The American Concrete Institute (ACI) introduced its 2015-2016 president, vice president, and four board members during The Concrete Convention and Exposition in Kansas City, Missouri, this month.
Sharon L. Wood has been elected to serve as president of the Institute for 2015-2016, Khaled Walid Awad has been elected ACI vice president for a two-year term, and Michael J. Schneider is now the Institute’s senior vice president, which is also a two-year term. Additionally, four members have been elected to serve on the ACI Board of Direction, each for three-year terms: JoAnn P. Browning, Cesar A. Constantino, Kimberly Kayler, and Roberto Stark.
Sharon L. Wood, FACI, is the Dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering and holds the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering No. 14 at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). An ACI member since 1983, she serves on ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code. She is the past Chair of the ETC Product Development Committee and had previously served as a Trustee for the ACI Foundation and as a member of the Financial Advisory Committee and International Advisory Committee. She is currently serving in her second term on the ACI Board of Direction and has previously served as Chair of the Technical Activities Committee and the Publications Committee. She was named a Fellow of ACI in 1994.
Khaled Walid Awad, FACI, is the Chairman and Founder of ACTS, a leading material and geotechnical consulting firm based in Beirut, Lebanon. An active member of ACI, he is Chair of ACI Subcommittee 601-E, Concrete Construction Sustainability Assessor, and serves on the Task Group on Managing Translations of ACI Products and Services, Certification Programs Committee, and the International Certification Subcommittee, of which he is a past Chair. He is a member of ACI Committees 130, Sustainability of Concrete; and C630, Construction Inspector Certification; and ACI Subcommittees 130-E, Design/Specifications/Codes/Regulations; 130-F, Social Issues; and 130-G, Education/Certification. Awad is the past Chair of the Financial Advisory Committee and previously served as a member of the ACI Board of Direction and the ACI International Committee. He received the ACI Henry L. Kennedy Award and the ACI Chapter Activities Award in 2007, and the ACI Certification Award in 2011.
JoAnn P. Browning, FACI, was named the Dean and David and Jennifer Spencer Distinguished Chair of the University of Texas at San Antonio College of Engineering in August 2014. Previously, she served as Assistant/Associate/Full Professor from 1998-2014 and Associate Dean of Engineering from 2012-2014 at the University of Kansas (KU), Lawrence, KS. She was awarded KU’s Miller Award for Distinguished Professional Service twice (2004 and 2011) and was the 2012 recipient of the Henry E. Gould Award for Distinguished Service to Undergraduate Education. In 2015, she was named a Purdue Distinguished Woman Scholar.
Browning currently is a member of the ACI Technical Activities Committee (TAC) and the Faculty Network and serves on the Joint ACI-ASCE Committees Task Group, Session Review Task Group, and TAC Awards Task Group. She is a member of ACI Committees 314, Simplified Design of Concrete Buildings (past Chair); 318, Structural Concrete Building Code; 341, Earthquake-Resistant Concrete Bridges; 374, Performance-Based Seismic Design of Concrete Buildings; and Joint ACI-ASCE Committee 408, Bond and Development of Steel Reinforcement; and ACI Subcommittees 318-C, Safety, Serviceability, and Analysis; 318-SC, Steering Committee; and the T.Y. Lin Award Subcommittee.
She received ACI’s Young Member Award for Professional Achievement in 2008 and was named a Fellow of ACI in 2009. In addition to ACI, Browning is active in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute (CRSI), and the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI).
Cesar A. Constantino, FACI, is Director, Business Development, for Separation Technologies LLC, a Titan America Business. His responsibilities include creation of long-term value with customers, markets, and relationships with a focus on supplementary and alternative supplementary cementitious materials. Formerly, Constantino was Vice President, Corporate Engineering, and led a team devoted to operational excellence achievement in all Titan America businesses. Prior to Titan America, Constantino consulted as a structural, materials, and concrete construction expert in the United States and Panama. While in Panama, he was appointed to various executive positions in the Ministry of Public Works and was an Adjunct Professor in the Engineering Graduate School at the Technological University of Panama, Panama City, Panama.
Constantino serves on several ACI committees, including 130, Sustainability of Concrete; 228, Nondestructive Testing of Concrete; 239, Ultra-High Performance Concrete; 308, Curing Concrete; and ACI Subcommittee 308-B, Curing-Specifications. He is also a member of the Certification Programs Committee, Educational Activities Committee, International Project Awards Committee, Marketing Committee, and International Conferences/Conventions Subcommittee.
Kimberly Kayler is President and Founder of Constructive Communication, Inc. (CCI), Dublin, Ohio. A marketing professional with extensive experience serving technical industries, Kayler started CCI in 2001 to serve the needs of professional service and business-to-business technical firms. In her role as President of CCI, Kayler helps clients define strategy and develop marketing action plans. CCI’s client list includes more than a dozen concrete-related organizations.
Kayler chairs the ACI Marketing Committee and is a current member of the Construction Liaison Committee and the Membership Committee. She also chairs the Global Marketing Plan Task Group and is a member of the 2030 Outlook Task Group. She has also served on the Branding Task Group and the Task Group on Communication Platforms for Delivery of Services and Products, and participated in ACI’s 2013 Strategic Planning effort.
Kayler is a Co-Founder of the Women in Concrete Alliance (WICA) and leads efforts to create networking programs for women in the concrete industry. In this capacity, she represented WICA on the U.S. Secretary of Transportation’s Women in Transportation Roundtable.
Roberto Stark, FACI, is the President of Stark+Ortiz, S.C., a consulting firm based in Mexico City, which provides structural design services for urban and infrastructure projects throughout Mexico. Stark is a member of ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code, and ACI Subcommittees 318-D, Members; 318-L, International Liaison; and 318-S, Spanish Translation Task Group. He also serves on ACI Committees 369, Seismic Repair and Rehabilitation; 374, Performance-Based Seismic Design of Concrete Buildings; the International Advisory Committee; and the ISO-TC 71 Advisory Committee.
