications for the Excellence in Quality Award contest. A company must be a Producer member in good standing to participate. Companies can enter as a company or a division. Applicants are asked to respond to a multiple-choice type application form that generates their scores. Companies or divisions that achieve a score of 75% or greater will be recognized at NRMCA's ConcreteWorks scheduled from September 29 - October 3 in Nashville, TN. The deadline for receiving completed award applications is Friday, June 30. There are several advantages to participating in this award program: 1. It provides recognition to the companies that maintain high-quality standards. Click here to access the link for the Excel file. Before starting the survey, please download the file to your computer and save it using a different file name (company/division name). Then e-mail the completed file and required attachments to Karen Bean at kbean@nrmca.org. For more information, contact Vice President, Technical Services, Karthik Obla at kobla@nrmca.org. 
The NRMCA’s Annual Safety Award acknowledges the significant contribution that safe work practices give to the growth and success of individual companies and the ready mixed concrete industry as a whole. The NRMCA Annual Safety Award is presented to an individual or company whose actions represent the very highest in the advancement of safety in the ready mixed concrete industry. The award program is generously sponsored by the Truck Mixer Manufacturers Bureau (TMMB). The deadline to submit nominations is Friday, June 23.
Learning & Development
Registration is now open for NRMCA’s financial performance education course Think Like an Owner. The course will be offered in Harrisburg, PA, from July 19 - 20. This course is intended to empower participants to understand the drivers of financial performance and improve their management with an eye to profitability of their business center. Participants will learn how to read financial statements, measure performance, examine elements of profit and loss, and think in terms of economic profit. This course is a must-attend for industry participants, from plant managers to company presidents, who want to run their operations profitably. Click here for more information and registration link. The staff contact is Andrew Tyrrell. Calendar
Please note that e-mail and direct registration links to each event listed below can be accessed from NRMCA's website. July 12 Free Online Webinar August 16, Free Online Webinar September 11 - 15, Maryland September 13, Free Online Webinar September 29 - October 3, Nashville, TN October 11 - 13, Centennial, CO October 17 - 20, Denver October 18, Online Course November 7 - 9, Charlotte, NC *Low Capacity November 14 - 16, Dallas November 15, Free Online Webinar November 28 - 30, Orlando, FL Email: Jeffrey Bowers, 703-706-4835 December 12 - 15, Orlando, FL December 12 - 14, Denver December 13, Online Course 
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