|
New RPA Members
Bearcat Pumps
Bearcat Pumps has joined the
RPA as an associate member.
The company was founded in
January, 2000 to manufacture posite displacement fear pumps for
a variety of applications including conventional and Asphalt-Rubber
distributors, crack sealers, and portable rubber plants.
Company clients include FNF
Construction, Cox Paving, International Surfacing Systems, and
Recipav of Portugal.
Contact Kevin Hill, owner,
at 1954 E. Deer Valley Rd., Phoenix, AZ. The phone number is
623-587-1454.
Paramount Petroleum
Paramount Petroleum Corp. has applied to join
the RPA as a regular member.
The company is one of the largest asphalt
suppliers in the US with nine facilities in five states. It produces
and markets paving grade asphalts, asphalt emulsions, roofing
asphalts, and modified asphalts including rubberized asphalt
binder.
The application will be voted on by RPA directors
at the next board meeting.
Contact Andrew Ford at 14700 Downey Ave.,
Paramount, CA. The phone is 562-531-2060. The fax is 562-634-0962.
Billings honored by RPA - Jed Billings, left, President
and CEO of FNF Construction Co., the first major contractor to
enter the Asphalt-Rubber industry after the patents expired,
was awarded "Board Member Emeritus" status by the RPA
membership at its annual meeting. Billings served RPA as an officer
and Director from 1993 to 2000 and has been a key player in the
RPA outreach program to other contractors and associations.
President's message
by Jeffrey Reed
It was 25 years ago that I
received my first introduction to the use of crumb rubber in
asphalt concrete. It was not a true Asphalt-Rubber binder as
we know today. Methods were crude and results mixed, but as a
young engineer just out of college on my first full time job
at a hot plant, I was impressed with the potential.
Following the contractor adage
If they spec it, we bid it, less than a decade later we were
a prime contractor on our first Asphalt-Rubber chip seal placed
on a basket case of a road in Contra Costa County, California.
Our learning curve was helped by an Arizona company, International
Surfacing, that placed the binder.
Again, I was impressed by
how well the product sealed the road and, as the years went by,
how not only did the road hold together but the cracks did not
reflect. Here was a product that was truly revolutionary.
That it recycles used tires,
helping the environment, did not enter into my engineering trained
appreciation of this technical and economic solution. I was witnessing
the foundations of a paradigm shift.
No longer could I believe
that two inches of asphalt concrete could solve all pavement
problems. As with all revolutions, it was exciting to watch but
also frightening to our corporate foundation of construction
techniques and products. These A-R materials could replace conventional
binders in hot mix and emulsions in chip seals while doing a
better job.
In 1997 we completed the purchase
of International Surfacing, renaming it International Surfacing
Systems, and joined the RPA. Since then I've seen RPA grow and
mature, making contributions to research and development and
support the wider use of A-R.
The results are the rapid
expansion of A-R programs by Caltrans and TxDOT and the unwavering
A-R support from Arizona and Florida. Other states are beginning
programs, not because of mandates, but because A-R works and
makes sense.
I am proud to have been elected
RPA president by my peers and am both honored and humbled by
their company and those who have served in this office before
me. As with any association, it is the commitment and passion
of its members and staff that make for its success. We will make
our vision of a world with quieter, safer, smoother, more economical
A-R roads the paradigm, reality, while using up a few tires along
the way.
-
-
- Contents | Page
1 | Page 2 | Page
3 | Page 4 | Page
5 | Page 6 | Page
7 | Page 8 | About
Us
|