APA names Kvach as first Executive Director
The Asphalt Pavement Alliance, a partnership of the Asphalt Institute, the National Asphalt Pavement Association, and the State Asphalt Pavement Associations, today named Mike Kvach as its first full-time Executive Director. The appointment takes effect immediately. Kvach is charged with mobilizing the asphalt pavement industry with the goal of maintaining and growing asphalt’s share of the pavement market.
Prior to his appointment to this position, Kvach served as NAPA’s Vice President for Product Deployment for two years. His primary role at NAPA was to lead the delivery and deployment of the asphalt industry’s marketing activities. This involved close cooperation with the State Asphalt Pavement Associations and the Asphalt Institute.
From 2000 to 2008, Kvach was the Executive Vice President of the Asphalt Paving Association of Iowa. In that role, he was the top marketer of asphalt pavements in the state, as well as being active on various national industry committees. Prior to joining APAI, he was the National Sales Manager for the Hot Mix Asphalt Paver Group at Cedarapids Inc., located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was responsible for strategic planning and implementation for increasing paver sales in the U.S. and Canada. During his 12-year tenure at Cedarapids Inc., Kvach held responsibilities in various sales and marketing positions including distribution development and quality paving training. From 2008 to 2009, Kvach was Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Peterson, an Astec Industries Company based in Eugene, Oregon. Peterson is a manufacturer of heavy forestry and recycling equipment.
“The first order of business is to build off the momentum the APA has created over its 12 years of successful advocacy for the industry. Then we will be looking for ways to take our messages deeper into the marketplace. I’m also looking forward to strengthening the partnerships between all sectors of the asphalt paving industry,” said Kvach.
Kvach will report to the recently formed APA Board of Directors, which will eventually assume all of the functional duties and more, previously held by the APA Steering Committee. For more information on the Asphalt Pavement Alliance, please visit www.asphaltroads.org.
The Asphalt Pavement Alliance is a coalition of the Asphalt Institute, the National Asphalt Pavement Association, and the State Asphalt Pavement Associations. The Asphalt Pavement Alliance’s mission is to further the use and quality of asphalt pavements. The Alliance will accomplish this through research, technology transfer, engineering, education, and innovation.
This blog was taken directly from the Asphalt Pavement Alliance. You can find it here.
Don’t Ignore Your Investment
Holidays may keep your business busy and customers may be aplenty this season, but don’t ignore one of your biggest investments, your pavement. The pavement outside your business, whether it is a sidewalk, road, or parking lot has a big task. It gets your customers inside, it offers direction and keeps traffic moving, and makes an everlasting first impression. Be sure to keep your investment in top shape this winter with these three tips:
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Linn-Mar Stadium, Why Pay More?
So, the Linn-Mar School Board wants to throw more money into the already $10 million stadium. Why Pay More? Well, because they made the wrong choice and are embarrassed by all the problems it has caused.
What was the wrong choice? Not doing their due diligence in the way of research. They turned down the lowest bidder simply because the contractor had proposed an asphalt parking lot. Instead, the school board approved a bid that was $110,000 more expensive! The winning bid, proposed by RDG Planning & Design, was a concrete parking lot and the board thought it was a superior pavement. Clearly, they were wrong.
Iowa City Goes Green – One Road at a Time
Iowa City, a place just as famous for college football as it is for embracing greener lifestyles and the arts, will now be famous for another reason: The first in the United States to use LEADCAP warm-mix asphalt (WMA) pavement. Continue Reading »
Talking Asphalt:Commercial pavement repair — 2011
Dwight Walker, guest blogger on The Asphalt Institute’s website, writes on his post, “Talking Asphalt: Commercial pavement repair –2011″:
We get many inquiries requesting assistance or advice on repairing parking lots, access roads and other commercial (and residential) pavements. The typical inquiry goes something like, “I have this parking lot (or I represent a property owners’ association), and our pavement needs some work. I need some help.”
…It is a fact of ownership that pavements eventually will need some remedial work. And there is a process for getting the work done. I’ll try to go through a summary of the process here. It is not a particularly difficult deal; it just involves a series of steps which must be followed. Continue reading
APA Releases New White Paper on Alternative Bidding Procedures
Lanham, Md. – Alternate bidding is a complex subject, but a new, user-friendly white paper, Keys to a Successful Alternate Bidding Process (order number IM-50), breaks it down for contractors and agencies. It outlines the procedures set up by the Federal Highway Administration and covers the factors considered in alternate bids, such as … Continue Reading »
PCC Overlayed with HMA – Is your road cracking?
“Why are my streets cracking so fast after we resurface them?” Just recently I was asked that very question by the mayor of one of our prominent cities. I responded with my own question (although I could already guess at what his answer would be). “What was the original pavement design?” I asked. The mayor’s replied, “Portland cement concrete of course! What else?” Continue Reading »
Recycled Asphalt Shingles in HMA Mixtures
This blog is in response to questions we saw on NAPA’s LinkedIn discussion board.
The questions posted:
What states have approved the use of ground shingles in asphalt? Are their standards for usage? Are state landfill operators deterring local recyclers from griding?
Our reply:
Yes, there are standards for RAS usage. Iowa, Missouri (up to 7% RAS), North & South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Minnesota, and Washington are just a few of the states that allow recycled shingles in asphalt. Iowa, in the last year has created new RAS specifications (DS-09038): allowing between 2% & 5% RAS by weight of total aggregate. There is research being done at the national level (TPF5-213), as well. More detailed information on Iowa’s DOT RAS specification can be found here.
At LL Pelling, we have used RAS in some of our asphalt applications, including the trails at the Cedar Valley Urban Fishery, and the front sidewalk at our headquarters in North Liberty, IA. You can check out pictures of the Cedar Valley trail by clicking here.
Porous Asphalt in Cedar Rapids
You may have seen the recent article, Downtown district plans to curb water runoff, in the Corridor Business Journal, which addresses utilizing porous pavements on a parking lot project. If you’re wondering, yep, that was an LL Pelling porous asphalt project. The principal of the porous asphalt concept is to retain rain water in an underlying retention basin instead of letting it run into the storm sewer. The retention basin can be made using large clean aggregates or a bioswale of sand and black dirt (which is what we used for the pavement mentioned in the article). The water, then, flows through the porous pavement into the stone base (we used 18” on this one) and eventually over to the bioswale.
At LL Pelling, we have been working with porous pavements since the early 80’s in horse barn stalls and at airports as an underlying base for Portland pavements. Recently, we paved a sidewalk in front of our North Liberty office and what we found was that the thermal heat from the ground thawed this section quicker than the adjacent dense graded pavements.
Regardless of the type of porous application, the principal is the same: get the water to a tiled stone basin and let it filter away slowly. Naturally, the big obstacle is keeping the porous clean in this environment. Recommended cleaning methods using vacuum trucks in the spring for picking up the winter’s debris and to not use sand as an anti-icing agent.
Here’s some advice: When designing a parking lot, I would recommend using dense graded material for its durability in as much area as possible but to put the porous asphalt where needed to catch the runoff. The detention basin could still be under the complete area or surrounding area such as the one in the article.
Check out the environmental section of our website, under the Asphalt Advantage tab, for a quick video on porous asphalt in action.
Welcome to our new website!
Welcome to our newly redesigned website! We’ve rebuilt our site with the goal of educating the public, consumers, and others in the industry on the advantages of asphalt. Our new site is full of educational information. You’ll find everything from advice, to solutions on how to correct pavement problems, to industry news and pavement design software. Continue Reading »
