News Detail

Straight Talk from Our Members

10/1/1997

Many responses have come to me from ACI members since my first memo in the May issue of Concrete International. In this month's President's Memo, I'll share with you a few of these very interesting comments.

Several individuals including Tom Pasko, Peter Emmons, and Merlyn Isaak (all Fellows of ACI) have urged that the Institute take a more pro-active role in selected areas such as high performance concrete and rehabilitation of existing concrete facilities as well as develop stronger ties with other concrete industry organizations. The common goal would be to better serve ACI members and the entire industry, while at the same time making ACI more attractive to its members. As an example of what this input can lead to, the topic of rehabilitation was discussed at length at the recent July meeting of our Technical Activities Committee (TAC). There Peter Emmons and Avanti Shroff made a presentation on what ACI might do to take a much stronger and visible role in this important segment of the concrete industry. I am pleased to tell you that TAC decided to make some major moves on ACI's activities and publications in rehabilitation. I'll give additional input on this, and on HPC and membership issues in the November CI.

Ken Day, also a Fellow and a long-time ACI member from Australia, sent me an e-mail message in late June:

"Dear Mr. President - After more than 40 years of contributing technical articles to ACI, and as a keen supporter of ACI and the way it does most things, I hope the relationship can stand some constructive criticism."

"An important grouch is the way concrete is specified in the U.S.: (a) frequent use of minimum cement content, which destroys all financial incentive to use good materials or equipment or to know or care about concrete technology, (b) frequent prohibition of adjustments to mixes during production without further trial mixes - when it is obvious that calculated adjustments to mixes in production are more accurate than trial mixes, and when timely adjustment of proportions from day to day can assist in attaining uniform properties from variable materials, and (c) use of a ten percent defective criterion which reduces the financial value placed on low variability compared to mean strength."

"These factors explain why, in my opinion, there has been so little progress in the U.S. compared to Australia and many other countries, in achieving good quality control of ready mixed concrete. A slightly less important observation is: how can ACI hope to achieve the international status it desires when the United States is the last country in the world to adopt metrication and insist on terms like "mixture proportioning" for what all the rest of the world calls "mix design?" Please do not misunderstand my attitude. I am a very keen supporter of ACI and point to what I see as obstacles to the progress I would like it to make. Best wishes for your term in office."

Parts of my response follows:

"Dear Ken - Thank for your e-mail. You certainly raise some valid points on the mix and quality control issues, and I will bring these up with some of my colleagues in the appropriate committees, including TAC. On the metrication issue, I think ACI is more than willing to do what is necessary, but it is the industry itself that must `come around,' I think, if we are to really make inroads here. I hope that the major moves made by government agencies who sponsor construction will get us going in the right direction. I will continue to keep pushing on this issue."

How do you, the members of ACI and readers of CI, feel about the issues raised by Ken Day? I am a firm believer in using the best available technology, no matter where it originates. And, for our U.S. readers, how do you feel about going metric?

I conclude with an e-mail message from Doug Merkle, a long-time ACI member: "I read your message in the May '97 issue of Concrete International, and completed my homework assignment. Having been the president of the local NSPE section for several years, I've given the subject of declining professional society membership a fair amount of thought. I suggest we survey young engineers who are not ACI members to see why they are not, rather than asking engineers who are members why others don't join. I joined ACI in 1957, even before graduating from Cornell, because I wanted to know what was going on in the field of reinforced concrete. I still think professional society membership is the best (perhaps the only) way to stay abreast of developments in a given field. If that's true, then we need to convince young engineers of that fact, after first motivating them to want to be well informed throughout their professional careers."

Doug presents a strong challenge to us "old-timers" in terms of our very serious responsibility for cultivating the right professional attitudes in our younger colleagues.

I hope that the several issues brought up here will encourage additional comments and responses. Your frank input is critically important to the ACI leadership as we strive to improve and strengthen ACI.

Address: Hollister Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., 14853; e-mail: RNW3@Cornell.edu; FAX: (607) 255-4828; telephone: (607) 255-6497.

Richard N. White
President
American Concrete Institute

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