NRMCA e-news
National Ready Mixed Concrete Association
NRMCA's celebration of the 100th anniversary of ready mixed concrete in the U.S. 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. This week's industry milestone: The Grand Coulee Dam, using nearly 12 million cubic yards of concrete, opened in 1941, two years ahead of schedule.
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.
Chandler Concrete Company - Chandler Concrete was founded as a concrete contracting firm just after World War II by R.F Kirkpatrick. In 1973, Tom Chandler purchased the ready mix business from Kirkpatrick and Chandler Concrete Company has continued as family owned and operated for over 38 years. In March 2006, Chandler Concrete acquired Marshall Concrete Products, extending its service areas into Virginia and the southern part of West Virginia. This partnership provides the manufacturing of a new hardscapes division, Grotto Hardscapes. Chandler Concrete completes hardscape options for builders and homeowners throughout North Carolina, Virginia, Southern West Virginia and Eastern Tennessee. Read more.
An NRMCA Producer member since 1975
Cemen Tech - Cemen Tech was founded by Hugh and Eileen Tobler in the late 1960's as a marketing company to sell the Irl Daffin Company's Concrete Mobile. The Concrete Mobile was the original, and at that time, the only mobile or volumetric concrete mixer. The concept of the Concrete Mobile was simple; it was designed to separately hold the materials necessary to produce concrete and to volumetrically measure and mix the materials on site or as needed. Read more.
An NRMCA Associate member since 1999
NEWS LINKS
The six-mile-long Interstate 76 construction project between Fort Morgan and Brush, CO, will use 100,000 cubic yards of concrete, said Ralph Bell, CEO of Castle Rock Construction, the project's primary contractor. According to Bell, the project will have crews remove 233,554 square yards (or nearly 48 acres) of pavement, 475,326 cubic yards of dirt and put down 307,802 square yards of concrete pavement, requiring 100,000 cubic yards of concrete, 150,000 tons of rock and sand and 27,000 tons of cement and flyash.
Source: AGC SmartBrief's e-newsletter for March 22 which contained this March 19 article in the Brush News-Tribune. Read more.
A 7.8-mile project is under way to protect the Louisiana shoreline from wave-induced erosion. The project used 84,000 cubic yards of recycled concrete to fill nearly 7,500 geogrid marine mattresses that are expected to have a 20-year lifespan. The mattresses will be placed directly on the shoreline and could save up to 110 acres of marsh.
Source: A March posting by CE News. Read more.
Through 2017, a rebound in U.S. construction activity will propel growth in green building materials demand, according to a new market research report, Green Building Materials by The Freedonia Group. Growth in construction will promote base demand for such products as carpeting, gypsum board, concrete and metal building products, while products that contribute to the earning of LEED certification will see an additional boost in sales.
Source: A March 21 posting on a Web site called Procurement Leaders. Read more.
Finally, across the Atlantic, a Vienna designer has won an award for his concrete and palladium jewelry. Did you know that concrete has "incredibly beautiful aesthetics"? Well this designer, Thomas Hauser, says so.
Source: A March 22 posting Wired.co.uk. Read more.
PROMOTIONS
With the help of CEMEX’s Jacksonville, FL, office and the Florida Concrete Products Association (FCPA), NRMCA Senior National Resource Director Amy Miller recently conducted a Concrete Pavement Forum for all county engineers in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia. The forum included presentations from Diep Tu, director of engineering, FCPA; Tom Malerk, director of transportation engineering, FCPA, and Brian Killingsworth, NRMCA's senior director, pavement structures. The purpose of the forum was to educate county engineers on concrete pavements, appropriate design methodologies, discuss industry standards for street and local roads as well as a review of construction and materials testing and maintenance discussion. The presentations were geared specifically to county engineers as so many have little experience related to concrete pavements, Miller said.
