The National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) announced the winners of the Safety Excellence Awards, the Louis Griesemer Sterling Safety Awards and the James M. Christie Safety and Health Professional of the Year Award during the second morning session of the 2023 Legislative & Policy Forum.

“Safety shapes the culture and everyday practices of each of our members,” said NSSGA President & CEO Michael Johnson. “Our members stay vigilant about training and ensure safety practices occur on every level. The 2023 Safety winners must be congratulated for continuing to keep safety as a core value.”

The Safety Excellence Awards recognize operations that maintain a safe workplace, evidenced by its safety performance over a consecutive period without an MSHA-reportable injury. The Louis Griesemer Sterling Safety Awards recognize NSSGA member companies that have the lowest total accident incidence rate for the previous year in their size category.

Additionally, the 2023 James M. Christie Safety and Health Professional of the Year was awarded to Meghan Neal, the director of environmental health safety for P.W. Gillibrand Co., Inc. The James M. Christie Award honors superior contributions toward proactive safe and healthful operating practices.  Neal is well-known by her industry peers for her own dedication of instituting safety practices and engagement in the NSSGA’s Health & Safety Committee. For a full list of award winners, please visit nssga.org/awards.

2023 Safety Awards of Excellence

Gold Award Winners

Small Operation
Norton Quarry
Vulcan Materials Company

Medium Operation
Sumter Sand
American Materials Co.
Summit Materials

Large Operation
Corona Quarry
Vulcan Materials Company

Louis Griesmer Sterling Safety Award Winners

Gold Award Winners

Small Operation
Martin Stone Quarries, Inc.

Medium Operation
Warren Paving, Inc.

Large Operation
Granite Construction Company

The American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA) today unveiled a modernized logo that emphasizes the Association’s focus on advancing roadway safety.

The bolder colors and focus on navy provide the perfect complement for the orange traffic cone set within the initial A in ATSSA. Insertion of this simple, well-known image conveys an instant connection to work zones and roadway safety infrastructure.

“This logo makes a clear statement about who we are and our core purpose of advancing roadway safety,” said ATSSA President & CEO Stacy Tetschner. “It also instantly identifies us with work zones and the roadway workers who risk their lives every day to deliver safe passageways for each of us as we drive countless miles throughout the year.”

The new logo retains the phrase that declares the bedrock truth that “Safer Roads Save Lives.” ATSSA added that message to the logo it unveiled 25 years ago, which featured a curving roadway and the color teal.

The new four-color logo maintains continuity by employing teal for that fundamental message.

This is the third logo for ATSSA, which was established in 1969. The original logo was black and white and incorporated a roadway sign, a striped street and a work zone barrier.

ATSSA is an international trade association with a member partnership of approximately 1,500 member companies that represent 11,000 industry professionals. Members are engaged in sign manufacturing, pavement marking, guardrail and barrier, traffic signals and technical innovation fields.

The National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) revealed its 2023 Community Relations Excellence winners, as well as its Stars of Excellence awards. The Community Relations Excellence Awards recognize producers’ achievements for their generous contributions to the community in which they operate and enhance public perception of their business, their facility and the industry. This year, NSSGA saw an increase in the amount of award applications and recognized 10 Gold, 13 Silver and 59 Bronze winners. Reostone Quarry, Rogers Group Inc., was awarded the Platinum award.

“The Community Relations awards highlight the integral part that facilities play in their local communities,” said NSSGA President & CEO Michael Johnson. “Strong community relations efforts create strong relationships at every level which allows for our member facilities to continue to succeed and thrive. It is my pleasure to recognize all our winners today.”

Additionally recognized were Hunter Stone Quarry, Martin Marietta and North East Quarry, Martin Marietta as Stars of Excellence winners. This award is presented to an operation with multiple Gold Awards in Safety, Community Relations or Environmental Excellence within five years. A complete listing of the 2023 Award winners can be found at nssga.org/awards.

2023 Community Relations Excellence Awards

Platinum Award Winner

Reostone Quarry
Rogers Group Inc.

Gold Award Winners

Augusta Quarry
Martin Marietta

Caryville Quarry
Rogers Group Inc.

Culpeper Plant
Luck Stone
Luck Companies

Hunter Stone Quarry
Martin Marietta

Jefferson County Stone
Rogers Group Inc.

North East Quarry
Bluegrass Materials, LLC
Martin Marietta

Peabody Quarry
Holcim

Reostone Quarry
Rogers Group Inc.

Solms Quarry
Capitol Aggregates
Zachry Corporation

Stamper Mine
Martin Marietta

The National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) announced the recipients of its Environmental Excellence Awards and the winner of the 2023 Environmental Leadership Award. The Excellence Awards recognize operations that actively demonstrate a commitment to the exemplary use of environmental controls and systems. NSSGA recognized a total of 10 Gold, 11 Silver and 84 Bronze winners during the first session of the Legislative & Policy Forum.

