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ACI's New Honorary Members

3/18/2024

ACI will bestow its highest honor – ACI Honorary Membership – on the following individuals at the ACI Concrete Convention, March 24-28, 2024:

• Ronald G. Burg
• Jenn-Chuan Chern
• Cecil L. Jones
• Michael J. Schneider
• Carol K. Shield

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 its 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.

Ronald G. Burg

Ronald G. Burg receives Honorary Membership “for his outstanding and visionary leadership of the American Concrete Institute, his development of valuable relationships throughout ACI’s global network, and his many exemplary contributions to the concrete industry”

Ronald G. Burg, FACI, is the former ACI Executive Vice President (EVP), where he served for 13 years. He became EVP in 2010, the seventh person to hold that position in ACI history. Burg also previously served as Vice President (1983 to 2010) at CTLGroup, Skokie, IL, USA. As ACI EVP, Burg also served as President of the ACI Foundation and its three councils, as well as President of Advancing Organizational Excellence (AOE), ACI’s for-profit subsidiary.

Burg began his extensive concrete and construction industry career with Professional Service Industries, Inc., as a Staff Engineer, Manager of Construction Services, and eventually Quality Assurance Coordinator at the LaSalle Nuclear Power Plant. In 1983, Burg joined CTLGroup, where he moved up the ranks, beginning as a Research Engineer, Quality Assurance 2 Coordinator, Senior Research Engineer, Manager of Fire/Thermal Technology, Director of Materials Technology, Principal Engineer, and eventually Vice President. During his career at CTLGroup, he specialized in litigation, arbitration, and claims support for concrete technology issues, including compliance, construction methodology, strength assessment, durability issues, and in-place performance.

An ACI member since 1984, Burg is a Fellow of ACI. He previously served on the ACI Board of Direction and is a past member and past Chair of the ACI Technical Activities Committee and ACI Committee 363, High-Strength Concrete. He has also served on ACI Committees 130, Sustainability of Concrete; 132, Responsibility in Concrete Construction; 209, Creep and Shrinkage in Concrete; 213, Lightweight Aggregate and Concrete; and 311, Inspection of Concrete; and Joint ACI-TMS Committee 216, Fire Resistance and Fire Protection of Structures. Additionally, he served on the Certification Programs Committee, Educational Activities Committee New Programs Task Force, and Financial Advisory Committee. He is also a member or past member of several other industry associations, including the Construction Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI), and ASTM International.

Burg and his co-authors received the 2001 ACI Wason Medal for Materials Research for their Concrete International article “Compression Testing of HSC: Latest Technology.” He also received the 2000 Frank G. Erskine Award for “Outstanding Contribution to Uses of Lightweight Aggregate in Concrete” from the Expanded Shale, Clay and Slate Institute.

Burg has authored numerous papers and publications dealing with the response of cementitious materials to elevated temperatures and harsh environmental conditions; the design, analysis, and production of high-strength concrete and lightweight concrete; thermal performance of various building materials; long-term, nonelastic behavior of concrete; and heat development in high-strength concrete mixtures.

He received his BS in civil engineering from Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA, and is a Distinguished Alumni of the university’s Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering. In 2021, Burg and Jeffrey W. Coleman, ACI Past President and Iowa State graduate, donated 75,000 USD to the ACI Foundation to establish the Burg‐Coleman Iowa State ’77 Fellowship. Burg is, or has been, a licensed professional engineer in Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and North Carolina.

Jenn-Chuan Chern

Jenn-Chuan Chern receives Honorary Membership “for his lifetime contributions to ACI regarding international collaborations with the ACI Taiwan Chapter and other concrete and engineering societies, and for increasing knowledge about concrete properties and special applications”

Jenn-Chuan Chern, FACI, is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Civil Engineering at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, and CEO of the Tang Prize Foundation.

He has been actively involved in the committee work of ACI for nearly three decades and is a member of ACI Committee 209, Creep and Shrinkage in Concrete. He served as President of the ACI Taiwan Chapter (1996 to 1998), which received the ACI Outstanding Chapter award in 1997.

He has been an inspirational leader for the concrete construction industry in Taiwan, Asia-Pacific, and the world, not only through his noteworthy academic research, but also as a key figure in various organizations that focus on the development, promotion, and dissemination of state-of-the-art technologies in the field of construction. During his tenure as a Professor at National Taiwan University, he led the development and promotion of several new cementitious materials and concrete. His research efforts in developing and promoting self-consolidating concrete (SCC) and high-performance concrete are internationally recognized and were crucial in implementing SCC in the Taiwanese practice. Further, his extensive research on the use of fly ash and slag cement and its subsequent implementation in infrastructure projects in Taiwan made him the first recipient of the “Outstanding Waste Reduction Award” conferred by the Taiwan government. He also made significant contributions to the formulation of creep, shrinkage, and temperature design specifications in Taiwan. In the latter half of his academic career, he initiated the “New Generation High Strength RC Project,” which has produced many beneficial results and enabled the use of high-strength steels in reinforced concrete (RC) construction.

His innate leadership skills and profound understanding of the subject led the Taiwan government to appoint him as Minister without Portfolio and Minister of the Public Construction Commission, which formulates the national economic stimulus plan on public infrastructure. In 2010, he prepared the white paper “Sustainable Public Works—Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction,” introducing life-cycle management and durability requirements to achieve sustainable goals.

He received his BS from National Taiwan University in 1976; his MCE from Rice University, Houston, TX, USA, in 1980; and his PhD from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA, in 1984, all in civil engineering.

