NRMCA's celebration of the 100th anniversary of ready mixed concrete in the United States continues in E-NEWS this week with the histories of another Producer and Associate member. See below for the two companies we've selected this week, along with a link to that company's respective Web site for more information. And the first industry milestone for March, you ask? In 1938, John Crossfield was the first to receive a patent for a concrete overlay. He add latex to portland cement, aggregate and other materials to make a covering for ship decks.

Consumers Concrete Corporation (CCC) - Now in its 80th year of continuous operation, Consumers Concrete Corporation (CCC) began as a sand and gravel operation in 1933. Over the years, CCC has changed and expanded to operate 22 ready mix plants, becoming one of Michigan’s largest suppliers of ready mixed concrete. CCC manufactures concrete block, architectural block and landscape products at three plants located in southwest Michigan.  Septic tanks, retaining wall units and other precast items are manufactured at two precast plants, while the original sand and gravel location continues to supply aggregates to the Kalamazoo community. Read more.

 

An NRMCA Producer member since 1949

The Euclid Chemical Company - Since 1910, The Euclid Chemical Company has supplied specialty products and support services to the concrete and masonry construction industry. Throughout this long history, the company has maintained the cultural foundation of family ownership and built a reputation of leadership on the basis of superior products and services delivered as promised. Read more.

An NRMCA Associate member since 1987

More than $4 billion in federal construction projects would be eliminated under mandatory spending cuts that took effect March 1, according to Engineering News-Record's review of the Office of Management and Budget report. "These indiscriminate cuts run the risk of undermining the fragile recovery in demand many contractors are just now beginning to experience," said Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors of America. "It is hard to encourage major new private sector investments in capital projects when Washington can't even find a way to avoid fiscal crises of its own making."

The December 2012 issue of Concrete Products magazine contained an article profiling NRMCA Producer member U.S. Concrete's San Francisco-based subsidiary Central Concrete Supply and its decision to reduce building sector greenhouse gas emissions through low-carbon solutions. Various E-NEWS items and a press release over the past few months have discussed NRMCA's involvement with this issue.

Remember a previous NewsLink item from the Web site Gizmodo? Well, it's back, this time with the results of a picture shooting challenge that focused on concrete. The winners explained their decisions why they shot a particular structure or building, including camera settings and make/model for you photography bugs out there.

Spanning the globe, we came across this recent article posted by the The Hindu Business Line where E. Sreedharan said concrete roads offer about "the only salvation" for users in an Indian state where major monsoons strike twice each year. The official also cited concrete being less vulnerable to water seepage or oil/lubricant spillage and better skid resistance, among other reasons.

NRMCA Senior Director of Pavement Structures Brian Killingsworth recently presented Ensuring Proper Concrete Field Testing of Ready Mixed Concrete by Testing Agencies at the Kentucky Ready-Mixed Concrete Association 53rd Annual Convention held in Covington, KY. The presentation focused on the benefits of implementing a concrete Quality Monitoring Program (QMP) at the local level; how the industry can lead the implementation of a QMP; the importance of good communication with all of the parties involved with concrete materials testing to avoid testing issues and the proper methods of evaluating and handling out-of-specification materials.

Questions and discussion after the presentation pointed out the value of a QMP and some of the challenges that may be faced between producers, testing laboratories and owners regarding understanding the results of concrete tests and how improved communication can lead to more effective projects and success.

In late 2012 NRMCA began subscribing to a Web-based project lead delivery platform that offers accurate, up-to-date, detailed information on thousands of commercial and civil construction projects nationwide. The goal was to increase NRMCA's knowledge base concerning the WHO, WHAT and WHERE these projects are happening, said Senior National Resource Director Doug O'Neill.

"From the National level, we have not had the specific information on local projects before, so this has been a real eye opener to actually have knowledge about so many projects," he said. "The difficulty is in developing a strategy to make the best use of this information."

