NRMCA e-news

NRMCA Senior Director of Local Paving Phil Kresge recently participated in two fall concrete educational seminars hosted by the Ohio Concrete Association (OCA) that were targeted primarily at the design and specification communities. The Northeast region’s "For the Love of Concrete" seminar drew in 115 industry professionals, while the Southwest region’s "Concepts in Concrete Pavement Technology" hosted 65 individuals. The topic of Kresge’s presentation at the Northeast seminar was Concrete Overlays of Existing Asphalt Parking Lots; it paid particular attention to the concrete overlay guide of the same name. Kresge also reviewed the guide and told participants that the guide can help them overcome their resistance to specifying concrete overlays.

At the Southwest regional seminar, Kresge spoke on Life Cycle Cost Analysis of Concrete Pavements that featured an overview of NRMCA’s Concrete Pavement Analyst software for parking lot design and life-cycle cost comparisons. He also featured highlights from the ongoing research being conducted at the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT.

A promotion team of NRMCA Senior Director, Local Paving, Doug O’Neill, New York Concrete Promotion Council Executive Director Greg Novitzki and NRMCA Producer member United Materials' newest sales person Mario Avarello recently presented ACI 330 to a group of engineers at a Buffalo design firm.

"Although Mario is new to concrete sales, he’s not new to the market, so he used his local connections to set up the presentation and, with direction from United Materials President Peter Romano, he has been going after other designers in the market." O’Neill said. "To walk into a presentation and have someone who is familiar with the people, and is personable and passionate about what he’s doing gives us such a tremendous advantage when hoping to make a change in attitudes and longstanding behaviors regarding how they design a pavement."

The team was able to open the eyes of their hosts to the advantages of ACI 330; by offering a legitimate concrete alternative their clients would benefit by having a truly competitive environment in the bidding process, allowing them the ability to make sound business decisions. The team is following up on at least one project that the designers thought would merit a look at ACI 330, O'Neill said.

For more information, contact Doug O’Neill at doneill@nrmca.org.

NRMCA Pavement Engineer Amanda Hult presented last week Promoting Concrete Parking Lots to the attendees at a meeting in Minneapolis of the Aggregates and Ready Mix Association of Minnesota. Hult discussed the many arguments heard for not designing with concrete for parking lots, countering with basic design information on conventional, pervious and roller compacted concrete along with overlays. She also introduced NRMCA's Design Assistance Program (DAP) many of whom had not heard about the program and then challenged each attendee to submit a project through the program.

"The success rate that we see for the projects sent through this program has continually tracked above 65% since 2012," Hult stated. "That is a lot of concrete going down that would have potentially gone to another type of pavement material."

The new dates for the NRMCA 2016 Annual Convention are April 10-12 at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego. Please be sure to make this change on your calendars. NRMCA has contracted a block of rooms at the resort at a discounted rate of $219/night plus taxes (plus a discounted resort fee of $13/night). Hotel reservations can be made by calling the resort directly at 800-235-6397; please mention you are with the "NRMCA" for the discounted room rate.

Last week’s MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) progress and implementation update Webinar was recorded and is now available online. Information covered includes research, communication efforts, collaboration, implementation of the research and future plans. A brief update on other programs supported by the RMC Research & Education Foundation was also included.

The Webinar is available from the Foundation’s YouTube page and is also linked to the Foundation’s home page. Please contact Julie Garbini at jgarbini@rmc-foundation.org or Jennifer LeFevre at jlefevre@rmc-foundation.org with any questions.

The Manufacturers, Products & Services (MPS) Division of NRMCA is accepting nominations/applications for the 2016 Concrete Cares Award which 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 mixed 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 its choice. The award will be presented at NRMCA’s Annual Convention, March 13-15, 2016 in San Diego, during the Association’s annual awards breakfast.

Ready mixed concrete producers that are members of NRMCA are eligible for nomination. Nominations/applications are grouped into two categories – companies producing fewer than 250,000 cubic yards annually and companies producing greater than 250,000 cubic yards annually.

Click here to view past honorees and submit a nomination/application for consideration. Forward the nomination form and supporting materials to Kathleen Carr-Smith, senior vice president, membership and communications, via e-mail at kcarrsmith@nrmca.org or mail to 900 Spring Street, Silver Spring, MD, 20910. Nominations/applications must be received by January 4, 2016, for consideration.

Please mark your calendars now for NRMCA’s ConcreteWorks 2016 to be held September 18-20 at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, TN. Detailed information about the conference, including NRMCA registration and hotel reservation information, will be posted soon at www.nrmca.org.

NRMCA Senior Vice President of Engineering Colin Lobo presented last week at the 65th annual Concrete Conference organized by the University of Minnesota. The conference, which provided continuing education credits, was attended by more than 450 people. Lobo presented "a reality check" on the state of performance-based specifications by covering the primary prescriptive provisions seen in private specifications. These issues were developed as Specification in Practice topics (this presentation will be co-presented online with his NRMCA engineering department colleague Karthik Obla on January 27, 2016).
 