Cecil L. Jones

Cecil L. Jones receives Honorary Membership “for his lifetime achievements in construction, materials, quality management, specification development, research, and directing positive changes in ACI Education”

Cecil L. Jones, FACI, is the President of Diversified Engineering Services (DES), Inc., located in Raleigh, NC, USA. Prior to establishing DES, Inc., he was the State Materials Engineer at the North Carolina Department of Transportation in Raleigh. He has over 45 years of experience in construction, materials, quality management, specification development, and research.

Jones is a Fellow of ACI and is past Chair of the ACI Educational Activities Committee and ACI Committee C601, New Certification Programs. He is a member and past Chair of ACI Committees E905, Training Programs, and 308, Curing Concrete; and a member of ACI Committees C610, Field Technician Certification; C630, Construction Inspector Certification; C631, Concrete Transportation Construction Inspector Certification; 132, Responsibility in Concrete Construction; and 555, Concrete with Recycled Materials. Jones is also a member of the ACI Foundation Scholarship Council, has served on the ACI Board of Direction, and is active in the ACI Carolinas Chapter. In addition, he is a member of ASTM Committees C09, Concrete and Concrete Aggregates; D04, Road and Paving Materials; and D18, Soil and Rock.

Jones received the 2021 ACI Education Award and the 2015 ACI Henry L. Kennedy Award. He received his BS in civil engineering from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, in 1973. He is a licensed professional engineer in North Carolina.

Michael J. Schneider

Michael J. Schneider receives Honorary Membership “for his leadership as ACI President in 2016; his lifetime dedication to strategic contribution, concrete construction, and the ACI Foundation; and developing positive connections between ASCC and ACIs”

Michael J. Schneider, FACI, is Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer at Baker Concrete Construction, Inc., in Monroe, OH, USA, celebrating 46 years with Baker this year. He has been the company champion of Baker’s Incident and Injury Free (IIF) program. He also serves on the Board of Directors for NEU: An ACI Center of Excellence for Carbon Neutral Concrete. NEU’s mission is to drive education, awareness, and adoption of carbon-neutral concrete materials and technologies.

Schneider has been a member of ACI since 1981, served as President from 2016 to 2017, and is a member of the Concrete International Award Committee and ACI Committees S801, Student Competitions; 132, Responsibility in Concrete Construction; and 134, Concrete Constructability; as well as Joint ACI-ASCC Committee 117, Tolerances. He has also served on the ACI Financial Advisory Committee. He is also Past President of the American Society of Concrete Contractors (ASCC).

Schneider was named a Fellow of ACI in 2006. He received the 2011 ACI Roger H. Corbetta Concrete Constructor Award and the 2021 ACI Foundation Knowledge to Practice Award.

Schneider has been highly engaged and has served the ACI Foundation and its councils for over a decade, most recently as past Chair of the ACI Foundation. He is past Chair of the Strategic Development Council (SDC) (now the Concrete Innovation Council [CIC]), a longtime member of the Concrete Research Council (CRC), and has worked with the Scholarship Council on ensuring recurring commitments for the three Baker fellowships since their inception in 2008. He has also served on the ACI Foundation Development Committee. In that role, he secured over 40,000 USD for the ACI Foundation by using his network with the ACI Greater Miami Valley Chapter to match the ACI Foundation annual appeal 2 years in a row. He recently met with several ACI Past Presidents to discuss the growth, opportunities, and programs of the ACI Foundation. Schneider has worked to engage the ACI Board of Direction and ACI Foundation Board of Trustees to help secure 100% Board giving and personally contributes every year to the Foundation. He continues to help build and sustain a culture of philanthropy within the organization through cultivation and stewardship while dedicating time and attention to helping students, researchers, and innovation in the concrete industry.

Carol K. Shield

Carol K. Shield receives Honorary Membership “for her outstanding contributions as an educator, researcher, and leader, including her tireless service to the profession in developing guidelines and standards for the design of structural concrete reinforced with glass fiber-reinforced polymers”

Carol K. Shield, FACI, retired from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA, in September 2020 and became a Professor Emeritus. Upon her retirement, she poured herself into the completion of ACI CODE-440.11-22, Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete Reinforced with Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) Bars—Code and Commentary.

Shield’s significant contributions to the concrete industry have stemmed from her research and professional activities focused on fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement in concrete, the development of testing methods for seismic simulation, and the improvement of models to describe the behavior of prestressed concrete bridge members.

She has authored over 100 publications, with a large focus of those publications on reinforced and prestressed concrete. Her background in engineering mechanics and mechanical engineering provided a strong foundation for the technical advancements she made toward understanding the behavior of reinforced and prestressed concrete structural systems, as well as in the development of test methods. She played a pivotal role in developing standards for structural concrete reinforced with glass FRP (GFRP) bars. This effort culminated in the publication of ACI CODE-440.11-22 in September 2022 and the adoption of that code by the International Building Code (IBC) in November 2022 for inclusion in the 2024 IBC.

She is a member of the ACI Committee on Nominations; ACI Committee 440, Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Reinforcement; and Joint ACI-ASCE Committees 408, Bond and Development of Steel Reinforcement, and 423, Prestressed Concrete. She received the 2015 ACI Delmar L. Bloem Distinguished Service Award.

Shield received her BS in engineering (with distinction) and BA in mathematics (with distinction) from Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, USA, in 1984; her MS in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA, in 1986; and her PhD in theoretical and applied mechanics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA, in 1991.

View all ACI Honorary Members.

Learn more about ACI’s Honors and Awards.