NRMCA's celebration of the 100th anniversary of ready mixed concrete in the U.S. continues in E-NEWS this month with the histories of another Producer and Associate member. See below for the two companies we've selected for this week, along with a link to that company's respective Web site for more information. This week's industry milestone: NRMCA’s first publication, Estimating Quantities for Concrete was published in 1931, written by NRMCA’s first director of engineering, Stanton Walker.

Concrete Supply - Concrete Supply was formed in 1958 through the merger of three ready mix companies with a total of four plants, all located in Charlotte, NC. From that beginning, Concrete Supply now operates more than 30 plants in North and South Carolina. In 1999, company management decided to expand in its primary metropolitan areas. To accomplish this, over the last eight years Concrete Supply has acquired ownership or majority interest in several companies. Read more.

An NRMCA Producer member since 1958

CTL Group - This Associate member began in 1970 as the research and development arm of the Portland Cement Association. Over the past 40+ years, the firm's expertise has been sought on a variety of high profile U.S. investigations, including the September 11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York and the Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse. Read more (look for slide show and start at 1970).

An NRMCA Associate member since 2011

Chicago is pioneering the use of a groundbreaking new paving material which is capable of expunging the adjacent air of pollution. As part of a raft of measures to make the streets of the Windy City more environmentally friendly, the city’s government has decided to use photocatalytic cement as a thin, permeable pavement for the bicycle and parking lanes on two local roads.

The material was developed by leading Italian cement maker Italcementi for the Vatican on the eve of the 2,000th anniversary of the Christian faith. The seat of the Catholic Church had commissioned the construction of a new church to commemorate the event and was seeking a surface material that would be capable of retaining its pristine appearance despite being steeped in Rome’s turgid air.

Heavy concrete crushing equipment easily pulverized blocks of concrete into fine particles Thursday morning as part of a demonstration at Orangeburg’s Sunshine Aggregate LLC. The company recycles concrete, brick and asphalt, and sells the crushed material in an effort to reduce the landfill load and meet the demand for concrete, Sunshine Recycling owner Joe Rich said. The company is currently operating about six tractor-trailers for the pick-up and transport of concrete, Rich said.

Engineering News-Record, a weekly magazine for the construction industry, has named Franz-Josef Ulm, the George Macomber Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), to its list of "25 Top Newsmakers" for his work establishing the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSH).

The hub was established October 2009 with $10 million in funding from the Portland Cement Association (PCA) and Ready Mixed Concrete (RMC) Research & Education Foundation. The objective of the CSH is to reduce the environmental footprint of concrete — the manufacturing of which is responsible for about 5 percent of global atmospheric carbon dioxide — by accelerating emerging breakthroughs in concrete science and engineering and transferring those into practice.

NRMCA's Design of Concrete Pavements online course will now be offered July 22-25 from noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern time. This course provides an in-depth look at how to design and construct concrete streets and parking lots. Recommendations for concrete reinforcement, thickness and jointing designs will be provided. Construction techniques, inspection, testing, maintenance and repair are discussed. Additional details will be provided on cost estimating, cost-benefit analysis and life cycle cost. In addition to details of conventional concrete streets and parking lots, this seminar will provide introductions to innovative products such as pervious concrete, concrete overlays and roller compacted concrete.

This course is intended for civil engineers, geotechnical engineers, public works officials and architects involved in the design and layout of concrete streets and parking areas. Concrete contractors and concrete producers will also benefit from the class. Participants who attend all sessions and successfully complete all quizzes will receive 6 Professional Development Hours.

Early last month, Bob Long, executive director, Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the American Concrete Pavement Association, requested a message be driven home to those attending the annual Virginia Concrete Conference: "Let’s tear down all the excuses we hear for not using concrete for streets and local roads. There are so many decision makers who are walking around with asphalt crutches. It is time to kick those crutches out from under them."

This promotion call to arms led Long and his Virginia industry colleagues to invite NRMCA Senior National Resource Director Jon Hansen to speak on the success in his home state of Iowa where more than 65% of all streets and local roads are paved with concrete. The Des Moines-based Hansen gave a history of how concrete streets and road construction started in the state and how the development of the Statewide Urban Design and Specifications (SUDAS) in the 1980's influenced construction. The resulting SUDAS manual provides for uniform municipal infrastructure design resulting in cost saving construction. Hansen concluded his message with the simple statement that "concrete is hard, but it is not difficult to properly design, construct, maintain and repair. You just need to learn from others who have done it and copy their success."

A significant piece of the promotion puzzle is having our industry simply "Get Involved," said NRMCA Senior National Resource Director Doug O'Neill. 

"NRMCA stresses in many of our programs that getting involved is the best way to share the wonders of the concrete industry," he notes. "Whether it’s with local, civil and geotech engineers to promote their use of ACI 330 when designing parking lots or with local architects promoting their use of pervious concrete to solve their stormwater management issues, the fact is that getting out there and involved is the best way to bring about change."

One such concrete industry professional is Brett Ruffing, technology & education specialist at the Kentucky Ready-Mixed Concrete Association. Ruffing recognized early on in his career that getting involved was a critical element for success. His passion for concrete and the sustainability movement caused him to volunteer at the Kentucky chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). His willingness to get involved along with his sincerity and professionalism has now blossomed into a leadership position with the state chapter. Ruffing was recently voted into its General Circle as the chairman of the Membership Committee and also elected for a two-year term onto its Board of Directors, O'Neill reported.

"Not only is Brett’s participation in the USGBC having a positive effect on how the concrete industry is perceived by green building participants in Kentucky, but we have now become part of the solution and part of the sustainability community. We are outsiders no longer. Congratulations Brett!," O'Neill concluded.