Presentations at the conference included topics on ASR by Larry Sutter; freeze thaw durability of concrete pavements and internal curing by Jason Weiss; and performance specifications and testing limitations by Doug Hooton. Katelyn Freeseman presented on a novel method on non-destructive evaluation of concrete structures. The Portland Cement Association's Edward Sullivan presented on an economic forecast for cement and concrete.

For more information, contact Colin Lobo at clobo@nrmca.org.

The annual NRMCA Dispatcher Training Forum will be held January 13-15, 2016, in Orlando, FL, but please note that registration closes Tuesday, December 22. With the recovery happening, it's time to make sure experienced as well as neophyte schedulers and dispatchers are primed to make the order flow seamless. Since their work pressure is building again, they must be terrific at juggling competing demands at a much faster pace. New dispatchers often perform unevenly while under fire, and even seasoned veterans can find it difficult to step back and change old habits. Put learning to work: attendees return ready to perform more efficiently in core skill areas:

• Putting Orders in Order: Mastering technical, practical and customer-service issues;

• Scheduling Success: Juggling priority customers, advance notices, callbacks, plant managers and sales reps, and a possible cement shortage;

• Technically Speaking: Knowing ASTM-C94 is vital to success;

• People Professionalism: Managing stress, phone skills and peers. Customers aren’t always right yet they must be served for their- and a producer’s - benefit; and

• Details, details, details: Dealing with clean-ups, small load charges... the list goes on.

This class is highly interactive so your staff can try out new things in a safe environment then "bring home the bacon" to your company.

NRMCA’s and its education partner HalfMoon Education have just released a online course titled "Building Green with Concrete" that is scheduled for January 20-21, 2016. Industry members are encouraged to contact their design professionals and contractors to register for this course.

This course explains the benefits of building with concrete to maximize environmental performance of structures and project sites. Attendees will learn to: 

•Specify high performance concrete building systems;

•Implement pervious concrete pavement systems;

•Develop project specifications to optimize recycled content and maximize durability;

•Understand the basics of low impact development; and

•Understand concrete’s contribution to LEED® v4.

Halfmoon Education Inc. is the leading provider of online education and training for a wide range of industries, including architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing and facilities management.

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 November 30 - December 4, 2015, please click here.

On December 4, President Obama signed into law the first long-term highway bill in over a decade, which also included several key provisions benefiting the ready mixed concrete industry. The FAST Act (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation), or HR 22, guarantees funding for five years at $305 billion for highway and transit programs. On December 3, the House voted in favor of the bill (359-65) followed by the Senate later in the evening (83-16). The President signed the bill into law on Friday, hours before the latest highway bill extension was set to expire. NRMCA secured a number of key provisions in the FAST Act that benefit mixer truck drivers. The key language for the ready mixed concrete industry centers on three important provisions within the Federal Hours of Service (HOS) regulations:

• The first  makes permanent an exemption issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in April 2015 for the ready mixed concrete industry on the drivers’ HOS 30-minute break rule. This provision also includes reforms to the petitions’ process to apply for and receive exemptions from FMCSA, which will benefit all sectors of the construction and transportation industries.
• The second provision creates a ready mixed concrete industry-specific logbook exemption that increases the 12-hour on-duty logging threshold contained in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 395.1(e)(1)(ii) and (e)(1)(iii)(A) to 14 hours in order to be consistent with the 14-hour driving window contained in the HOS regulations.
• The third provision increases the air-miles radius from 50 to 75 air-miles for the transportation and delivery of construction materials and equipment in order to satisfy the current 24-hour restart provision.

The FAST Act also includes several other victories that NRMCA advocated, each benefiting the ready mixed concrete industry. These include Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program reforms that require the FMCSA administrator to commission a study of its safety measurement system and remove certain CSA scores from public view. The bill also contains a provision on minimum financial responsibility for commercial motor vehicles that requires the transportation secretary to consider cost-benefit criteria and conduct a study before issuing a final rulemaking to determine whether to increase the minimum level of financial responsibility.

*Please note that e-mail and direct links to each event listed below can be accessed from NRMCA's Web site.

December 15, Milwaukee

Improving Concrete Quality

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

 

December 15, Webinar

Sales Management: Sales Performance Assessments and Reviews

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

 

 

January 13 - 15, Orlando, FL

Dispatcher Training Forum

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

 

January 26 - 29, Omaha, NE

Plant Manager Certification Course

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

 

January 27, Free Webinar

Performance–Based Specifications

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

 

February 8 - 12, Des Moines, IA

Regional Concrete Technologist Training and Certification Course "Short Course"

Email: Karen Bean, 240-485-1168

 

February 23 - 25, Silver Spring, MD

CCSP Module III: General Business Knowledge

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

 

February 23 - 26, Honolulu

Plant Manager Certification Course

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

 

February 24, Atlanta

Handling Concrete Specifications

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

 

March 22 - 24, Silver Spring, MD

CCSP Module IV: Professional Sales Skills

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

 

April 5 - 8, Birmingham, AL

Plant Manager Certification Course

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

 

April 10 - 12, San Diego

NRMCA's Annual Convention

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

 

May 15 - 18, Washington, DC

International Concrete Sustainability & Self-Compacting Concrete Conference

Email: Lionel Lemay, 847-918-7101