AMERICAN CONCRETE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES NEW OFFICERS FOR 2008

New president, vice president, and four Board members elected

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (April 3, 2008) - The American Concrete Institute introduced its new president, vice president, and four Board members during the ACI Spring 2008 Convention in Los Angeles, Calif. this week.

New ACI President Luis E. García, from Bogotá, Colombia, officially assumed his one-year term, becoming the first ACI president from outside the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. In addition, new Vice President Richard D. Stehly began his two-year term, while four new Board members began their three-year terms.

Luis E. García is partner and president of Proyectos y Diseños Ltda., a structural engineering consulting firm in Bogotá, Colombia, that he founded in 1980. He has supervised the structural design of numerous buildings, industrial structures, and bridges in Colombia and other Latin American countries. Proyectos y Diseños Ltda. has been responsible for more than 12 million m2 (120 million ft2) of area in project designs. He has also been engaged in teaching and research at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, since 1973.

García has been a member of numerous ACI technical committees, including ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code, since 1985. He previously served on the ACI Board of Direction and chaired the International Activities Committee (since reorganized as the International Committee). Named an ACI Fellow in 1991, he received the ACI Joe W. Kelly Award in 2000 and the ACI Alfred E. Lindau Award in 2003. García previously served as secretary of the ACI Republic of Colombia Chapter. 

As president of the Colombian Association for Earthquake Engineering, García chaired the committee that developed the Colombian seismic code, enacted in 1984, and the 1998 update. He was also president of the Colombian Association for Structural Engineering, is on the Board of Directors of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering, and represents the President of Colombia at the Colombian Building Code Committee. 

He has authored books on structural dynamics and reinforced concrete columns, and has published many papers on structural engineering, reinforced concrete, structural masonry, and earthquake engineering. García has received honors and awards from the Universidad de los Andes, Colombian Association for Earthquake Engineering, International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering, Colombian Society of Engineers, Colombian Association of Ready Mixed Concrete Producers, and the Colombian government. He is also a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (elevated to ASCE Fellow in 2006), Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering, and The Masonry Society.

García received a BS in civil engineering from the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, and an MS in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Ill. From 2001 to 2003, he was Visiting Professor of Civil Engineering at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.

Richard D. Stehly is a principal of American Engineering Testing, Inc., in Minneapolis, Minn. A member of ACI since 1980, he is the current Chair of the Financial Advisory Committee and the Board Advisory Committee on Sustainable Development. He also serves on the Strategic Planning Task Group, the Seminar Oversight Committee, and the International Committee Subcommittee Structure Review Task Group. He is a licensed civil engineer in Minnesota. For more than 25 years, he has taught soil engineering at community colleges in the Minneapolis area.

Stehly previously served on the ACI Board of Direction and was named a Fellow of the Institute in 2000. He is a past chair of the Chapter Activities Committee and was a member of the Task Group on International Strategy, which led to the formation of the International Committee, for which he served as the first chair. Stehly has traveled to more than 25 countries on behalf of ACI, presenting lectures on various concrete topics to ACI chapter members.

Stehly received a BS in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota. He worked as an intern at Twin City Testing, Minneapolis, while a college junior and was hired as a field engineer after graduation. He became project engineer, chief engineer, and eventually president of the firm. In 1988, he joined the Anchor Block Co., one of the few block makers using the autoclave process, as president. Stehly returned to the testing business by founding American Engineering Testing with three others in December 1989. He started American Petrographic Services in 1990. 

Elected as a new member of ACI’s Board of Direction is Claude Bédard, vice president and general manager of the North American Admixtures Division of The Euclid Chemical Co. in St. Hubert, Quebec, Canada. 

Bédard is the current chair of the ACI Foundation and the Strategic Development Council. He is an ACI Fellow and has twice served as president of the ACI Quebec and Eastern Ontario Chapter. In addition, he is the immediate past chair of the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) Technical Committee on Concrete, CSA A23.1/.2, and serves on the CSA Standards Policy Board. He is a member of the Canadian National Research Council Institute for Research in Construction Advisory Board, the Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, and the RMC Foundation Technical Advisory Committee.

Beverly Garnant has also begun her post as a member of ACI’s Board of Direction. She is the executive director of the American Society of Concrete Contractors in St. Louis, Mo., a position she has held since 2003. For 25 years prior to that, she was a partner in Widmar/Garnant & Associates, a St. Louis public relations firm that served clients in the design and construction industries.

Garnant is a member of the ACI Construction Liaison Committee, the ACI Marketing Committee, and the ACI Task Group to Review Educational Programs. In addition, she serves on the Executive Committee of the ACI Foundation’s Strategic Development Council. 

Garnant is a member of the National Steering Committee of the Concrete Industry Management Program. She received a BA in English and education from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa.

Also joining the ACI Board of Direction for the first time is Colin Lobo. Lobo is the senior vice president of the Engineering Division of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) in Silver Spring, Md. 

Lobo is a member of several ACI committees, including ACI committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code. He serves as the secretary of ACI Committee 301, Specifications for Concrete, and was named an ACI Fellow in 2003.

He is also an active member on various committees of ASTM International. He was the recipient of the ASTM International Katharine and Bryant Mather Member Contribution Award. In addition, he is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Andrea Schokker, a Henderson Professor of Civil Engineering and director of the Protective Technology Center at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Penn., also joins the ACI Board of Direction this year. 

Schokker is active in many ACI committees and serves as the chair of the Advisory Committee for Young Members and Joint ACI-ASCE Committee 423, Prestressed Concrete. In addition, she is active in the U.S. and internationally on professional committees of the Transportation Research Board, the Post-Tensioning Institute, the American Segmental Bridge Institute, and the Fédération Internationale du Béton (fib). She is a member of the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute and the American Society of Civil Engineers. 

Schokker has received awards for both her technical contributions and her educational efforts, including the ACI Young Member Award for Professional Achievement (2004); the ACI Outstanding Educational Committee Member Award (2003); the Post-Tensioning Institute Outstanding Educator Award (2004); Penn State’s Engineering Society Outstanding Teaching Award (2004); and Penn State’s Lawrence J. Perez Student Advocate Award (2003). 

High-resolution photos of the new officials can be obtained by contacting Sara Steptoe at sara.steptoe@concrete.org or 248-848-3148.

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For more information, contact:

Sara Steptoe
Marketing Communications Specialist
248-848-3148
Sara.steptoe@concrete.org

Advancing concrete knowledge – Founded in 1904 and headquartered in Farmington Hills, Mich., USA, members of the American Concrete Institute advance concrete knowledge by producing consensus, concrete-related codes, specifications, guides, and reports; creating and administering certification programs that support individuals in the concrete industry; delivering seminars and distance learning opportunities; publishing Concrete International magazine; and producing two peer-reviewed technical journals. For additional information, visit www.concrete.org.