News Detail

ACI’s New Honorary Members

3/9/2020

ACI has announced its 2020 ACI Honorary Members:

• Dean A. Browning
• Gary J. Klein
• Harald S. Müller
• Genaro L. Salinas
• Eldon (Tipp) G. Tipping
• James K. Wight

According to ACI’s Bylaws, “An Honorary Member shall be a person of eminence in the field of the Institute's interest or one who has performed extraordinary meritorious service to the Institute.” 

ACI is grateful to all ACI’s Honorary Members for their extraordinary contributions. Their dedication, leadership, and service to the Institute provide the backbone for continuous advancement within ACI and throughout the greater concrete community.

Dean A. Browning

Dean A. Browning receives Honorary Membership “for his long and outstanding service to ACI and his leadership at the Charles Pankow Foundation.”

Dean A. Browning, FACI, retired from Charles Pankow Builders in 2011 and the Charles Pankow Foundation in 2013, and he completed ACI committee work in 2019. He is past Chair of the ACI Hot Topics Committee and a past member of the ACI Board of Direction, Construction Liaison Committee, Financial Advisory Committee, Hot Topics Committee, Publications Committee, Educational Activities Committee, and Convention Committee; and the ACI Foundation Concrete Research Council. He is also a past member of ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code, and ACI Subcommittees 318-A, General, Concrete, and Construction; and 318-B, Anchorage and Reinforcement. Browning was the recipient of the 2013 Roger H. Corbetta Concrete Constructor Award.

Browning was a member of the Northern California and Western Nevada Chapter – ACI, where he served as President, a member of the Board of Direction, and Co-Chair of the 2004 ACI Centennial Convention in San Francisco, CA.

He received his BS in 1971 and his MS in 1974 in civil engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. Between his BS and MS degrees, he worked for the State of Indiana Highway Department as a Highway Engineer at the Research and Training Center in West Lafayette, IN, evaluating the impact of highway research projects funded by state and federal programs and performing training of highway personnel. While at Purdue, he met Charles Pankow, who convinced him to move to the West Coast.
Browning retired from Charles Pankow Builders, where he worked primarily in the San Francisco office, but he moved his family to other company project and office locations during his 37 years filling many field and office positions. At Charles Pankow Builders, he started as a Field Engineer and retired as Senior Vice President/Chief Operating Officer overseeing field operations. Most of his positions included managing significant design-build projects. Browning has been a speaker on techniques for managing multiple design and construction disciplines during a design-build project. He is a past member of the Design Build Institute of America, of which Charles Pankow Builders is a charter member.

Browning retired from the Charles Pankow Foundation, where he was responsible for administering active research grants funded by the Foundation.

Gary J. Klein

Gary J. Klein receives Honorary Membership “for improving the safety of infrastructure systems through failure and damage investigations and integrating the lessons learned into building codes.”

Gary J. Klein, FACI, is Executive Vice President and Senior Principal at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. (WJE) in Northbrook, IL. For 40 years, Klein has investigated and delivered solutions for buildings and bridges suffering from deterioration, distress, or failure. He has investigated numerous structural collapses, including the 1981 collapse of the skywalks in the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel and the 1996 collapse of the KB Bridge in the Republic of Palau. Klein has also had a lead role in several Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) sponsored research projects, including study of spandrel beam behavior, building volume change, behavior of dapped double-tees, and punching shear beam ledges.

He is an active member of ACI and PCI. Since 1995, Klein has been a member of ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code. Klein is also a member of ACI Committee 342, Evaluation of Concrete Bridges and Bridge Elements; Joint ACI-ASCE Committee 445, Shear and Torsion; ACI Subcommittees 318-E, Section and Member Strength, and 318-J, Joints and Connections; and Joint ACI-ASCE Subcommittee 445-A, Shear & Torsion-Strut & Tie.

Klein has authored more than 40 papers related to his structural investigation practice and research work. In 2016, Klein was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He has also received several awards, including the 2010 Wason Medal for Most Meritorious Paper and the 2016 Charles S. Whitney Medal, ASCE’s T.Y. Lin Award (on two occasions), and PCI’s Martin P. Korn Award (on four occasions).
Klein received his BS and MS in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. He is a licensed structural engineer in Illinois and a licensed professional engineer in Illinois and several other states.

