SAN ANTONIO - Steel bridge enthusiasts have spoken! The new Frederick Douglass Bridge in Washington is the 2024 Bridge of the Year, as elected by participants of the World Steel Bridge Symposium at NASCC: The Steel Conference. As AECOM’s A.J. Cardini put it, the team behind Washington’s new Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge had a challenge: create a bridge that is “classic but not classical, dramatic but not theatrical.” The result is a bridge with three arched spans, like the path of a stone skipping across the water, that is designed for a century-long service life. The 1,444-ft-long bridge over the Anacostia River consists of two 452-ft spans and a 540-ft center span, whose arch rises 30 ft higher than the side arches. The arch cross section is actually hexagonal, casting shadows that decrease the arches’ visual mass. Taking full advantage of the tight tolerances and precise fabrication that are only possible with steel, the team designed arch splices that are not only visually clean but require fewer bolts than a normal splice connection. In keeping with the spirit of its namesake, the project was noteworthy for another innovation: a first-of-its-kind, federally funded, on-the-job training program designed to hire and train women and minorities. The Prize Bridge Award jury had narrowed the field down to just three finalists going into Wednesday’s session at the World Steel Bridge Symposium. The SeaTac IAF Pedestrian Walkway impressed with its sheer scale. At 780 ft, SeaTac’s new pedestrian walkway is the world’s largest structure over an active taxiway--and only the third such structure in the world. It’s actually a cable-stayed bridge, with the cables visible inside the walkway. The 320-ft-long center span was built in a cargo area to minimize disruption and allow for delicate operations, like placing those stay cables, to take place in a controlled environment. The center span, complete with its glass and metal facade in place, then traveled three miles away, down the airport’s central runway, before all 1,565 tons of it (with windows already installed) were hoisted into place 85 ft in the air. In Detroit, 1.6 million lbs of structural steel make the country’s first skewed unbraced network tied arch bridge possible. The I-94 2nd Avenue Bridge Network Tied Arch’s 18-degree skew (that’s nearly 30-ft offset between the arches) and the roadway’s vertical curve meant that no connection could be square, all four corners of the finished bridge would be at different elevations, and no two steel floor beams would be alike. The bridge was carefully assembled offside on temporary supports and moved 500-ft into place--with a 20-ft elevation change along the way. It took less than a week to move the bridge’s 5-million-lb skeleton into its permanent location with a combination of both self-propelled modular transport devices (SPMTs) and longitudinal skidding, minimizing disruption to the 175,000 vehicles that travel that stretch of I-94 daily.

We’re so excited for next week’s NASCC: The Steel Conference, and we hope you are, too! Don’t forget to pack comfortable shoes--this year’s exhibit hall is almost 250,000 sq. ft, and it’s jam-packed with cool innovations you don’t want to miss. We suggest you set aside some time to fully explore what’s on offer there. (If you’ve never seen a machine cut steel plate like butter, well, this is your chance!) A few particularly cool things to check out on the exhibit hall floor this year: The Workforce Zone is a brand-new, hands-on playground where you can see what goes into steel fabrication. The Be Pro Be Proud trailer returns with lots of virtual experiences to try, or you can grab a tool and actually try it in real life. Check out AISC’s new Fabricator Education program and BlueRecruit, a technical recruiting system that offers partner benefits for AISC full members. If you’ve never seen a Student Steel Bridge Competition live, this is your chance! Local student engineers will be showing off their scale bridge--which they designed and fabricated themselves--in the exhibit hall during the Welcome Reception Wednesday night. The AISC Bookstore will be in the exhibit hall, as well. If you pre-ordered a Steel Construction Manual, stop by to pick it up. (You can also purchase one without a pre-order.) You’ll find the AISC Education Foundation next to the Bookstore. This year, the Education Foundation is supporting students, educators, and education programs with about $400,000 in funding. Stop by the Foundation booth to pick up some AISC-branded merchandise--and help us do even more in the future! On the subject of swag: Like free stuff? Passport to Prizes returns this year! Visit participating booths during the conference and you could win big. You’ll find more info in the app. If you need a break during the conference, come join us at the AISC/NSBA booth (#1863) to watch the NCAA basketball tournament, shoot some hoops, and try your hand at pub trivia. If you haven’t already downloaded the conference app, this is a great time to do so from either the iPhone App Store or Google Play. Even before the show, you can start flagging sessions or exhibitors that interest you. That app will also be the easiest way to enter your PDH codes; you can also do that at aisc.org/nasccpdh during or after the conference. Speaking of sessions: Your Steel Conference registration gives you access to the specialty conferences, too. So it’s definitely worth taking some time to peruse the schedule beforehand! (And if you see something that a colleague or friend who’s not coming would love, remind them that they can tune in to some sessions remotely via NASCC Online.) One very popular item on the schedule is Elevate, a free reception that brings together advocates for and allies of under-represented groups in the AEC industries. If you’d like to join us after the Welcome Reception Wednesday night, please let us know you’re coming. If you have any questions about registration and housing between now and the conference, call 972.349.5930 or email nascc@mcievents.com. If you need help during the conference, just look for staff in black polos with the AISC logo. See you soon!

