Announcements

As the summer draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment to update you on some of the exciting things the chapter has been doing as well as some of the upcoming events.

Recently we accepted applications for scholarships for the upcoming Fall 2022 semester.  12 students from various schools submitted applications.  The Chapter will be awarding 3 scholarships for $3,000 each.  The scholarships are based on academic performance, work history, community contributions and an essay.  The winners will be announced in mid-September.  In addition, the Student Activities Committee will be working with construction programs at both Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly Pomona to establish ACI student chapters on those campuses.

A couple of upcoming seminars and webinars include the following.  First, on Thursday, September 15th, the ACI SoCal Chapter will host an introductory webinar with Drew Burns, Executive Director of NEU: An ACI Center of Excellence in Carbon Neutral Concrete. The session will go through the formation of NEU, its mission, and the path to carbon-neutral concrete.  Then on October 11th, the California Nevada Cement Association is hosting an economic outlook forum at the Four Points Sheraton in Sacramento.  Ed Sullivan, Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of Market Intelligence for the Portland Cement Association will present PCA's most current thinking on the near-term economy, construction markets and their impact on cement consumption.  This will be followed by a presentation on how the national outlook will translate to California and the surrounding region’s construction sector and cement performance. Moody’s Analytics will also share their outlook for the macroeconomy which will include region-specific data.  Following the September webinar, we’ll be back to our regular in-person dinner meetings.  For more information on these and other events please visit the ACI SoCal website.

Nationally, this year’s ACI Fall 2022 Convention will be held in Dallas, Texas.  The Chapter has elected to participate as a sponsor for this year’s convention.  Some of our ACI SoCal members serve on various committees and they will be attending the convention.  If you have an interest in learning more about the convention activities, please reach out.

Finally, this year’s Pankow Awards celebration will be held November 2nd.  Following up on the success of last year’s event, the dinner and awards presentation will be held at Banc of California stadium.  There are seven different categories including 3 structure categories, decorative, infrastructure, flatwork, and repair/restoration.  The deadline for entries is Friday, September 9th.  Please sign up early and join us for an exciting evening at an awesome venue. 

In closing, there are many exciting things coming with the Chapter.   I invite you to join us for one, or all, of these upcoming events and look forward to seeing you soon.

Donald Kahn
ACI Chapter President

The Southern California Chapter of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) has approved a cash award of $3,000 to be granted to up to three local University students pursuing a degree in Civil or Structural Engineering, Construction Management, or Architecture. The candidates must be U.S. citizens in their junior, senior, or graduate years, which have displayed enthusiastic promise in their engineering studies. Please submit the application package for each individual:

• Applicant must be Sophomore, Junior, Senior or Graduate Level.
  
• Completed application form (below)
• Unofficial Transcripts
• Resume of academic achievements, campus engineering activities, professional activities, and employment record (if applicable.)
• A letter of recommendation from a university professor, academic advisor, or employer (if working in the concrete industry).
• A 500-word essay  on why you wish to work in the concrete industry.
  

ACI Southern California Chapter,

We’d like to acknowledge Kenneth Sears II, who was recently honored as a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute at the Spring 2022 ACI Convention in Orlando, Florida. Ken has been an active member of our chapter for over 15 years, including serving as our chapter’s vice president and president in years past. This distinction as an ACI Fellow is a tremendous honor; a Fellow is an individual who has made “outstanding contributions to the production or use of concrete materials, products, and structures in the areas of education, research, development, design, construction, or management.”

