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Association & Industry News
Nominations to fill the seats of eight expiring terms for the RMC Research & Education Foundation’s Board of Trustees are now being accepted. The Board will hold an election to fill expiring terms at its next meeting on Sunday, October 6. Nominations must be received by Friday, August 16. To nominate an individual for the Board, please contact Foundation Executive Director Julie Garbini at jgarbini@rmc-foundation.org or at 240-485-1150. Please click here to view the Board of Trustees Position Description. There is still exhibit space available at the upcoming NRMCA’s ConcreteWorks 2019, being held at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center from October 3-7 in Kissimmee, FL (metro Orlando). The event will be co-located with the Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) Fall Board and Committee Meetings and the American Concrete Pumping Association’s (ACPA) 2019 Education Conference. Exhibit space costs can be found in the Exhibitor Prospectus. Reserve your space now by completing the Exhibitor Booth Application and returning it to NRMCA along with the required payment. Please note that the cost of the exhibit space does NOT include attendee registration and a separate attendee registration form or online reservation should be completed for attendees of exhibiting companies. Click here to access NRMCA’s ConcreteWorks' registration, the resort's online reservations' link, the exhibitor prospectus and more. For more information, please contact Senior Director of Meetings Jessica Walgenbach. If your company has a rising star whose career is ready to work on a national level, please submit his/her application no later than Friday, August 9. Click here to download the application form. Of note, the DIL program is a many-year commitment; after the formal launch year ends, DIL alumni are expected to mentor future DILs as well as participate in DIL alumni and industry events and meetings. Starting this year, special activities will be held for current DILs that include DIL alumni so that they all can expand their network. It will start with all DILs receiving an invitation to engage with the industry’s senior leadership at the 2020 annual Spring North American Concrete Alliance Fly-in, in Washington, DC. The two-day event pulls together a coalition of 12 concrete-related associations for the purpose of addressing industry-wide concerns and initiatives in the areas of research, safety, education and government affairs. While in DC, groups will travel to Capitol Hill to meet with representatives and their staffs to discuss the impact of legislative actions on our industry. This will not only provide an incredible networking opportunity but also a rare chance to see the federal government at work during what should be a very interesting presidential election year. Applications and any questions/comments should be e-mailed to Eileen Dickson at edickson@nrmca.org. 
Buildings
In May, the International Code Council (ICC) held committee hearings to discuss and vote on proposals submitted for Group B of the 2021 I-Codes. Although not the final verdict, the outcome of the hearings strongly indicates which proposals will be accepted by the full membership. The Group B code proposals included those related to structural issues, energy, and residential construction. NRMCA submitted one proposal, co-sponsored over 20 other proposals and provided support for numerous additional proposals. The results of the hearings were decidedly mixed. Several proposals of importance to NRMCA were successful, including the adoption of ACI 318-19, PCA-100 (prescriptive design for one- and two-story concrete buildings), and the addition of ASCE 7-16 into the residential building code. Numerous other co-sponsored or supported items were also passed through the committee. Major disappointments were the passage of special inspection requirements for mass timber buildings that were supported by the wood industry and are identical to those for precast concrete and steel frames. No technical basis was provided for these requirements. A competing proposal submitted by NRMCA and numerous Build With Strength (BWS) allies was defeated, although it clearly laid out the technical reasons why more stringent requirements were justified. A public comment has been submitted to NRMCA to attempt to overturn this vote. The energy code hearings also saw mixed results, with some onerous requirements passing and others being withdrawn by the proponents in order to find a compromise with the BWS position. Numerous public comments have been submitted by NRMCA and its allies contesting the technical basis of some of the proposed changes. The public comments for all Group B proposals will be debated at the fall hearings with all ICC governmental members allowed to vote after the hearings. Build With Strength is a coalition led by NRMCA that promotes concrete building systems through communications, project promotion, education and advocacy. It can help leverage codes and standards development to place more concrete. For more information, contact Scott Campbell at scampbell@nrmca.org or 502-552-5034. This Build With Strength activity report summarizes activity in state and local legislation for July 2019. Locations of interest are municipalities throughout New Jersey, Massachusetts, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
As part of our advocacy for the Defense Community Infrastructure Program (DCIP), NRMCA is seeking to identify NRMCA member companies with operations near military facilities. As previously reported, this program was contained in the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act and allows the Secretary of Defense to make grants for community infrastructure supporting military installations. While the Department of Defense (DOD) has yet to issue guidance on this program, the FY2021 NDAA directed the DOD to act on this program and authorized $50 million in the House version and $100 million in the Senate version for community infrastructure grants. Consequently, the DCIP represents a potential $100 million pot of infrastructure funding. NRMCA is advocating for the final NDAA to include the Senate authorized amount and will begin FY2021 appropriations advocacy in late fall to ensure that these funds are made available through the Defense appropriations process. If you engage in operations within an area or community that supports a military installation, please let us know so we can leverage your presence as constituents with relevant lawmakers as we work through the authorization and appropriations process and engage DOD as it works to issue guidance and implement this program. For more information, contact Andrew Tyrrell at atyrrell@nrmca.org. 
