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This year, three more men joined the ranks of the prestigious Decorative Concrete Hall of Fame established in 2010 by Professional Trade Publications, parent company of Concrete Decor magazine. Chris Sullivan and Michael Murray were inducted and presented plaques at a dinner Sept. 29 at the Concrete Decor Show in Indianapolis. Michael Eastergard was inducted posthumously following his untimely passing earlier this year.
The Decorative Concrete Hall of Fame recognizes individuals and companies whose contributions have impacted the future of decorative concrete, both as a business and an art form. Since the Hall of Fame’s inception, 23 individuals and two companies have been bestowed this honor for unselfishly giving their time, energies, loyalty and resources to help the decorative concrete industry grow.
The new inductees were chosen by Hall of Fame members.
Chris Sullivan
Since 2009, Sullivan has been vice president of sales and marketing for ChemSystems Inc., a Texas corporation formed in 1996. Prior to ChemSystems, Sullivan spent nine years as national sales manager for QC Construction Products.
Besides sales and marketing, Sullivan also manages product development at ChemSystems, with an emphasis on troubleshooting and technical issues. He’s a frequent presenter at the World of Concrete and the Concrete Decor Show and has written extensively for various concrete magazines. He has been a columnist for Concrete Decor since 2009 and a technical writer and expert for Concrete Network since 2008. He recently published his fourth book on current trends in decorative concrete.
Sullivan earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh. He’s active in both the American Society of Concrete Contractors and the American Concrete Institute.
Michael Murray
Murray began his career as a concrete finisher in 1964. In 1979 he founded Murray Concrete, a concrete contracting company near Kansas City, Missouri. Later he began installing stamped concrete and opened Murray Decorative Concrete Supply.
In 2014, Murray established a consulting firm and turned much of his attention to Concrete Cares, a foundation he started in 2012 to raise awareness and funds for cancer research. The organization also works with ready-mix suppliers to display Concrete Cares’ pink trucks at events. “I’m still going to work with concrete until I die but I want to do it for Concrete Cares,” he says. He is now actively building Concrete Cares programs in all 50 states.
Murray is an ACI fellow and believes in the power of education and industry certifications to raise the bar for the industry. Murray is an educator for a tool called the Super Air Meter that distinguishes air void analysis in the field.
Michael Eastergard
Eastergard, the Hall of Fame’s posthumous inductee, passed away unexpectedly in March 2015 at the age of 42. A well-respected, talented and friendly decorative concrete artisan, he was active in educating a new generation of concrete professionals.
Eastergard owned Carefree Pools and Spa and was CEO, owner and innovator of PreiTech, an Evans, Georgia-based corporation that developed a new foundation for creating concrete countertops. Prior to his death, Eastergard filed four patent applications on new processes and products for the concrete countertop industry and introduced products from two of those applications. He was able to set up a network of more than 120 distributors across the globe.
He spent countless hours training students of concrete through his work with the ASCC. A Concrete Industry Management scholarship program was set up this year in his honor.
