TxAPA Educational Outreach Efforts

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While 2010 has been a successful and busy year from a TxAPA educational outreach standpoint, we plan to continue to ramp up the efforts in 2011. Educational opportunities that were identified in 2010 and that will continue in 2011 include Partners in Quality meetings, various trade shows held around the state, contacts with cities, counties, regional mobility authorities, consultant engineering firms, trade organization, etc.

In 2010, the decision was made to expand TxAPA's Partners in Quality meetings to all 25 TxDOT districts. This effort would entail expanding the Partners in Quality program from 11 districts to 25 districts. By the time December is complete TxAPA and TxDOT will have held 16 Partners in Quality meetings around the state. Of these 16 meetings nine took place in districts that have never held a Partners in Quality meeting or had not held a meeting in years. The nine new districts to the program in 2010 all seemed to enjoy the meetings and even more importantly they all saw the benefits to the meetings. As a minimum all asked to hold their next meeting within a year of their first meeting and some even asked to do it again in six months.

Within the first four months of 2011, there have already been 15 Partners in Quality meeting dates set. Included in these 15 meetings will be four more districts that have never held a Partners in Quality meeting, which will leave only one district that has never held a Partners in Quality meeting. Houston and Beaumont are scheduled for two meetings each during this four month time frame; therefore, the 15 meeting dates actually amount to meetings in 13 districts. In total 24 districts will have held a Partners in Quality meeting between June 2010 and the end of April 2011.

In 2011, TxAPA plans to extend the educational outreach efforts to cities, counties, regional mobility authorities, consultant engineering firms, trade organization, etc. As TxAPA travels to and from the above mentioned Partners in Quality meetings around the state we plan to make appointments to visit cities, counties, regional mobility authorities, consultant engineering firms, trade organization, etc.

If you have a need or can identify an organization that we should visit, please contact us so that we can make the necessary arrangements. In January we will hold our first "brown bag lunch" in Houston with a group of engineers that were identified by Derek Angel.

Mr. Angel then proceeded to arrange the luncheon meeting and schedule it while we are in town for the Houston Partners in Quality meeting. TxAPA will make a 30-45 minute presentation on the benefits of Special Provision 341-024. Granted there is a new special specification under development which will replace this special provision, but the principles of using binder substitution, reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), reclaimed asphalt shingles (RAS), and warm mix asphalt (WMA) will remain the same. Mr. Angel felt it was important that the engineers he identified hear about these benefits. Furthermore, we will explain that new special specifications will be complete by the summer of 2011 for Items 292, 340, 342, 344 and 346 which will all, with the exception of Item 342, contain the same four benefits.

In 2010 TxAPA broke back out their trade show booth. We made some minor changes to the booth then hit the road to visit various trade shows. We attended the Texas Public Works Association Annual Conference and Equipment Show in June 2010 and in October 2010 we attended the Texas Municipal League 98^th Annual Conference and Exhibition; 52^nd Annual Judges and Commissioners Conference and Exposition; the TxDOT Annual Short Course, and the AGC Trade and Equipment Conference.

We plan to use the contacts we made at these 2010 conferences to help us plan "brown bag lunches" around the state that will coincide with our 2011 Partners in quality meetings. In 2011 TxAPA plans to attend some of these same conferences and is looking for other possible conferences to attend. If you identify any conferences or educational opportunities that you feel TxAPA should be a part of please let us know. TxAPA is always looking for opportunities to get the word out about the benefits of asphalt and the new tools available in our industry.

As stated earlier TxAPA was busy in 2010 trying to develop educational outreach opportunities and it appears that 2011 has the potential to be even busier. Please let us know how we can assist you through these efforts and we will be glad to help.