Government Affairs
On Tuesday morning, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) unanimously reported favorably S. 2302, America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act (ATIA). This bill reauthorizes the nation’s surface transportation and infrastructure programs. The legislation represents a 27% increase in funding over the FAST Act, 18% of which will come in the first year of the reauthorization, Fiscal Year 2021. The FAST Act expires at the end of Fiscal Year 2020. The bill represents $287 billion over five years, $259 billion of which is distributed to states by formula. These funds enable states to engage in concrete-intensive surface transportation projects that improve our bridges and roadways and enable the ready mixed concrete industry and hundreds of other industries to reliably get their goods to market. In an off-the-record briefing last week, EPW senior staff of both parties briefed NRMCA and other interested parties on the reauthorization – which was released on Monday before the EPW meeting – as well as provided background assuring that the bill would be fully paid for. While the Finance Committee has not released its plan on how to pay for the reauthorization, staff indicated that it would rely on user fees, but did not say whether it would include a gas tax increase. EPW staff indicated that they expect all of the appropriations bills to be dealt with before the ATIA is considered on the floor. Sen. John Barrasso, chairman of the EPW Committee, said Monday that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is open to considering the bill before the end of the year. A one-pager summary of the bill is available here and a section by section breakdown is available here. For more information, contact Andrew Tyrrell at atyrrell@nrmca.org.
SEO
There are still openings for NRMCA’s Fall Safety Course scheduled for October 22 - 24 in Dallas. This 2.5-day course teaches participants about OSHA safety compliance, beginning with why safety is so important and details the reasons why an effective safety program actually saves money through loss prevention and control. Participants learn about the new silica rule, electrical safety, machine guarding, fall protection, hazard communication, confined spaces, personal protective equipment, firefighting and evacuation, maintenance shop safety, chute handling, fleet safety, pre-trip inspections and much more. Click here for location details, registration options and staff contacts. You may also contact Kevin Walgenbach for more informaiton. 
Pavement
Dave Gray, GCC of America, Leonard Velasquez, SLV Quality Concrete, and NRMCA Vice President, Local Paving, Don Clem, PE, provided a training session on concrete parking lot overlays for the Landside Engineering Group – DIA back in July 2017. Copies of the CP Tech Center’s Guide to Concrete Overlays of Asphalt Parking Lots, funded by the RMC Research & Education Foundation, were provided to DIA engineers in attendance. Concrete overlays have also been a marketing focus for the ACPA CO/WY Chapter for some time. For more information, contact dclem@nrmca.org.
For more information contact Jon Hansen at jhansen@nrmca.org. 
2020 January 14– 16, Des Moines, IA January 21 – 24, Florence, KY January 28 – 30, Orlando, FL January 28 – 30, Dallas February 25 – 28, Miami March 7 – 9, Las Vegas March 10 – 14, Las Vegas March 17 – 19, Dallas September 27 – 29, Aurora, CO 
Calendar
*Please note that e-mail and direct links to each event listed below can be accessed from NRMCA's Web site. October 3 – 7, Kissimmee, FL October 22 – 24, Irving, TX October 22 – 25, Dallas November 11 – 15, Baltimore November 19 – 21, Orlando, FL December 10 – 13, Orlando, FL December 17 – 19, Dallas |
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Concrete paving work began on the Pikes Peak Pay Parking Lot, owned by Denver International Airport (DIA), in mid-July. The 64-acre project (shown in part here) includes a 10-inch thick concrete bus lane, as well as a 5-inch concrete overlay over asphalt for the car parking areas. The project is reportedly the largest concrete parking lot overlay ever constructed in the U.S. The contractor for the project is ACPA CO/WY member Concrete Works of Colorado (CWC), owned by Marc Lenart. ACPA CO/WY, the CP Tech Center and NRMCA staff have worked with DIA Landside Engineering Group and CWC to develop the design and construction specifications for this important project.
Progress photos (shown here) were received this week from Ray Merlo, CEO of Merlo Construction in Michigan, on the concrete paving for a new Federal Express (FedEx) facility in Pontiac, MI. Merlo Construction not only used its Somero® Laser Screed for the parking lot paving area around the buildings, but also to pave the entrance road into the site. The project will consume over 40,000 cubic yards of concrete.
Merlo Construction is no stranger to paving large projects, as told by Merlo during a roundtable discussion held during last year’s ConcreteWorks. He told about the success, and time commitment, of converting a FedEx project several years ago in Ohio and at the time working with Ohio Concrete on what was the for-runner of the Pave Ahead Design Assistance Program (DAP), which Merlo used on this current project.