Harald S. Müller

Harald S. Müller receives Honorary Membership “for advancing research globally on concrete behavior, particularly the modeling of creep and shrinkage, and for furthering the collaboration between ACI and fib.”

Harald S. Müller is Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Concrete Structures and Building Materials at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany, and Managing Partner of SMP Engineers of Constructions Ltd. In 2017, he retired from his position as Full Professor and Director at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He has published over 450 papers on subjects referring to his main areas of expertise in national and international journals and conference proceedings, including three monographs. As an editor, he has released a series of publications and over 15 conference proceedings.

Müller is Honorary President of the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib) and an elected member of the National Science Foundation of Germany. He received awards for his excellent diploma marks and Dr-Eng dissertation as well as for several papers and presentations in his career. In 2017, he was bestowed the Nebenius Medal from the Industry and Commerce Chamber of the South Germany Region, and in 2018 he became a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Engineers. In 2019, he was awarded the title of Shandong Provincial Distinguished Foreign Expert (China). Müller is a publicly appointed and court-admitted sworn expert for concrete and masonry structures, and he is also a member of various national and international scientific commissions and technical associations for standardization, including ACI, the German Committee for Structural Concrete (CEN), Deutscher Ausschuss für Stahlbeton (DAfStb), Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN), and the International Union of Laboratories and Experts in Construction Materials, Systems, and Structures (RILEM). He currently serves as a Convener within the CEN Eurocode 2 revision process, and he has been a member of ACI Committee 209, Creep and Shrinkage in Concrete, for more than 30 years.   

Müller’s research interests include concrete and concrete structures; life-cycle analysis, life-cycle prediction, and management of concrete structures; protection, maintenance, strengthening, and repair of buildings and structures; new types of concrete (for example, eco-efficient and ultra-high-performance concrete); mechanical behavior and constitutive modeling of concrete; microstructure and durability of building materials; mortars and masonry made of natural or artificial stones; testing methods for concrete and masonry (materials and structures); temperature and moisture flow in mineral building materials; and German and international standards and guidelines.

Müller received his diploma in civil engineering and his Dr-Eng from the University of Karlsruhe. 

Genaro L. Salinas

Genaro L. Salinas receives Honorary Membership “for outstanding service on ACI Certification Committees and tireless efforts in developing, promoting, supporting, and delivering ACI Certification Programs”

Genaro L. Salinas, FACI, is Concrete Construction Consultant for Salinas Consultants, El Paso, TX. He was recognized for his numerous contributions to ACI Certification programs—for teaching classes in Spanish and assisting sponsoring groups in developing new certification programs in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Ecuador, and several locations in the United States.

Salinas is a member of ACI Committees 223, Shrinkage-Compensating Concrete; C601, New Certification Programs; C610, Field Technician Certification; C612, Self-Consolidating Concrete Technician Certification; C620, Laboratory Technician Certification; C630, Construction Inspector Certification; C631, Concrete Transportation Construction Inspector Certification; C640, Craftsmen Certification; C641, Decorative Concrete Finisher Certification; C650, Tilt-up Constructor Certification; C670, Masonry Technician Certification; and International Certification. He serves as an examiner for 14 classes in Spanish, translating several certification exams, and leads training classes and exams for flatwork finishers in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, New York, and the District of Columbia. Salinas is a member and Past President of the El Paso International Chapter – ACI.

Salinas became a Fellow of ACI in 2016. He received the 2015 Northeast Mexico Chapter – ACI Raymundo Rivera-Villarreal Award and the ACI Certification Award in 2018. He is a regular lecturer for the Mexican Institute of Cement and Concrete and is also an advisor to Mexico’s Cement and Concrete and Masonry Association (IMCYC and ICCYC). He was a speaker at World of Concrete on industrial floor slabs and at World of Concrete Latin America on concrete technology and tilt-up. Salinas is a member of the Mexican Institute for Development of Masonry Construction (IDEAC) and Guest Professor of the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juaréz (UACJ), Construction Systems for Architects and New Mexico State University (NMSU), Concrete Quality School. He is the Technical Committee Coordinator for the Northwest Mexico Chapter – ACI. He has been a member of the El Paso Solar Energy Association since 1996 and served as Past President. Salinas is also active in student certification at UACJ, NMSU, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE).

