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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.
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