Celebrating Concrete Excellence Through Craft Workers

As ACI says on our website, we are a technical organization. So, unsurprisingly, we usually dwell—and, consequently, excel—on technical matters, both great and small.

Right here, right now, though, through these great photos, I would like to acknowledge and celebrate the legions of craft workers who make concrete excellence a manifest reality. Let’s tip our hats to all the carpenters, equipment operators, finishers, laborers, shotcreters, and rodbusters whose manual efforts make great concrete!

Along with and largely because of our good friends at the American Society of Concrete Contractors (ASCC), ACI is fortunate to include in our membership many construction company owners, managers, and supervisors. But the women and men who prepare subgrade; build and treat forms; set reinforcement; operate batch plants, trucks, pumps, and power screeds; place, strike off, float, and trowel; and carry out curing—not so much.

This is not to say that ACI is not important to their handiwork day in and day out. ACI’s certifications address many important aspects of construction activities, benefiting the worker, the company, the project, and our concrete industry overall. And ACI is in discussions with worker organizations to incorporate certifications into their training programs, once again to everyone’s benefit. Always advancing!

Michael J. Paul