"This forum was developed as a result of calls made to local county engineers and the apparent necessity for education on concrete pavements," Miller added. "The feedback we received after this presentation was fantastic. The engineers present felt this was not a sales pitch but an opportunity to learn the technical aspects of concrete pavements and to ask questions related to issues they could potentially face. This is a first step in working with local counties to develop specifications that include opportunities for concrete – something that currently doesn’t exist."
For more information, contact Amy Miller at amiller@nrmca.org.
NRMCA Senior Director of National Resources Phil Kresge recently presented at the Annual Maryland Concrete Conference, sponsored by the Maryland Ready Mix Concrete Association, the American Concrete Pavement Association – MD Chapter and the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA). His presentation on concrete streets and local roads (SLR) was part of the Pavements Breakout session.
Kresge opened with a focus on the benefits of concrete pavement for the SLR market. However, the second half of the presentation was intended to debunk the myths surrounding concrete pavements – namely that concrete costs too much and is too difficult to maintain. The program was well received by the 100+ attendees who represented SHA, various county governments and consulting engineers.
Among the Conference’s General Session speakers were Suzanne Greene and Dr. Arash Noshadravan from the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT. Greene provided an overview of the activities of the CSH, while Noshadravan presented on the Hub’s "Life Cycle Analysis Study on Pavements."
For more information, contact Phil Kresge at pkresge@nrmca.org.
NRMCA's national resource directors have scheduled one of their most popular and informative Webinars for next 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.
ASSOCIATION & INDUSTRY NEWS
The pavement deflection research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSH) was the focus of "Study Finds $15 Billion in Annual Fuel Savings From Building Roads With Harder Surfaces" in the March 11 issue of Transport Topics. The article reports that although the effect of deflection is very slight for individual vehicles, the aggregate effect on the entire road network can be significant, with trucks having notably larger changes in fuel consumption than passenger cars because of their heavier weights.
"We’re wasting fuel unnecessarily because pavement design has been based solely on minimizing initial costs more than performance," Mehdi Akbarian, an MIT doctorate student and co-author of the study said in the article. "Better pavement design over a lifetime would save much more money in fuel costs than the initial cost of improvements. And the state departments of transportation would save money while reducing their environmental footprint over time because the roads wouldn’t deteriorate as quickly."
Read the article at www.ttnews.com. Source: March 25 Portland Cement Association's Executive Report e-newsletter.
NRMCA requests its members, the concrete industry and interested parties who want to deliver an education session at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2014 to submit their proposal(s) no later than Friday, May 31. Speaker proposals can only be submitted online. Submittals will be reviewed by the CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2014 Education Committee for topic and audience balance within the total program, application, newness and practicality of session material; relevance and significance to the marketplace; structure and organization of a session and speaker's ability to engage the audience. Commercial product sessions are not acceptable topics. Contractors, by far, are the heaviest attendees at education sessions.
Session tracks include concrete, aggregates, asphalt, safety and regulatory compliance, heavy machinery, equipment management and maintenance, workforce development and business best practices. The CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2014 seminar program will run Tuesday, March 4, through Friday, March 7, 2014. Seminars may also be scheduled on Saturday, March 8, 2014. Presentation dates of a selected proposal is the sole discretion of CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2014.
For more information, contact NRMCA’s Eileen Dickson at edickson@nrmca.org or 240-485-1164.
Former owner and president of the Erie Strayer Company Hamilton Warren Strayer died March 16 at 94. He was born in 1918 in Erie, PA, and attended Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. He led the Erie Strayer Company for more than 35 years and was long involved in NRMCA activities and the Concrete Plant Manufacturers Bureau, of which Erie Strayer is a member. He is survived by many relatives, including two sons, Hamilton G. Strayer and Robert F. Strayer, who is the current president of Erie Strayer, and his wife, Susan, and two daughters, Lydia and Anne. Strayer's first wife, Natalie, a son, Scott, and brother, Roger, predeceased him. Memorials may be made to St. Stephen's Church, 1070 Dutch Road, Fairview, PA 16415.
