Wells Concrete Products Inc. in Albany, Minnesota, has collaborated with Minnesota State University, Mankato to start a program this fall that is teaching precast and prestressed concrete concepts to the school’s civil engineering and construction management undergraduate students.
The name of the program is Building a Concrete Future. The program is funded by a grant from the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute and the funding from Wells Concrete. The total grant is $100,000.
MSU, Mankato is the first school in Minnesota and just the 10th in the nation to benefit from a PCI Foundation grant.
As part of the program, Wells Concrete CEO Dan Juntenen said his company will provide access to "real-life" projects for students and faculty to use as case studies and for research.
Students will follow a project through phases like preconstruction planning, engineering design, 3-D modeling, production of components and field installation.
The program also will be a resource for professional engineers in southern Minnesota.