60th Illinois Bituminous Paving Conference hits the ground running
2/3/2020
Year after year, the Bituminous Planning Committee works hard to create a program that interests and excites attendees, and the 60th Illinois Bituminous Paving Conference was no exception.
But none were more excited than the various award recipients, who were recognized for leading efforts in their fields.
“I am honored to receive the award and be recognized by a group of individuals I work with and respect,” said Gregory Heckel, a materials engineer at Illinois Department of Transportation, who won the Barry Dempsey Bituminous Technical Contribution of the Year Award.
For Jeffrey Kern, Open Road Paving’s quality control manager, winning the Illinois Pavement Association Bituminous Innovation Research Award reminded him of the importance of a collaborative effort in transportation.
“It truly is an honor to work with everyone and be a part of the progress we are making,” he said.
Javier Jesús García Mainieri, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign master’s student, who won the Marshall Thompson Student Research Award, said he felt “surprised” to be acknowledged for his contributions and ultimately, he sees the accomplishment as “motivation” for furthering his success as a researcher.
Imad L. Al-Qadi Leadership in Bituminous Engineering Award recipient Lori Walk, who is IDOT’s quality control and quality assurance instructor/program coordinator, said it was such a memorable moment to have her name called along with so many of her respected peers.
“Knowing many of the past recipients of this award, I am very honored to be included in this list,” she said. “(It’s) truly an honor.”
A new addition to this year’s conference was the Pavement Segregation Best Practices Workshop. The workshop included presentations on the segregation process, lab segregation, plant segregation and field/job site.
A special thank-you to workshop instructors Brian Hill, IDOT; Mike Schilke, IDOT; Bill Pine, Heritage Construction & Materials Research Group; Pat Koester, Howell Asphalt; Greg Renegar, Astec; Neal Proctor, United Contractors Midwest; and Laikram (Nars) Narsingh, Wirtgen America for their willingness to share their knowledge on these important topics.
In addition to the workshop, this year’s conference presentations offered unique opportunities for transportation professionals to share a broad array of knowledge and perspectives, discuss the latest technical information, review field reports in the area of hot-mix asphalt and explore flexible pavement advancements.
Bituminous speakers included leaders from IDOT, Federal Highway Administration, industry and academia. They are as follows:
- Doug House, IDOT
- Arlene Kocher, FHWA
- Don Christensen, Advanced Asphalt Technologies, LLC
- Amy Epps Martin, Texas A&M
- Heather Dylla, FHWA
- Adriana Vargas, Auburn University
- Laura Heckel, IDOT
- John Senger, IDOT
- Jim Trepanier, IDOT
- Imad Al- Qadi, UIUC; Illinois Center for Transportation
- Brian Hill, IDOT
- William Pine, Heritage Construction & Materials
- Justan Mann, IDOT
- Dwayne Edmondson, Gallagher Asphalt
To see the conference presentations, visit the conference’s history page.
Congratulations to the award recipients. Your contributions and efforts to make advancements in transportation truly make a difference.
Before we close up shop, we would like to take a moment to thank attendees, moderators, conference committee, exhibitors and sponsors for continuing to make this conference a great success!
The 61st Illinois Bituminous Paving Conference is set for Dec. 8-9, 2020, at the I Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign, Illinois. Save the date and sign up to receive email notifications.