Is “free” your favorite number (especially when it comes to winning awesome stuff)? Want to make the most of your time interacting with people and exploring the exhibit hall at NASCC: The Steel Conference in San Antonio? We have just the opportunity for you--Passport to Prizes! It’s easy and fun to participate in Passport to Prizes, a game you can only find on the show floor at the Steel Conference. Before the conference, download the NASCC mobile app (coming soon) and tap Passport to Prizes within the app’s Exhibitors section. During the conference, visit each of the 20 participating exhibitors’ booths to collect their codes, and enter each code into the Passport to Prizes section of the app. Then, after you get home, keep an eye on your email inbox to see if you won one of 20 great prizes--including $1,000 and $500 Amazon gift cards and Bose wireless noise-canceling earbuds. Prizes or not, you’ll want to carve out plenty of time to explore the exhibit hall at this year’s Steel Conference. We have more than 100,000 sq. ft of booth space, where you can learn about more than 350 leading products and services that can help you do your job better. Many of your favorite exhibitors from previous years are making a reappearance in San Antonio and displaying the latest innovations you need to see to believe. With more than 60 new exhibitors this year, there will also be a ton of novel, game-changing products and services for you to explore! Besides the record number of exhibitors, there are lots of highlights to visit on the show floor. Browse the Heavy Machinery area and Bridge Pavilion, perennial Steel Conference favorites. Some new stops to add to your list are the Workforce Zone, featuring Be Pro Be Proud’s state-of-the-art mobile workshop and other hands-on activities, and the Safety Pavilion. Mingle with new and old friends at the AISC booth, which is set up as a sports bar in honor of March Madness (TVs and pub trivia included!). Pick up some new resources at the AISC Bookstore, and learn how you can contribute to the future of the industry at the AISC Education Foundation booth. There’s so much to see and do in the exhibit hall. Browse our full list of exhibitors, and start planning your stops ahead of the Steel Conference!

San Antonio is the place to be this March for everyone involved in the design or construction of steel buildings and bridges! Register today to get the best price on the industry’s top education event, featuring more than 250 sessions full of must-have practical information that you can implement as soon as you get home, an exhibit hall packed with more than 280 innovations you need to know about right now, and a chance to network with thousands of the nation’s preeminent designers, fabricators, erectors, and educators! The 2024 NASCC: The Steel Conference, scheduled for March 20-22 in San Antonio, is expected to attract nearly 7,000 participants. The Steel Conference also hosts several specialty conferences, ranging from SSRC’s Annual Stability Conference to the Structural Engineering Institute’s SEIcon24 and the World Steel Bridge Symposium. Why the Steel Conference? Whether you’re a designer, fabricator, contractor, or educator, the Steel Conference offers practical sessions to help you do your job better. Rather than simply presenting paper abstracts, the Steel Conference is known for high-quality sessions providing real-world knowledge and guidance from carefully selected experts. AISC reaches out to a curated list of innovators who are changing the world and issues invitations to speak at the Steel Conference. This year’s agenda These are just a few of the things you’ll learn at the more than 250 technical sessions at this year’s Steel Conference--while earning up to 16.5 PDHs or 14 AIA LUs! An AI-enhanced sustainable approach to structural steel design Printing 3D metal structures with robots Reviving the master builder: computational methods in steel design and fabrication 10 overlooked Code of Standard Practice provisions Augmented reality in structural steel construction How parametric modeling brought Chicago O’Hare International Airport’s expansion to life Using AI to reduce welding inspection time 50 tips to improve steel-framed building structure constructability Three innovative American bridges you need to know about right now How to perfect diaphragm design Where and how to start recovering shop costs for delays An economic forecast and structural steel industry overview And much, much more! The Steel Conference incorporates seven specialty conferences: the World Steel Bridge Symposium, QualityCon, Architecture in Steel, SafetyCon, the SSRC Annual Stability Conference, the NISD Conference on Steel Detailing, and--just for this year!--SEICon24. See aisc.org/nascc for details about what those conferences have to offer this year. Details The Steel Conference takes place in San Antonio, March 20 to 22. Registration starts at $420 for members--and the price increases each week, so hurry! You’ll also want to book early to take advantage of special rates at local hotels. AISC offers special rates for multiple registrants from the same firm, architects, recent graduates, educators, and public agency employees. Student members can attend the Steel Conference for free and may be eligible for help with travel costs. Press registration is complimentary; journalists can contact Dani Friedland at friedland@aisc.org for details.