Salinas received his BS in civil engineering from Monterrey Institute of Technology, Monterrey, Mexico, in 1963.

Eldon G. Tipping

Eldon G. Tipping receives Honorary Membership “for lifetime achievements and contributions to ACI and the concrete industry, particularly in the area of floor tolerances and constructability”

Eldon (Tipp) G. Tipping, FACI, is Founder - Vice-Chairman and Principal of Structural Services, Inc. (SSI). He founded SSI in 1988.

Tipping was a member of the ACI Board of Direction from 2006 to 2009. He served for 6 years as a member of ACI’s Technical Activities Committee. He is a Past Chair of ACI Committees 302, Construction of Concrete Floors; 330, Concrete Parking Lots and Site Paving; and Joint ACI-ASCC Committee 117, Tolerance Committee. He is also a member of ACI Committee 360, Design of Slabs on Ground. He has published numerous articles in professional publications, spoken annually at World of Concrete, and leads educational seminars. His other affiliations include the American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), American Society of Concrete Contractors (ASCC), ASTM International, the International Concrete Repair Institute (ICRI), and the Structural Engineers Association of Texas (SEAoT).

His contributions to the concrete industry were recognized in 2005 by Concrete Construction magazine, and he was selected as one of the most influential people in the concrete industry. In 2000, he was elected a Fellow of ACI; in 2005, he received the ACI Delmar L. Bloem Distinguished Service Award for Chair leadership of ACI Committee 302; in 2006, he received Texas A&M College of Architecture’s Outstanding Alumni Award in recognition of his exceptional leadership and accomplishments; and in 2008, he received the Samuel A. Face, Jr. Golden Trowel Award.

Tipping has over 40 years of professional experience in the structural design of commercial, industrial, and military projects in the United States and in other countries. As a leading authority, he has been asked to perform forensics investigations and has provided innovative remediation solutions. Tipp started his career as a structural designer for commercial and industrial structures and later served as Vice President for a commercial materials testing laboratory where he monitored construction projects.

Tipping received his BS in architectural construction in 1969 and his MA in construction management in 1973 from Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, with an emphasis on structural design and management. He is a licensed professional engineer in five states.

James K. Wight

James K. Wight receives Honorary Membership “for improving the design and safety of reinforced concrete buildings through outstanding leadership in research, teaching and professional service”

James K. Wight, FACI, is Professor of civil engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, where he has taught since September 1973. He teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on structural analysis and design of reinforced concrete structures.

Wight has been an active member of ACI since 1973 and was named a Fellow of the Institute in 1984. He is a Past President of ACI and a past member of the ACI Board of Direction. He is past Chair of the ACI Technical Activities Committee; ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code; ACI Subcommittee 318-E, Section and Member Strength; and Joint ACI-ASCE Committee 352, Joints and Connections in Monolithic Concrete Structures. He is Past President of the Greater Michigan Chapter – ACI.

He is well known for his work in earthquake-resistant design of concrete structures. His recent research has concentrated on the strength and inelastic behavior of connections in composite structures (reinforced concrete and steel) and the use of high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete composites for critical members or regions of concrete structures. He spent a 1-year sabbatical in Japan and was involved in the construction and simulated earthquake testing of a full-scale reinforced concrete building. He has been involved with post-earthquake damage studies following earthquakes in Mexico, Chile, Armenia, Egypt, California, Japan, and India.

At the University of Michigan, Wight has received numerous awards, including the ASCE Student Chapter Teacher of the Year Award (eight times), the College of Engineering’s Distinguished Service and Teaching Excellence Awards, the State of Michigan Award for Outstanding Teaching, and the Chi Epsilon-Great Lakes District Excellence in Teaching Award. He has also received the ACI Delmar Bloem Distinguished Service Award (1991), the ACI Joe Kelly Award (1999), the ACI Arthur J. Boase Award (2002), the Structural Research Award (2003 and 2009), the ACI Wason Medal (2012), and the ACI Charles S. Whitney Award (2015).

Wight received his BS and MS in civil engineering from Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, in 1969 and 1970, respectively; and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, in 1973.

View ACI Honors & Awards.