Finding true north: Concrete Construction's Industry Trends Roundtable looks for some answers

Concrete Construction, Dec, 2002

Construction is turbulent; contractors are always fighting with the materials or the design or their competitors, trying to keep their heads above water while the sharks circle below. "We work very, very hard," says Dan Baker. But sometimes working hard isn't enough; we have to look at what is dragging us under and preventing concrete from being the nation's premier building material.

CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION, with assistance from the Strategic Development Council (see "The panel:"), invited a group of industry visionaries to come together this past summer to look at the big picture. The panel included some of the nation's top concrete contractors, joined by leaders from several of the industry's leading suppliers, and the editors of CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION and THE CONCRETE PRODUCER. For 4 hours, they joked, sympathized, and fumed as they reviewed what's right and what's wrong with the concrete construction business today. * In the end, they agreed to do more than just talk, and by approaching the attendees at the CEO Leadership Forum, collected more than $20,000 for research and development of position papers, an effort that will be coordinated through the American Society of Concrete Contractors.

The panel:

* Denny Ahal, president and CEO of Ahal Contracting, St. Louis, Bridgeton, Mo., is a former president of the American Society of Concrete Contractors.

* Dan Baker, CEO of Baker Concrete Construction, Monroe, Ohio, the nation's largest concrete contractor, recently served for a year as president of the American Concrete Institute.

* Jorge Calvo, president of ULMA Forms, Hawthorne, N.J., manufacturers of a modular formwork system, has been in the business for 28 years, starting as a formwork detailer.

* Peter Emmons, CEO of Structural Group, Hanover, Md., the nation's largest concrete repair contractor, is the current chairman of the Strategic Development Council.

* Roger Euliss, president of Multiquip, manufacturers of a full line of concrete equipment, has been in the construction industry for over 27 years and owned his own concrete-cutting and repair business during the 1970s prior to joining Multiquip in 1981.

* Harry Moats, CEO and president of Precision Concrete Construction, was formerly with Scofield.

* Joe Nasvik, senior editor of CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION magazine, is a former flatwork and decorative concrete contractor.

* Tom O'Malley, marketing manager for concrete pump maker Schwing America, St. Paul, Minn., was formerly with Rotec conveyors.

* Bill Palmer, editor in chief of CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION magazine, has worked for The Masonry Society, the American Concrete Institute, and the American Society of Concrete Contractors.

* Bill Phelan, senior vice president of marketing and technical services, Euclid Chemical Co., East Brunswick, N.Y., has been in the concrete industry for many years specializing in quality floor construction.

* Tommy Ruttura, CEO of Ruttura & Sons, Farmingdale, N.Y., is on the board of ASCC and was one of CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION's Contractors to Watch in 2001.

* Ron Schuster, president and CEO of CECO Construction Group, Kansas City, Mo., specializing in formwork erection, has been in the concrete formwork business for 30 years.

* Rick Yelton, editor in chief of MASONRY CONSTRUCTION magazine and THE CONCRETE PRODUCER, has a background in the ready-mixed concrete industry.

Let's listen in on this freewheeling conversation.

What do we do well?

Palmer: What does the concrete industry do well?

Baker: We work very, very hard.

Ahal: And we deliver good value.

Ruttura: By the pound, it's cheap. Think about it; a Cadillac is about $20 a pound--concrete's less than [cent] 20 a pound.

Schuster: We're good at late changes and fast tracking.

O'Malley: I want to try something. Everyone close your eyes and point north. Most of us can't do it. Which way is true north? That's one of the problems with this industry. You guys all have strong opinions about which way we should go, but whether it's education or marketing or design, it seems that no one knows which way is the right way.

What are the problems with floors?

Ruttura: One of our strengths is that we do much better quality work today than we did 15 years ago. For example, the floors that we place today compared with 15 years ago--huge difference. But I think our biggest weakness is that because we do such good work the floor-covering contractors have taken advantage of us. We promoted the fact that we can build these great floors, but we can't keep them that way for weeks, and the floor-covering people have done a great job promoting their product to the detriment of the concrete contractor and supplier--turning their deficiencies into our fault. The floor-covering companies promote a product that they say is perfect, but they need a floor to be plus or minus 1/8 inch on a 10-foot straight edge around 9 months later at the end of the construction cycle after we've gone through freeze/thaw and 100[degrees] weather. So I think that as an industry we have to promote the limitations of concrete. It's a great product, and we don't have to be embarrassed about it, but there are limits. If we don't get that word out to architects and engineers and specifiers, we're in for gigantic back charges over the next century, I believe.