The most interesting information seems to be coming from the projects that are in the bidding stage. Once a project sets a bid date, in most cases the service allows access to bid documents, including site plans and specifications. The geotechnical engineering reports are where much of the exciting information is contained, O'Neill said. Often the geotech report is where the civil engineer is getting his or her recommendations for pavement design.

"In these reports we are seeing the classic problems we are combating with the engineering community and that is use of AASHTO 93, far too conservative designs based on little or no hard data but on what they’ve always done or, worse yet, finding no concrete sections at all," O'Neill noted. "This valuable data about the who and where the geotech’s are is something that we haven’t been compiling in the past, so now we are able to know who they are and start the process of reaching out to these geotech firms with the hope of changing some hard and fast attitudes about concrete."

Senior National Resource Director Philip Kresge recently made a presentation on pervious concrete before the Prince William County Facility Construction Management Department in Woodbridge, VA. The meeting was facilitated by Hessam Nabavi of the Northern VA Concrete Advisory Council. Attendees included representatives from Public Works, Building Development Services and Environmental Services.

The two-hour program covered all aspects of pervious concrete, from design and construction to maintenance and repair. Kresge explained the NRMCA Pervious Concrete Contractor Certification Program and stressed the importance of using certified pervious concrete contractors for quality assurance on any project. Additionally, he introduced the NRMCA Design Assistance Program and offered design assistance for any upcoming projects.

"There is great interest in pervious concrete, as the county has at least five projects currently in design on which it would like to incorporate pervious as part of its stormwater management," Kresge said. The second largest county in VA, Prince William County is part of the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. It is also home to the U.S. Marine Corps Base Quantico.

NRMCA's national resource directors have two more promotion-focused Webinars on tap for next week, so consider registering for either or both of these invaluable offerings. First up is The Quantifiable Advantages of Concrete Parking Lots followed a few days later by Effectively Communicating Sustainability. Just see the link below and register today. You can also contact NRMCA's Jacques Jenkins at jjenkins@nrmca.org for more information.

• Tuesday, March 12 - The Quantifiable Advantages of Concrete Parking Lots
• Friday, March 15 - Effectively Communicating Sustainability

The American Society of Concrete Contractors (ASCC), in partnership with the San Diego and Southern California Chapters of ACI, is holding a regional conference, April 3 - 4 in San Diego. The evening of April 3 will feature a presentation and preview tour of the San Diego Central Library project. The presentation will be made by representatives of Turner Construction and Morley Construction, with special guest speakers Rob W. Quigley, FAIA and Jean M. Libby, P.E.  Thursday’s program, at the Westin Gaslamp Quarter, features Kevin MacDonald, Beton Consulting Engineers, LLC, speaking on Moving From Prescriptive to Performance-Based Specifications for Cast-In-Place Concrete and Peter Ruttura, Ruttura & Sons Const. Co., Inc., who will speak on The Pre-construction Conference: Key to a Successful Project.

NRMCA’s annual Dispatcher Forum Workshop will be held March 12-14 in Silver Spring, MD, (metro Washington, DC) at the RMC Research & Education Foundation Center. The seminar includes concrete technical topics as they relate to the dispatcher's job, the latest update on drivers' hours of service regulations, scheduling, order taking and customer service-phone skill building exercises. Special care is taken to address dispatchers’ challenges in today’s difficult environment. This class is an elective toward NRMCA’s Operations STEPS Certification.

Four researchers from Stanford University will present their recent concrete research during the 2013 International Concrete Sustainability Conference, May 6-8, in San Francisco. During the opening general session of the conference, Dr. Michael Lepech (shown here), PhD, assistant professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, will discuss how innovations in the area of Virtual Infrastructure Management are leveraging the benefits of concrete technologies to reduce the impact of building and infrastructure construction.

