Throughout 2013, NRMCA is helping to celebrate the 100th anniversary of ready mixed concrete in the United States by highlighting our members’ histories along with historical fun facts in each edition of E-NEWS this year. Starting with this issue, NRMCA will feature a few paragraphs highlighting individual member histories, along with a link to that company's respective Web site for more information.

As we begin, we note that the industry took a pronounced turn in 1913 in Baltimore. Before then, materials were brought to a construction site and concrete was mixed where it was placed. But that changed in 1913, when (as urban legend has it) concrete was mixed in a central location and then sent by truck to a construction site in Baltimore, thus starting the ready mixed concrete industry.

And here are three randomly selected member histories. To have your company featured in this space in the coming weeks, please contact NRMCA's Kathleen Carr Smith at kcarrsmith@nrmca.org or 301-587-1400, ext. 1145.

Titan America - In 1902, the Canellopoulos family established the first cement plant in Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean in Elefsina, Greece, a small coastal town about an hour west of Athens. Today, with an annual production capacity of 11 million tons, 6,000 employees worldwide and operations on three continents and in nine countries, Titan Cement Group is the leading cement producer in Greece. The Titan Cement Group expanded its cement manufacturing activities outside of Greece in 1992 with the acquisition of a controlling stake in Roanoke Cement Company in Roanoke, VA. The acquisition of Tarmac America and the remaining stake in Roanoke Cement in the fall of 2000 made Titan a bigger player on the East Coast of the United States. Titan's family in the U.S. grew again with the addition of Separation Technologies in August 2002. U.S. operations, collectively known as Titan America, are conducted by several operating subsidiary companies in the U.S., with Titan America LLC serving as their holding company. Read more.

Holcim (US) - Holcim recently celebrated the centennial anniversary of its parent company, Holcim Ltd. Holcim (US) is one of the nation's leading manufacturers and suppliers of cement and mineral components. Holcim (US) has approximately 1,800 employees and operates 12 manufacturing plants and more than 50 distribution facilities in the U.S. Holcim was founded in Switzerland in 1912 and it became clear that the domestic market could offer only limited opportunities for expansion. In the 1920's, the company began investing in cement businesses in other European countries, quickly followed by investments in Egypt, Lebanon and South Africa.  After World War II, and particularly in the 1950's and 1960's, a network of Group companies began to develop in North and Latin America. Read more.

Erie Strayer - An NRMCA Associate Member and also a member of the Concrete Plant Manufacturers Bureau, Erie Strayer has its roots in the Erie Steel Construction Company, a steel fabrication and erection company started in 1912 in Erie, PA. A nine man crew operated out of a one story brick building and did the steel work for commercial, industrial, and public buildings throughout the Erie area. World War II saw Erie Steel build over 100 overhead electric travelling cranes and thousands of clamshell and dragline buckets for the Army and Navy. Defense related work continued after the war with the building of radar towers throughout the U.S. As business grew, Erie Steel began to design and produce concrete batching equipment, clamshell digging buckets, and storage bins for the construction industry. This was the beginning of today's product line. Read more.

A $3.7 million solar-energy system, one of the county's largest, has been completed at NRMCA Producer member New Holland Concrete. The ground-mounted system, featuring 4,480 solar panels on five acres, will supply about half of New Holland Concrete's electricity. The New Holland, PA-based company has a block-manufacturing plant, ready mixed concrete plant, a construction materials warehouse and store, a door-fabricating shop and offices at the property. The system is expected to produce 1.12 megawatts, enough electricity to power about 150 homes.

Source: December 28 AggregateResearch.com. Read more.

As a New Year begins, E-NEWS takes you to Barcelona, Spain, where researchers at the Structural Technology Group, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, has come up with a "biological concrete" designed to act as a substrate for vertical gardens that is simple, low maintenance and requires little or no attention. The key to biological concrete is that it replaces the Portland cement normally used with magnesium phosphate cement – a quick-setting cement often used for repair work. In biological concrete, the magnesium phosphate makes the concrete slightly acidic. This makes it an excellent environment for microalgae, fungi, lichens and mosses in Mediterranean climates.

Source: A December 24 posting on the Web site Gizmag. Read more.

From Spain, we now travel to India where Kerala State Roads and Bridges Corporation (RBDC) Managing Director Mohammed Hanish said whitetopping would be done on the existing roads as it would add more strength to the road. "While the lifespan of ordinary bitumen roads is 5-10 years, the white-topped roads will have a lifespan of around 30 years. The cost for white topping would be 200-250% higher than the ordinary bitumen road construction but this could prove beneficial to the state in the long run considering the durability and strength," he said. Hanish made the comments after a 5.5km stretch on a local road was whitetopped.