Click here to read the full obituary that appeared in the Erie Times-News.
SUSTAINABILITY
Unibeton Ready Mix, one of several plants worldwide certified sustainable under the NRMCA Sustainable Plant Certification program, was featured recently in a story on CNN about sustainable concrete construction in the Middle East. The four-minute segment featured such architectural icons as the Burg Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world, and Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, a development striving for net zero carbon emissions by the year 2030. Other projects are featured in the segment, each of which were built using concrete. Christopher Stanley, technical director for Unibeton Ready Mix in Abu Dhabi, was interviewed during the segment to discuss how Unibeton is supplying concrete with low carbon footprint.
Unibeton was one of the first concrete companies to be certified sustainable by NRMCA. The NRMCA Sustainable Concrete Plant Certification program provides a quantitative, performance-based metric to allow ready mixed concrete producers to demonstrate excellence in sustainable development. The certification provides ready mixed concrete plant personnel with specific guidance to assess their production practices and implement sustainability strategies that will ultimately lower their overall footprint.
View the CNN segment. Click here for more information on the NRMCA Sustainable Plant Program or contact NRMCA's Lionel Lemay at LLemay@nrmca.org or 847-918-7101.
Dr. Liv Haselbach, associate professor at Washington State University, will present Removal of High Levels of Dissolved Zinc and Copper in Pervious Concrete at the 8th annual International Concrete Sustainability Conference, May 6-8, in San Francisco. Presentations on pervious concrete have been a mainstay for the conference since its inception in 2006 when the entire conference was dedicated to the topic. Since then, dozens of speakers have presented at the conference on pervious concrete. This year’s conference is no different. In addition to Dr. Haselbach, the following presentations will address different aspects of pervious concrete:
• Nathan Grahl, graduate researcher at University of Missouri - Kansas City, will present Hydraulic Design of Pervious Concrete Highway Shoulders; and
• Alan Sparkman, executive director at Tennessee Concrete Association, will present Pervious Concrete: New Field Practices, Standards and Technology.
Click here for a complete list of conference speakers or visit www.concretesustainabilityconference.org for full details about the conference. You may also contact NRMCA's Lionel Lemay at LLemay@nrmca.org or 847-918-7101.
GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS
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 March 18 - 22, please click here.
If you would like to receive this weekly updated link in a separate e-mail, or if you have questions or comments about the roundup, contact NRMCA’s Kevin Walgenbach at kwalgenbach@nrmca.org.
EDUCATION &TRAINING
NRMCA will host a Webinar Tuesday, April 23. Its topic will give pointers to evaluate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems that support a company's 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.
Click here for registration options, more information and staff contact.
NRMCA conducted its spring Plant Manager Certification course in Houston last week. The next two classes will be held August 13-16 in Silver Spring, MD (metro Washington, DC), and December 10-13 class in Orlando, FL. This course establishes basic industry standards, measured through certification. Please note that batchmen are required to pass exams by the Army Corps of Engineers for federally awarded projects BEFORE work commences.
Plant managers serve a vital function, with responsibilities that affect issues from regulatory compliance to product quality, safety and profitability. NRMCA’s certification program helps them make sure that they are up to speed on product knowledge, plant safety, environmental regulations, plant operations and ready mixed concrete industry business principles.
Click here for more information, registration options and staff contact.
PRODUCTS & SERVICES
NRMCA's March Internet Spotlight, good through Tuesday, April 2, are the NRMCA Promotion Flip Books. Each of these nine Flip Books is 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.
Order online today and receive 25% off. Regular member price is $29, Internet Special $21.75, plus shipping. Discount Code: ISMAR13.
CALENDAR
*Please note that e-mail and direct links to each event listed below can be accessed from NRMCA's Web site.
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 8, Webinar (Part I)
Designing and Specifying Pervious Concrete
Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152
April 15, Webinar (Part II)
Designing and Specifying Pervious Concrete
Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152
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
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