Dr. Lepech’s research interests are guided by the Sustainable Integrated Materials, Structures, and Systems (SIMSS) design approach. The SIMSS design approach recognizes the interdependencies between materials design, structural engineering and system management, along with the impacts each of these disciplines has on achieving more sustainable engineered systems. The other Stanford speakers include: 

• Subhan Ali, graduate student, Stanford University, will present Tailoring of Polypropylene Fibers for the Design of Sustainable Fiber-reinforced Cement-based Composites by Subhan Ali and Michael Lepech

• Matthew Bandelt, graduate student, Stanford University,  will present Bond in Strain Hardening Fiber-Reinforced Cement Based Composites by Matthew Bandelt and Sarah Billington

• Madeleine Flint, graduate student, Stanford University, will present Performance-Based Assessment of Concrete Durability in Coastal Structure, Madeleine Flint and Sarah Billington

NRMCA’s Lionel Lemay presented Environmental Product Declarations: What Are They and Why Should I Care? at three events last week. The first, organized by Valparaiso University in Indiana, included concrete producers, engineers, architects and students. The second, hosted by the Tennessee Concrete Association during its annual meeting, included concrete producer members and materials and equipment suppliers. The third took place at NRMCA’s Annual Convention in San Antonio, TX, at the Materials Division meeting made up of material supplier members of NRMCA. 

Environmental Product Declarations (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. Lemay’s presentations provided details on EPDs, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that supports them and the Product Category Rules (PCRs) that set the ground rules. NRMCA has become an EPD Program Operator as a way to enable concrete producers to meet the new requirements for EPDs.

Concrete plays a critical role to play in the future success of sustainable development. Take this opportunity to host your specifiers for the online Webinar series, "Building Green with Concrete" next week from March 11 - 14 and they will learn about the environmental attributes of concrete and how it can contribute to sustainable development. This online course provides state-of-the-art strategies, technologies and methodologies for designing sustainable concrete projects to maximize environmental performance. Attendees will be able to understand the basics of low impact development, specify high performance concrete building systems, implement pervious concrete pavement systems and develop project specifications to optimize recycled content and maximize durability.

This course is intended for architects and engineers. Ready mixed concrete technical and operations professionals will also benefit from this course. This course offers 8 Professional Development Hours, 8 AIA-CES HSW Learning Units and 8 Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) Continuing Education Hours.

Media articles on Congress, 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 February 25 - March 1, please click here.

NRMCA will host a Tuesday, April 23, Webinar that supports executives who are strategically and financially evaluating Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to support their companies' sales efforts. Just selecting a CRM system and filling the preset fields will not produce the potential benefits a producer requires. The trick is to "do it right" from the get-go. In this Webinar, facilitator Tim McMahon discusses how to evaluate, select, build, implement and have sales staff use the system to increase sales.

NRMCA's March Internet Spotlight, good through Tuesday, April 2, are the NRMCA Promotion Flip Books. Each of these nine Flip Books are designed to assist in promoting the benefits of concrete to specifiers. These comprehensive 20-page presentations consist of clear, bulleted text and supportive illustrations to be viewed by the specifier, backed by key additional information that only the salesperson can see. Each Flip Book comes with a Windows PowerPoint version on CD-ROM for electronic presentations, which also enables the editing and printing of page updates. 

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 12-14, Silver Spring, MD

Dispatcher Training Forum

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

 

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 19-22, Houston

Plant Manager Certification Course

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 21, Webinar

Environmental Product Declarations

Email: Tien Peng,  206-913-8535

 

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

 

April 23, Webinar

Using a Sales Customer Relationship Management System

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

 

April 23, Webinar

Sustainable Concrete-The Role of Performance-based Specifications

Email: Lionel Lemay, 847-918-7101

 

May 6-8, San Francisco

International Concrete Sustainability Conference

Email: Lionel Lemay, 847-918-7101

 

May 12-15, Chicago

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 3-5, Chicago

Concrete Durability Course

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

 

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

Concrete Works & Board of Directors' Meeting

Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152

 

November 19-21, Silver Spring, MD

The Effective RMC Supervisor Course

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

 

December 4-6, Orlando, FL

Environmental Professional Certification Course

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

 

December 10-13, Orlando, FL 

Plant Manager Certification Course

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