This distinction was highlighted in the March 2022 edition of Concrete International, with the following recognition:

“Ken is the Manager of Sales and Technical Innovation for Orca Aggregates, a Vulcan Materials Company, in Southern California. Prior to his current position, he served in technical and management roles with increasing responsibility in ready mixed concrete for 25 years, and supplementary cementitious materials for 8 years. Sears has held positions within his local ACI Chapter as President and Vice President, served on the Board of Directors, chaired the technical committee, and has assisted with student competitions during ACI Conventions. He previously chaired the local “Greenbook” Public Works Construction Concrete Ad-Hoc Committee for over 10 years. He has been a member of the ACI Southern California Chapter Certification Committee for over 15 years and has been assisting with the Concrete Field Testing Technician - Grade I certification classes as a Supplemental Examiner since 1989. He currently chairs the Concrete Flatwork Associate, Finisher, and Advanced Finisher Certification committee, as well as performs the Examiner duties for this program. In 2013, he received the highest honor the ACI Southern California Chapter can bestow upon a member, the Sam Hobbs Award, which recognizes outstanding service to both the Chapter and the concrete industry.”

Please join us in congratulating Ken Sears for this outstanding achievement!

On behalf of the new chapter board, I wanted to take a few moments to update the recent news on chapter activities.  With the arrival of spring, it appears that the pandemic of the last two years may finally be subsiding, and we can get back to the “new normal”.  Those few years have been challenging but the SoCal ACI chapter has managed to function despite those difficulties.  Our thanks to all who have been a part of keeping ACI moving forward.  We hope you and your families are safe and healthy.

In February the Annual Meeting and Sam Hobbs service award celebration was held.  The event was well attended by over 75 people and included dinner, installation of new chapter officers and presentation of the Annul Sam Hobbs Award.  This year Steve Toland was honored as the 2022 recipient.  Steve is a past president of the SoCal ACI chapter and has served in various chapter roles throughout his career.  Congratulations to Steve on an honor well-deserved.

The Annual ACI Spring 2022 Convention was recently held in Orlando, Florida.  A few Southern California members attended the convention including roundtable discussions, committee meetings, “hot topic” discussions on current industry trends & ideas as well as social activities with other industry people throughout the country.  At this year’s convention, our very own Ken Sears was recognized by ACI as a Fellow and was acknowledged at the Annual ACI Spring 2022 Convention.  Congratulations to Ken for recognition of his continuous service to the chapter and the industry.

The chapter recently purchased a new 7’ x 14’ trailer for the certification teams to assist in mobile certifications.  The new trailer will also be available for use at remote sites, for special classes or chapter-sponsored events.  As well, it will help keep equipment and material properly secured and be another tool to provide a higher quality of service to our chapter members.

As we look forward to spring there are many exciting activities coming up including a student mixer to be held in downtown Los Angeles, a joint meeting with SEAOSC with a presentation of the new Intuit Dome (the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers) and the Annual SoCal ACI Golf Tournament on May 5th at Los Serranos in Chino Hills.  Please feel free to contact me, or any of the board members, for additional information or if you would like to be included in these events.

In closing, we look forward to 2022.  There are many things to be excited about and plenty of opportunities to get involved, socialize or to be a part of ACI.  Please feel free to reach out to myself or any chapter officers or committee members and get involved.  Hoping to see all of you soon.

Don Kahn,
ACI President

ACI SoCal Board Election Ballot

Members Click Here to Vote

Click here to view Board of Director Nominee Bios.

2022 Board of Directors:

Past President: Chris Garcia - Pankow Builders

President: Don Kahn - Largo Concrete

Vice President: Nathan Forrest - California Nevada Cement Association

Directors (to serve a 3-year term):

Jesse Cook - DPR Construction

Jonathan Layne - Solomon Colors

Sydney Wilson – CalPortland Cement

The Nominations Committee thanks all the slated nominees for their dedication to the Chapter as well as the continuing Board members.

2022 Nominations Committee Slate:

Amir Bonakar
Ann Harrer
Chris Forster
Charles Kerzic
Jacob Brennan
Janeen Oliver
Kirk Van Matre
Kenneth Sears

The Nominations Committee thanks all the slated nominees for their dedication to the Chapter as well as the continuing Board members.

