Working Together

A visit with 2023-24 National Precast Concrete Association Chair Bill Bundschuh Concurrent with new association staff leadership under Nick Rhoad, PRETECH Corp. President and Principal Bill Bundschuh succeeds Joel Sheets (Tindall Infrastructure) as NPCA chair. Over his 30 years at the helm of PRETECH, Bundschuh has steered the Kansas City, Kan.-based precast business through a major downturn to record top…

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For the Team

Workforce safety, input and growth potential carry the  day at new Knife River Prestress Division flagship BY DON MARSH A new high-bay structure a stone’s throw from the Washington-Idaho border is poised to emerge this decade as the most productive precast, prestressed concrete facility on the West Coast. With nearly 200,000 square feet under roof on a 45-acre site, the…

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Enterprising to the Core

WBE Tec-Crete Transit-Mix holds its own in the Big Apple A work ethic cultivated by a range of duties—filling sand bags to office work—for her father’s New York City ready-mix business, F&M Transit Mix in Jamaica, Queens, more than paid off for Linda Gisonda in adult life. Indeed, she is the sole proprietor of a two-plant operation filling mixer trucks…

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ENVIRONMENTAL EXCELLENCE AWARDS

The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association 2023 Environmental Excellence Awards program honors nine plants. Now in its 28th year, the program offers producer members national recognition for outstanding contributions to protecting the environment and maintaining sound environmental management practices. It salutes operators that have not only met, but surpassed governmental compliance requirements and demonstrated a commitment to environmental excellence through…

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Instrumental Workhorse

The past decade’s top two mergers in North American cement, aggregate and concrete—Lafarge Group + Holcim Ltd. and HeidelbergCement AG + Italcementi S.p.A.—have spurred realignment of markets up the Atlantic Seaboard, across the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi. Of all the markets those deals and their asset divestitures impacted, none stands out quite like Toronto, where a case study…

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Pole Power

Where engineering efficiency and cement optimization go, spun prestressed power transmission and distribution (T&D) poles have few rivals in concrete production: The centrifugal forces that low-slump mixes encounter in hollow cylindrical molds, bearing on horizontal racks and spinning at up to 300 rpm, drive inordinate cement particle hydration and packing. Robust bonding of reinforcing cage and prestressing strand steel to…

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A Hill To Thrive On

In the early stages of their newest Kansas ready mixed plant, officials of Monarch Cement Co. and subsidiary Concrete Materials Inc. didn’t anticipate the need for a backup location or market. Permitting difficulties, coupled with opportunities for improved logistics, prompted a tabling of their initial target in favor of a site along a growing Interstate 35 and U.S. 169 corridor…

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ENERGETIC POURS

Advance Ready Mix paces 500,000-yd. Battery Park contract BY DON MARSH Batching and deliveries for one of the largest concrete supply contracts in North America are proceeding six days a week, two 10-to 12-hour shifts per day on a 2.3-square-mile, Glendale, Ky. site. Advance Ready Mix and fellow project principals have no wiggle room on the schedule as owners Ford…

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From Clay to Concrete

Kohler Co. solidifies premium offerings with a cement-based series  A boutique precast producer is steering a top home building product brand—synonymous with porcelain, chrome and brass—toward concrete. Kohler Co. has acquired United Kingdom-based Kast Concrete Basins, a fabricator of contemporary basins and sinks made with conventional mixes of local limestone grades, specially sourced sands plus premium pigments.  Known for bold-color…

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