Partners in Quality

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The Texas Asphalt Pavement Association (TxAPA) has always been dedicated to the development and construction of quality paving projects in Texas.TxAPA learned early on that the only way that quality paving projects could be accomplished on a regular basis was to work with the owners of the projects, such as the Texas Department of Transportation, in a partnering atmosphere. The goal was that by working together both the owner and contractor could feel as though they were one team working to build a quality paving project for the traveling public. In order to do this two programs have been used by TxAPA over the years to foster this atmosphere.

The first is the TxAPA/TxDOT Quality Asphalt Pavement Awards program. This program uses teams of two people (one from industry and one from TxDOT) to evaluate projects that have been nominated and endorsed by TxDOT and industry. Projects nominations cannot be accepted if they are not supported by industry and TxDOT. After the nominations are received they undergo two rounds of evaluations in order to determine the ultimate winner. Both rounds of evaluations use an industry evaluator and a TxDOT evaluator that are not associated with the project.

This year will mark the 13^th annual presentation of these awards. Since its inception, almost 400 projects have been nominated. The number of award categories has doubled from four to eight. This year, 34 projects from 17 TxDOT districts that were built by 33 different TxAPA members were nominated. As always, the competition was tremendous and the evaluations were difficult, but on September 15, 2010 at the 36^th Annual TxAPA Conference during the Award's breakfast seven well deserving projects will be recognized.

The next program while not as old as the award's program is the Partner-in-Quality (PIQ) Meetings. These meetings are conducted in participating TxDOT districts and typically include TxDOT employees from construction and design, Area Office, District Office and Division, contractor personnel and suppliers in the asphalt industry and TxAPA staff. These meetings take issues that may be happening on a statewide basis and bring them down to a local level. Those issues and issues that are truly local are then discussed by all of the participants in an informal casual basis. While I was the Director of Construction in the San Antonio district, I found these meetings to be extremely useful.

In past issue of the TexasAsphalt magazine, you have seen numerous testimonials for these PIQ meetings. In the Fall 2009 issue former Houston Director of Construction Charles Gaskin called these meetings "the perfect forum that encourages open dialog between both organizations dealing with design, constructability, and rehabilitation strategies." In the Winter 2009 issue John Obr the Director of Construction for the Beaumont district stated that the "wealth of information available at these meetings in an informal format setting is an invaluable tool." Finally in current Summer 2010 issue Robert Lee the Senior Materials Engineer for the Flexible Pavement s Branch of TxDOT states that whether you want to call PIQ meetings "an open communication forum, an HMA partnering session, or just an effective way of working through issues between contractors and TxDOT the bottom line is that PIQ meetings work."

The current PIQ program operates in eleven of the twenty-five TxDOT districts. The meetings are physically held in the TxDOT districts of Austin, Beaumont, Bryan, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston, Paris, Pharr, and San Antonio. The Yoakum district attends the PIQ meetings held in Houston and San Antonio which is something other small districts could consider doing. One week ago I sent out an invitation to the fourteen districts not currently participating and I am happy to say that ten of these districts have indicated that they are interested in participating. Some indicated that they would probably do what Yoakum does, but they are definitely interested. The ten positive responses came from Abilene, Amarillo, Atlanta, Childress, Laredo, Lubbock, Lufkin, San Angelo, Waco, and Wichita Falls. I have not heard back from the remaining four districts (Brownwood, El Paso, Odessa, and Tyler). If your company operates in these remaining four districts please drop by and speak with their Directors of Construction. Tell them about the program and encourage them to join in. There isn't any reason that PIQ meetings can't be held in all twenty-five TxDOT districts.

Taking the PIQ meetings a step further would be to have these in the future with other entities such as cities and counties. That would be a lot of work, but these meetings are so successful that I think it is a logical next step.

In closing to help foster the development and construction of quality paving projects in Texas the TxAPA/TxDOT Quality Asphalt Pavement Awards program and the Partner-in-Quality meetings have been a big success. If you currently participate in these then help get out the word on how good these programs are. If you don't participate in these then please seek out members that do participate so you can get a personal testimonial to how good these programs can be.