Source: A December 27 article by The Times of India. Read more.

The advantages of pervious concrete were embraced four-fold by several New Jersey schools and universities this summer.  In total, the projects consumed more than 1,200 cubic yards of pervious concrete.

Rutgers University, after initial success with pervious concrete on smaller projects, began a sidewalk replacement program. The Central Regional High School and neighboring Central Regional Middle School in Bayville installed more than 6,000 linear feet of 8-foot wide sidewalks and parking areas that link the school parking areas to their athletic facilities. The Glen Landing Middle School in Gloucester Township included a pervious parking/school bus unloading area in its parking lot improvement project. The porous pavement reduced stormwater runoff to an already overloaded drainage pond.

Nominations will be accepted through Tuesday, January 15, for the NRMCA Promoter of the Year Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award for Promotion. Both awards will be presented at the association’s annual convention in San Antonio, TX, March 3 - 5. Nominees for Promoter of the Year must be current employees of NRMCA producer members. Nominees for the Lifetime Achievement Award must be former employees of NRMCA member companies (producer or associate) who are retired or deceased.

You can help industry promotion champions get deserved recognition by nominating them for these prestigious awards. The most recent award winners are Larry Gibbes of Argos USA (Promoter of the Year) and Peter Deem, retired from Holcim (Lifetime Achievement).

 

The New Year starts off with two more of NRMCA's promotion-focused Webinars, this time on Roller Compacted Concrete followed a few days later on how to Effectively Communicate Sustainability. Want to learn more? Just click on the respective links below and register today from the online registration links. You can also contact NRMCA's Jacques Jenkins at jjenkins@nrmca.org.

• Tuesday, January 8 - Roller Compacted Concrete
• Friday, January 11 - Effectively Communicating Sustainability

Early bird registration is now open for NRMCA’s 2013 Annual Convention, scheduled for March 3-5 at the J.W. Marriott Hill Country in San Antonio, TX. Sign up early to save more than $100 off the regular registration fees! This year’s event includes exciting keynote presentations from Architecture 2030’s Ed Mazria, Portland Cement Association economist Ed Sullivan, and housing expert Arthur "Chris" Nelson. In addition, NRMCA committee meetings, Board of Directors activities and the annual members’ meeting round out the business of the Association and, combined with the various networking opportunities, Awards Breakfast and a Luncheon celebrating 100 years of Ready Mixed Concrete, the 2013 event is a must-attend.

The Manufacturers, Products & Services (MPS) Division of NRMCA is accepting nominations for the 2013 Concrete Cares Award through Monday, January 7. The award recognizes outstanding contributions in community service by an NRMCA producer member company. With ready mixed concrete plants in almost every community in America, NRMCA member companies are making a real difference. From Earth Day celebrations, to organized volunteering for Boys & Girls Clubs, local schools and recreation departments, to raising awareness for breast cancer screenings, ready mix producers are at work every day in their communities.

The Concrete Cares Award aims to recognize these efforts and shine a national spotlight on the positive impact ready mixed concrete companies have in hometowns across the nation. A donation, in the name of the selected honoree, will be made to the charity of the company's choice. The award will be presented at NRMCA’s Annual Convention to be held in March 2013 in San Antonio, TX, during the Association’s annual awards breakfast. All ready mixed concrete producers who are members of NRMCA are eligible for nomination.

This week's feature article from the online edition of NRMCA's quarterly magazine Concrete inFocus is titled Using Jobsite Test Results for Improving Concrete Quality (Part 12 of Concrete Quality Series). The article is part of the Winter Edition of the magazine, which is now available online. We'll feature more online articles when the magazine's Spring 2013 issue is available.

On Tuesday, January 15, from noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, NRMCA will present a Webinar on Environmental Product Declarations (EPD). EPDs are third-party verified (certified) reports published by product manufacturers that provide quality assured and comparable information regarding environmental performance of their products or service. With the proliferation of eco-labels and green certifications worldwide, it can be confusing determining a product’s environmental attributes. Well established in other parts of the world, EPDs are starting to appear in the U.S. as the common methodology for assessing the potential environmental performance of a product or process. The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED v4 Rating System and Architecture 2030 for Products are starting the demand for EPDs. 