“All NSSGA members are responsible environmental stewards of the land they operate on,” said NSSGA President & CEO Michael Johnson. “The environmental awards create an annual forum to showcase companies’ innovative practices within the environmental sector. Each year the bar gets set higher by the award winners and I thank each of them for their contributions in making the entire industry better.”
Additionally, Kurt Blase was recognized as the 2023 Environmental Leadership Winner. He was lauded for his career of enforcing reasonable federal standards for the industry since 1994. Blase also worked with NSSGA to mitigate unreasonable standards in the Clean Air Act. His expertise with these regulations has been vital to aggregate producers’ everyday success.

North East Quarry, Bluegrass Materials LLC, Martin Marietta was announced as the 2023 Environmental platinum winner, which is the top-scoring gold. A complete listing of the 2023 Award winners can be found at nssga.org/awards.

2023 Environmental Awards of Excellence

Platinum Winner

North East Quarry
Bluegrass Materials, LLC
Martin Marietta

Gold Award Winners

Auburn AL Quarry
Martin Marietta

Bridgeport Crushed Stone
Martin Marietta

Broken Bow S&G
Martin Marietta

Garner Quarry
Martin Marietta

Guernsey Quarry
Martin Marietta

Mallard Creek Quarry
Martin Marietta

North East Quarry
Bluegrass Materials, LLC
Martin Marietta

Webberville Sand and Gravel
Martin Marietta

Thornton Quarry
Heidelberg Materials

Wendling Quarries
Wendling Quarries

Of the cracking tests gaining popularity for their correlation to field results, the Illinois Flexibility Index Test (I-FIT) scores near the top of the class. If your department of transportation (DOT) requires you perform this test on your balanced mix designs (BMD) or other mixes, here’s how to do it.

In simplest terms, you make a specimen in a gyratory compactor (SGC) and then test the specimen in a bending test fixture. Of course, the devil is in the details.

Step 1. In the SGC, compact the specimen to a height of 160 mm.

Step 2. Trim the specimen to get two semi-circular specimens.

Step 3. Cut a 15-mm deep notch, 1.5-mm wide in each specimen base perpendicular to the loading axis.

Step 4. Take measurements of the specimens for the second phase of the test.

Step 5. Submerge both specimens in a water bath for two hours at 25 degrees C.

Step 6. Double-check ethernet connection, warm up the bending test fixture, and launch the app.

Step 7. Place and align the specimen in the bending test fixture so that the load presses against the top of the semicircular curve.

Step 8. As the SCB fractures, a smooth load displacement curve will be recorded. This is used for analyzing the test results.

Step 9. To calculate the Flexibility Index (FI), you post-analyze the data.

I watched a video on LinkedIn the other day where a construction crew dropped what they were doing to rush to the aid of an over-the-road truck driver. The driver’s truck was upside down a few feet off the highway near their construction site. Traffic was backed up and packed tight so emergency vehicles were most likely going to have some difficulty getting through the gridlock to reach the scene. The workers? They ran over to help. And it reminded me, the members of our industry are trained to handle all manner of emergencies.

In our Safety Spotlight department’s January 2023 issue, we lauded Peckham Industries’ Palmer Paving Corp.’s Sand & Gravel operation for its National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) Safety Excellence Awards gold award win. With that article, we were able to highlight the PARCO Terminal in Athens, New York, within the Peckham family of companies. Three members of the PARCO team had noticed a driver who was transporting PARCO material begin experiencing a cardiac event and they sprang into action. Peckham workers are offered First Aid/CPR/AED training every year, and the owner operator is alive today because these three men knew how to respond to the emergency. Read the whole story here.

More recently, we’ve shared the workforce development culture taking place at Kingsway Services, Millersburg, Ohio, both in their recruitment and retention of workers for our industry. They’re building a culture of caring through the concept of emotional intelligence, which I encourage managers and owners to take a look at. It’s not as foo-foo as it sounds. Incorporating EI takes a serious look at treating each employee as a whole person who brings human emotions that can affect the safety and efficacy of the job site, to the job site. Check that out here.

Keep in mind, the workers reacting to and assisting one another on the job site aren’t working just under the watchful gaze of the supervisor. The traveling public is watching, too, as evidenced by the LinkedIn video mentioned above. A random member of the traveling public caught the heroic actions of the construction crew and uploaded that to the Internet.

But the traveling public is taking down your company’s phone number, too.

A contractor in Missouri shared with me that he received phone calls from random citizens applauding his crews working on a highway project. Members of the traveling public noticed that all the workers were busy at their stations and equipment. It was noteworthy enough to see so many paving professionals busy at their tasks that members of the public called to commend the company for it. That? That’s good public relations in action.

This issue of AsphaltPro includes our annual training guide, wherein you’ll find some back-to-basics tips and a list of our partners who are offering training for their customers, dealers and others. But look also to the “intangibles” you could be teaching your crewmembers. Safety and emergency training are valuable every minute of the day. The positive outcome of having crewmembers equipped for emergencies, focused on working together intelligently, and working in productive harmony turns into good PR for an entire industry—in addition to the incredible lift of helping others.

Stay Safe,

Sandy Lender