The North Dakota Department of Transportation will take bids this week on a 25-mile section of concrete overlay on U.S. 2 in Williams County, one of the big four oil producing counties in northwest North Dakota. The project will consist of 359,400 square yards of 8-inch concrete overlay and miscellaneous full-depth sections at turning lanes. The doweled 8-inch concrete overlay will be built on milled asphalt with 14-foot panel lengths. Department engineers reduced the design from traditional reconstruction thicknesses of 13-inches, resulting in significant savings. Discussions have noted that overlay technologies have become the new normal for concrete pavement options.

Oil field highways in North Dakota are attracting about 90 percent of the total construction expenditures generated through oil taxes and allocated for transportation improvements by the legislature. A $2.5 billion biennial transportation appropriations bill is currently moving through committee. The U.S. 2 project will consume in excess of 20,000 tons of cementious materials.

This is your last chance to register for one of NRMCA's most popular and informative Webinars for this month. Effectively Communicating Sustainability is an hour-long program that takes what we already know about concrete’s sustainability along with the recently released MIT research results and incorporates that information with a Communications 101 course, geared toward helping attendees understand what it takes to improve our communication skills. See the link below for more information and to register.

• Friday, April 19 - Effectively Communicating Sustainability

The Spring 2013 edition of NRMCA's quarterly magazine, Concrete InFocus, has a number of timely and informative articles available only online, including Health Wellness Programs: Promoting a Healthier Workplace.

NRMCA member Michael T. Saunders, 53, of Syracuse, NY, died Sunday, April 7. Saunders was president of Syracuse-based The Saunders Companies, a ready mixed concrete and gravel company established in 1891. It has been a member of NRMCA since 1944. Saunders is survived by his wife, Tracy (Lynch) Saunders of Syracuse; his mother, Marie R. Saunders of Florida and numerous other relatives.

A funeral was held April 12 with burial at the Onondaga Valley Cemetery. Donations may be made to the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central New York, 1100 E. Genesee Street, Syracuse, NY, 13210 or Truth Bible Fellowship, 3303 Makyes Road, Nedrow, NY 13120. Words of comfort may be expressed at tjpfuneralhome.com.

Media articles on Congress, transportation infrastructure, regulation, 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 April 8 - 12, please click here.

NRMCA encourages you to join our industry allies for the Transportation Construction Coalition’s (TCC) 2013 Legislative Fly-in on Capitol Hill on June 4 – 5 in Washington, DC. The Transportation Construction Coalition (TCC) scored a major victory last year when the, "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act" (MAP- 21) became law. The legislation provided a two-year authorization through the end of Fiscal Year 2014 and sufficient revenue to support current funding levels. MAP-21 also accomplished significant reforms in the federal-aid highway and transit programs that will give states more say over what projects are to be built and expediting the environmental review and planning process to speed delivery of necessary transportation infrastructure projects. Senators and representatives have told us that hearing from the folks back home about the need for transportation investment was an important factor in getting MAP-21 enacted.

With this major victory behind us, now is the time to address the longterm viability of the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) by providing the revenue necessary to address the nation’s current and growing transportation investment deficit. As Congress continues to debate the budget, deficit, spending and revenue it is important that transportation investment be part of the discussions.

Your members of Congress need to from you. They must understand the dire impact on their states, districts and the national economy if Congress fails to take action to address the long term financial solvency of the HTF. Join your fellow transportation construction colleagues in making the case with Congress that timely reauthorization of MAP-21 must be a priority.

NRMCA's Technology in Practice series cover brief technical topics in the popular "What?, Why? And How?" format and are developed as educational topics for ready mixed concrete industry technical personnel. The topics are selected and developed by the NRMCA Research, Engineering and Standards (RES) Committee. NRMCA releases two more topics in the series:

TIP 9 – Density of Structural Lightweight Concrete – discusses the relationship between oven-dry density, equilibrium density and fresh bulk density of lightweight concrete. The density of lightweight concrete is critical when used for design load on structural members, fire rating of building assemblies and overall mass of a structure in seismic conditions. The TIP discusses procedures used in ASTM C567 to calculate or measure the density of lightweight concrete in different moisture conditions and to develop information required in project submittals.

TIP 10 – Mixing Water Quality for Concrete – addresses the process of qualifying non-potable sources of water, such as well water or mixer wash water, for use as mixing water in concrete. It discusses the details of ASTM C1602, Specification for Mixing Water and the testing requirements to qualify non-potable sources of water for use in concrete.

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 24, 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 13, Webinar

Introduction to Concrete Pavement Analyst Program

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

 

May 13, Webinar

The Quantifiable Advantages of Concrete Parking Lots

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

 

May 20, Webinar

Roller Compacted Concrete: Your Third Choice for Pavement

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

 

May 20-23 Online Course

Pervious Concrete: A Stormwater Solution

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

 

May 31, Webinar

ACI 330 R-08 – The Gold Standard of Concrete Parking Lot Design

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

 

June 3-5, Chicago

Concrete Durability Course

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

 

June 3, Webinar (Part I)

Designing and Specifying Pervious Concrete

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

 

June 10, Webinar (Part II)

Designing and Specifying Pervious Concrete

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

 

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

 

August 30, Webinar

ACI 330 R-08 – The Gold Standard of Concrete Parking Lot Design

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

 

September 22-24, Las Vegas

Concrete Works & Board of Directors' Meeting

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

 

November 8, Webinar

ACI 330 R-08 – The Gold Standard of Concrete Parking Lot Design

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