Join NRMCA for this informative 1 1/2 hours as we offer a brief overview of EPDs, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that supports it and the Product Category Rules (PCRs) that sets the ground rules for it. In addition, the Webinar will discuss NRMCA’s EPD Program, which enables concrete producers to meet the new requirements for EPDs.

Media articles on the fiscal cliff, transportation infrastructure, regulation, heath care, taxes and other subjects, each of which relate to the ready mixed concrete industry, are updated each week by NRMCA's Government Affairs staff. To access the most recent compilation of articles - for the Week of December 17 - 21, please click here.

NRMCA's Internet Spotlight, good through Tuesday, January 8, is the ever popular Concrete In Practice (CIP) full set – both English and Spanish versions available. This package contains 20 collated sets of each CIP 1-42. Concrete in Practice sheets are short one-page discussions on various concrete topics. Written in a "What? Why? and How?" scheme, they are intended to provide information in a non-technical format. The CIP topics are researched and written by members of NRMCA's Research Engineering and Standards Committee.

January 8, Webinar

Roller Compacted Concrete: Your Third Choice for Pavement

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

January 11, Webinar

Effectively Communicating Sustainability

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

January 15, Webinar

The Quantifiable Advantages of Concrete Parking Lots

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

January 15, Webinar

Environmental Product Declarations

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

January 21-24, Online Course

Concrete’s Role in Sustainable Development

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

January 28-31, Online Course

Design of Concrete Pavements

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

February 5, Webinar

Introduction to Concrete Pavement Analyst (CPA) Software

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

February 5, Webinar

Designing and Specifying Pervious Concrete Part I

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

February 12, Webinar

Designing and Specifying Pervious Concrete Part II

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

February 14, Webinar

Effectively Communicating Sustainability

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

February 18-22, Sacramento, CA

Technical Short Course

Email: Karen Bean, 888-84-NRMCA, x1168

 

February 19-21, Silver Spring, MD

CCSP Module III: General Business Knowledge

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

February 20, Cleveland, OH

Adopting Disaster Resilient Construction at the Local Level

Email: Tien Peng, 206-913-8535

 

February 21, Webinar

Soils 101

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

February 25, Webinar

Controlling Moisture in Concrete Slabs

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

February 28, Orlando, FL

Adopting Disaster Resilient Construction at the Local Level

Email: Tien Peng, 206-913-8535

 

March 3-5, San Antonio, TX

NRMCA Annual Convention

Email: Nicole Maher, 888-84-NRMCA, x1158

 

March 5, Webinar

Roller Compacted Concrete: Your Third Choice for Pavement

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

March 7, Webinar

RCC: Intro to Design and Construction

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

March 11-14, Online Course

Building Green with Concrete

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

March 12, Webinar

The Quantifiable Advantages of Concrete Parking Lots

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

March 15, Webinar

Effectively Communicating Sustainability

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

March 19, Webinar 

Concrete Pavement Jointing Plans

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

March 19-21, Silver Spring, MD

CCSP Module IV: Sales Fundamentals

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

March 20, Charlotte, NC

Handling Concrete Specifications, Low Strength Problems & Mixture Submittals

Email: Karen Bean, 888-84-NRMCA, x1168

 

March 26, Webinar

Green-Star Auditor Certification

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

April 4, Baton Rouge, LA

Handling Concrete Specifications, Low Strength Problems & Mixture Submittals

Email: Karen Bean, 888-84-NRMCA, x1168

 

April 8-11, Online Course

LCA of Concrete Structures

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

April 19, Webinar

Effectively Communicating Sustainability

Email: Jacques Jenkins, 888-84-NRMCA, x1165

 

May 6-8, San Francisco, CA

International Concrete Sustainability Conference

Email: Lionel Lemay, 847-918-7101

 

May 12-15, Chicago, IL

Fifth North American Conference on Design and Use of Self-Consolidating Concrete

 

May 20-23 Online Course

Pervious Concrete: A Stormwater Solution

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

June 11, Webinar

Concrete Overlays for Streets and Local Roads and Parking Lots

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

June 25, Webinar

Controlling Moisture in Concrete Slabs

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

August 11-15, Montreal

ISARC 2013: 30th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction, Mining & Petroleum Industries

Email: Chantal Murphy, 514-939-2710, ext. 1309

 

August 13-16, Silver Spring, MD 

Plant Manager Certification Course

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

August 27, Webinar 

Concrete Pavement Jointing Plans

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

September 22-24, Las Vegas, NV

Concrete Works & Board of Directors' Meeting

Email: Nicole Maher, 888-84-NRMCA, x1158