News Detail

Summer Days at ACI

8/1/1998

Even though the sunny, hot days of summer are upon us, I hope none of our members have the idea that ACI officers and staff are preoccupied with sipping lemonade and keeping cool in such weather. Calendars and clocks notwithstanding, the operation of the Institute is continuous; maybe not 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, but nearly so, at least it seems to me. There’s work to be done, if for no other reason than a new millennium and ACI’s centennial observance are not far away.

Nearly all of the Institute’s programs and activities are ongoing, and never really concluded. This is as it should be since ACI and other technical societies and trade associations are constant, moving forces with ever-changing agendas. The task is never really completed; the goals of today cannot be the goals of tomorrow.

Instead new initiatives must be contemplated and targeted for future action. There are a couple of recent examples of this, serving to illustrate that there are no slow, summery days at ACI.

The first has to do with ACI’s new Strategic Plan, the drafting of which took place during 1996 and its introduction to the membership in early 1997. The plan was created to identify and disseminate long- and short-term goals and initiatives necessary to reach the objectives of the Institute and its membership. Copies of the plan were distributed to the membership and published in Concrete International to garner member input and guidance.

Following publication of the plan, a permanent committee of the Board of Direction — the Strategic Plan Oversight Committee (SPOC) — was named to monitor progress in the implementation of its various components. Another mission of this committee is to identify and submit recommendations for modifying the plan when needed. These are the functions of this new committee, now chaired by the Institute’s senior vice president Jo Coke.

Recently, SPOC met in Kansas City, Mo., for the better part of two days to review the goals, initiatives, and sub-initiatives outlined in the original plan and to establish recommendations on priorities. There were numerous revisions and additions, largely resulting from external and internal factors that have changed since the original plan was developed. The Kansas City session was a good one; Past President Jim Pierce did an outstanding job as facilitator, keeping the participants on track and on time.

The Executive Committee, meeting in June at ACI headquarters in Farmington Hills, Mich., (another summer meeting I could talk about) recommended a few Strategic Plan changes of its own. It is our belief that the revised document is an improved one and better tuned to current conditions. It is anticipated that the alterations will be submitted to the Board at the Los Angeles, Calif., convention in late October, and then published, probably in early 1999, for member suggestions/comment. Seven sub-initiatives were selected as being of the highest priority; responsible committees and staff will be chosen to implement programs and activities to meet the overall initiatives and goals of the plan.

It might be well for all of us to keep in mind the statement emphasized in the plan: "Success in reaching the Goals depends upon strong and enthusiastic involvement of the entire ACI membership in the Initiatives presented..." Thus it is critical to our success to structure and develop ACI committees and staff to respond to and support these goals and initiatives.

A second matter worth mentioning here — and this is a follow-up to my memo in the July 1998 issue — has to do with the creation of a new organization, the Fédération Internationale du Béton, or fib. I attended the thirteenth and last congress of the Fédération Internationale de la Précontrainte (FIP), held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

As I noted in the July memo, FIP’s merger with Comité Euro-International du Béton (CEB) took place in Amsterdam and thus the new international association came into being. The permanent secretariat of fib will be at the Swiss Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, which has been performing the same function for CEB for many years. For starters, Michel Virlogeux, former FIP president and an ACI member for many years, has been picked as the president of the new agency.

At the conclusion of the Amsterdam session, an interesting one with many papers on a wide variety of subjects, it was announced that the initial congresses of fib will be in Prague, the Czech Republic, in 1999, and in Osaka, Japan, in 2002.

Again, best wishes to the new organization and its officers; ACI looks forward to beneficial collaboration to improve and extend the use of structural concrete worldwide.

These are just two examples of continuing, ongoing activities that do not halt with the arrival of the dog days of summer. And all this happened at the beginning of summer! As I write this, it is only late June! What else is on the horizon for July and August?

Who really has time for sipping lemonade?

James R. Libby
President
American Concrete Institute

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