NRMCA e-news

NRMCA Senior Vice President, Operations and Compliance, Kevin Walgenbach has been named executive vice president, operations and compliance, effective January 1, 2024. Mr. Walgenbach has been with the Association for 17 years and has done an outstanding job advising the ready mixed concrete industry on compliance with safety, labor, operations and environmental regulations. He has also led the Association’s efforts to monitor and advocate on key regulatory issues of importance to the industry before Federal executive branch agencies. 

 

 

Earlier this month, NRMCA Engineering Staff Attended the ASTM meeting Committees C09 on Concrete, C01 on Cement and E05 on Fire held in Washington, DC, and filed the following report on committee activity relevant to the ready mixed concrete industry.

 

C09.20 Aggregates - Minor revisions were approved to ASTM C29 to measure bulk density of aggregate; to C117 to measure material finer than the No. 200 sieve and to C88 on measuring soundness of aggregate. An attempt to reference a new AASHTO volumetric method, T 354, for measuring specific gravity and absorption of fine and coarse aggregate as an alternate in ASTM C127 (coarse) and C128 (fine) was not successful.

 

NRMCA Director, Building Innovations, Brandon Wray, organized a half day low carbon concrete event in San Francisco last week. The event was structured to pull in experts and stakeholders from various aspects of the built environment to discuss successes, strategies and next steps pertinent to the implementation, growth and acceptance of low carbon concrete. Attendees highlighted the ability of concrete to adapt to the climate demands of owners and designers while still excelling at being a high performance and resilient material.

NRMCA Director, Sustainability, Codes and Standards, Tiffany Reed-Villareal moderated a panel on Embodied Carbon and Sustainable Materials at the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) Inspire Conference in Arlington, VA, in mid-November. Panelists included her NRMCA colleague Brian Killingsworth, materials producers and structural engineers. Topics covered buy-clean legislation, recycling of materials, green procurement and low-carbon concrete. Killingsworth stressed the whole system approach to decision-making, considering multiple factors beyond Global Warming Potential (GWP) for making sustainable procurement decisions. Reed-Villareal emphasized the importance of considering a whole building lifecycle assessment when making choices on materials rather than just focusing solely at EPDs. The panel agreed there is a need for stakeholder education across the project lifecycle.

 

While they have been common in Europe since the 1960’s, roundabouts have been gaining popularity in the U.S. since the late 90’s, reports NRMCA Senior Vice President, Local Paving, Phil Kresge. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that there are over 8,000 roundabouts currently in the service, with the potential for more than 500 new per year. With over 400 roundabouts in the state, Ohio ranks 10th among the 50 states in most roundabouts.