Greetings -

I hope you and your families had a safe and special holiday season and I wish you a happy new year!  As we find ourselves experiencing another surge of covid cases, I am grateful for the in-person events we held last year. The 24th annual Southern California Concrete awards were held at at SoFi Stadium on November 6th, with 169 attendees.  I would like to thank Heather Todak and Co-Pilots staff who helped organize the event as well as the sponsors who donated generously to make the event possible.  A list of all Concrete Award winners as well as photos of the event are available on our website.

We also held a mixer in September and were honored to have ACI President Cary Kopczynski in attendance along with 43 attendees from the concrete industry.  Thank you to Paul Heis for organizing the mixer and to the ACI Resource Center in San Bernardino for hosting this event.  See here for photos.

I look forward to the upcoming Annual Meeting and Sam Hobbs service award celebration which will be held on February 24th at 5:30p at the Fullerton Marriott.  There will be dinner as well as a presentation by the 2021 Sam Hobbs recipient, Josh Cavender.  More information on the event and registration is forthcoming; the chapter leadership will monitor the status of the pandemic and follow local safety protocols accordingly. We look forward to recognizing Josh and the 2022 recipient for receiving this well-deserved award!

Looking toward the spring, the student activities committee is planning a student mixer to be held in downtown Los Angeles. We will be extending invitations to local college students for an opportunity to gather, network and learn more about our organization.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any student or organizational contacts that you would like to be included in the event.

Please be on the lookout for chapter officer election ballots, which will be sent to all members via email on February 1st ; ballots will be accepted through the Annual Meeting. On February 24th,we will welcome a new slate of officers and I will be passing the presidential gavel onto our next chapter president.    

Chris Garcia

Chapter President

The ACI So Cal Chapter is saddened by the news and regrets to having to inform our members of the passing of Ed “Griff” Sparks, former Technical Manager for CalPortland Concrete. Griff was very active in the industry and with ACI So Cal. He was President of the Chapter in 1996 and the Sam Hobbs Award recipient in 1999.

Griff Sparks was a leader in the development of high performance concrete and he was responsible for the mix designs of many of Los Angeles’s iconic buildings including Our Lady of The Angels Cathedral with a 500 year design life. Please join us in remembering Griff Sparks.

Kaihong (Kyle) Hu graduated from UCLA's civil engineering program and is currently interning with DCI Engineers at the San Francisco office. Recently, he designed his first reinforced concrete column using the ACI-318 code and was feeling incredibly thankful to have the code as a design guideline. Kyle appreciates the expertise and research that ACI committees have put into developing a standardized code and promoting the design of safer structures. Next year he will use the ACI scholarship funds to enroll in UCLA's Masters level program in Structural and Earthquake Engineering.  Ultimately, his career goal is to design resilient infrastructure and buildings for our communities, and believes that concrete is an indispensable material in achieving this goal.    

“I am truly grateful for the scholarship support and will be using it to gain more educational opportunities. Thank you and the Southern California Chapter of ACI for supporting students' education”

We are excited to present the winners of the 2021 Student Scholarship competition over the next few weeks.  There were seven applicants in total, but three of them stood out as worth of award and recognition.  We look forward to following Matthew, Victoria and Kyle as they start their careers.  First up is Matthew Jacobson (EIT, ENV SP) who graduated with his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Cal Poly Pomona on May 23, 2021. He served as the Attorney General for Associated Students Inc. (ASI), an ASCE National Student Ambassador, and Chaired the ASCE Student Presidential Group (SPG). During Junior year he served as the CPP ASCE Student Chapter President leading the student chapter to receive the 2021 ASCE Region 9 Distinguished Student Chapter. During his undergraduate journey he was named one of ten 2020 ASCE New Faces of Civil Engineering - Collegiate Edition and one of six to receive the 2020 ASCE Student Leadership Award. Matthew’s current interests are in land development, transportation, planning, and public policy.  Starting in September 2021, he will begin working as a Civil Analyst for an engineering consulting firm, Kimley-Horn, in downtown Los Angeles working on transportation infrastructure and land development projects.