With more than 300 booths at this year’s Steel Conference--a show record--there’s a lot to take in on the show floor! Here are some of the most interesting things we saw in the exhibit hall on Wednesday. You can use the NASCC app to learn more and find these booths. What's the coolest thing you've seen? Put it on social media and tag it #NASCC23 and #AISC! Step Into the Supply Chain with Nucor (booth 1206/1306/1406) North America’s largest structural steel producer (and largest recycler!) is a popular stop on the trade show floor each year, but this year’s exhibit places a special focus on industry sustainability. At Nucor’s booth, you’ll find an interactive rendering of the circular economy of steel. As you pick up different models and place them on a receiver, a screen will walk you through each process of the life cycle of steel, illustrating its nearly infinite recyclability. “We want people to see that the car they’re driving today can be melted down and could end up as part of a building ten years from now,” says Sustainability Specialist Luke Johnson. Kick it Into High Gear with Lincoln Electric (booth 1014) Buckle up and enjoy the ride at this year’s motorsports-themed booth! In addition to demos of their large robotic fabrication systems, the team at Lincoln Electric brings you iRacing simulators and a NASCAR driver meet-and-greet. But there's a lot more to it than fast cars. “We have a lot of interactive things people can learn from,” says Senior Product Manager Sheena Suvak. “It’s one thing to walk by a booth and talk to people—it’s another to be able to get your hands on what they’re exhibiting.” Suvak hopes their booth will be emblematic of Lincoln Electric’s dynamic range of welding products. “If this trade show is someone’s first impression of us, we want them to see we’re a one-stop shop for our customers,” she says. Get the Scoop on Magni Telescopic Handlers (booth 1908) As a leader in rotating and fixed-boom telehandlers, Magni Telescopic Handlers is committed to staying ahead of the curve. At their booth, you’ll find the latest iteration of their multi-use rotary telehandler, which serves as a fork lift, rough-terrain crane and boom lift—and the company says it’s the safest machine of its kind. The handler on display can lift up to 28,600 pounds of material to a maximum height of 167 feet! “The Magni will help you erect steel more efficiently, productively, safely, and profitably,” says Chief Operating Officer Gary Weisman. “The cool thing is there are literally 100 different attachments, but the even cooler thing is the safety it affords the user.” Take a Vintage-Inspired Selfie with CANAM Group (booth 1336) CANAM Group is turning heads with a gleaming turquoise 1958 Mack Truck, but they’ll make sure you walk away with much more than just a cool photo. Once you’ve snapped a pic, CANAM’s team is on hand to share their expertise on structural steel components, which spans across 12 North American manufacturing plants and more than 300,000 large-scale construction projects. Not only are they a leading manufacturer of steel joists and deck products—“We’re also a lot of fun!” says Business Development Manager Christian Deveau. Follow the Orange Carpet to Peddinghaus (booth 902) Peddinghaus’ newest innovation, the PeddiAssembler, is pretty hard to miss! Situated frontmost among several of the company’s signature-green (and absolutely massive) robotic welding systems, the PeddiAssembler is a solution designed to minimize the time and manual labor needed for steel beam assembly. The machine, which requires only one operator, uses two robots—a laser scanner and a handler—to place welded steel plates. “If Peddinghaus is your last stop on the exhibit hall floor—even if you’ve seen welding automation at other booths—you’ll see that ours is the only machine that does fitting of parts,” says Marketing Manager Megan Hamann. Check Out Vectis Automation (booth 308) Haven’t gotten your fill of robots yet? Neither have we! Stop by the Vectis Automation booth to see their newest mobile cobot welding tool, which employs remote skid-mounting for extended reach. Seeing these flexible robot arms at work is a highlight of the heavy machinery area! “Our priority is keeping the automation of welding and plasma cutting as accessible as possible,” says Applications Engineer Sam Eckdahl. Get a Taste of the Trades with Be Pro Be