Concrete Products, June 1955: “It can be seen that in less than five years prestressed concrete has grown from nothing to a building material that must be reckoned with. The reason for a growth rate of 200 to 300 percent per year is simple: Experience has shown that prestressed concrete is permanent, its appearance is pleasing, and it is economical to build and maintain.” — F.S. Burtsch, sales manager for New Jersey strand supplier, John A. Roebling's Sons Corp., addressing the Prestressed Concrete Institute's first annual convention, April 1955, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Burtsch and other charter members of Chicago-based Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, as PCI is now known, were either underestimating the potential of their building method or exercising the conservative posture typical of an engineer. In the nearly 50 years since Burtsch presented “The Trend Toward Prestressing,” no technique has infiltrated the key segments of engineered construction — nonresidential building and transportation — like precast/prestressed.

Founded in April 1954, PCI will kick off a 50th anniversary celebration during its convention this month in Orlando. Although the economic climate leading up to the golden anniversary has hit parts of the PCI membership hard, there is much for the group's producers, suppliers and professional members to celebrate when reflecting on five decades of market development. Among highlights of the celebration will be the compiling of the “Titans of Precast.” PCI Vice Chairman and San Marcos, Texas, producer Fred Heldenfels IV describes Titans as the projects whose innovations and contributions over the past half century have forged the precast/prestressed concrete industry's success. Convention participants will select the nominees and PCI will announce a final list in early 2004.

A review of project Titans candidates, each demonstrating how conventional precast/prestressed plants or temporary site yards could assure economy and quality in large scale or specialized building and bridge contracts:

• Lake Ponchartrain Bridge, New Orleans, 1956 — 24 miles of prestressed
• Red Deer River Bridge, Alberta, 1959 — 148 ft. girders (site cast)
• Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix, 1961 — 152-ft. long single tees
• U.S. Science Pavilion, Seattle, 1962 — White cement, quartz and thin sections
• Pan Am Building, New York, 1962 — Exposed aggregate panels rise 830 ft.
• Collins Industrial Building, Long Beach, Calif., 1963 — 119-ft. long double tees
• Gulf Life Building, Jacksonville, Fla., 1967 — 27 stories of precast/prestressed
• Habitat 67, Montreal, 1967 — Site cast, systems building
• San Diego-Coronado Bridge, 1969 — 151-ft. girders (plant cast, land transport)
• Rockaway Bridge, New York, 1969 — 198-ft. girders (plant cast, water transport)
• Transamerica Tower, San Francisco, 1972 — Architectural precast rises 850 ft.

If not exhaustive, this list contains projects that set key standards or milestones readers and their customers have emulated or topped with many jobs Concrete Products has featured since 1972. When the Titans are announced, we'll see how many pre-date Watergate, the Clean Water Act, OSHA and EPA.

This month, we profile the Dallas High Five Interchange (page 9), whose specifications combine traditional prestressed girders with a method — post-tensioned, segmental concrete — that has been an outgrowth of the construction economy transportation officials associate with precast/prestressed. That method is also highlighted in the first annual American Segmental Bridge Institute Bridge Award of Innovation Program, whose projects appear on pages 19-26.

With or without the PCI golden anniversary observance, the bridge and building markets institute producers have captured in postwar construction underscore F.S. Burtsch's modest contention: precast/prestressed is a material to be reckoned with.