Proud (booth 2621) Step aboard the enormous Be Pro Be Proud trailer to immerse yourself in an array of virtual reality simulators for welding, tractor driving, crane operation, and much more. These interactive activities are not only fun, but they are also educational--the mission of Be Pro Be Proud is to encourage the next generation of workers to embark on a career in the skilled trades. "We're here to show people, students especially, that they can learn a new trade and start a new career in fewer than two years, no four-year degree required," said Trish Seaford of Be Pro Be Proud North Carolina. Immensely popular among adults at trade shows and students at middle and high schools, Be Pro Be Proud is working to have a presence in all 50 states in the near future. Experience PartILLATION: Visions in Steel (booth 2602) Didn’t catch PartILLATION in Houston? You’re in luck! The traveling exhibition is here at the Steel Conference. It’s a curated collection of portraits and other media that explore the evolution, humanism, innovation, history, and legacy of steel architecture. Bolt Over to GWY to See the Latest Nut Wrenches (booth 1508) See state-of-the-art turn-of-nut wrenches in action with a stop at the GWY booth. "Turn-of-nut wrenches tighten the bolt assembly to the right rotation every time, so they make it easy for inspectors to see when a bolt has been properly installed," said Don Laro, a sales rep with GWY. The installation torque of the wrench is absorbed by the tool’s reaction arm, not the worker’s arm, which makes hex-head bolt installation faster and easier than ever. Watch Kinetic Cutting Systems Inc. Go Beyond Plasma Cutting (booth 936) It’s hard not to stop and marvel at the Kinetic K5200xm when you walk past--especially when you can catch the machine using plasma cutting to slice a shape out of a sheet of steel. Stay for the entire seven-minute demo, and you’ll quickly realize that the Kinetic K5200xm does much more than plasma cutting. Specialized in automated material handling, the machine has a number of attachments for transforming a piece of steel into a finished part or portion. “We always say this is one machine that can do it all, from cutting to CNC drilling, to beveling, to marking a piece of steel,” said Kinetic’s Tiffany Lutz. Check Out a Quik Drive® Steel-Decking System at Simpson Strong-Tie (booth 1532) Have you ever seen a Quik Drive® Steel-Decking System at work? Stop by the Simpson Strong-Tie booth to watch the QuikDrive PROSDX150 Steel-Decking System drive bolts into a sheet of steel decking--with safety top of mind. "From a safety perspective, this tool is ideal for users because of its ergonomic design. It’s safer for anybody below because bolts don't go shooting through the deck," said Scott Stephens, a sales rep with Simpson Strong-Tie. Take a Closer Look at Welds with Terracon Consultants, Inc. (booth 1936) You’ve likely heard of--or even experienced--an ultrasound scan in your body, but did you know it’s possible (and even advantageous) to use ultrasonic testing to inspect a weld? At the Terracon booth, you can see the OmniScan x3 at work. When run along the length of a weld, this device sends ultrasonic radiation into it and creates a digital report of the weld's quality, making it easy to spot any flaws that may not be obvious with common weld testing methods. "Because it sends waves into your weld from multiple angles, phased array ultrasonic testing can save you significant amounts of time and give you a better weld inspection overall,” said Terracon Senior Construction Inspector Michael Bobinchuck.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The Structural Stability Research Council (SSRC) came together for its Annual Stability Conference last week and took advantage of the occasion to celebrate some remarkable people. Construction Engineering Professor Roberto Leon received the Beedle Award, named for the late Lynn S. Beedle, for his structures research at Virginia Tech. In addition to testing full-scale and model structures in the laboratory, Leon conducts research on composite and hybrid steel-concrete structures, including their dynamic behavior, design, and field instrumentation. The Beedle Award is the highest honor bestowed upon contributing SSRC members. He was the 2022 recipient of AISC’s Geerhard Haaijer Award for Excellence in Education, a rarely bestowed honor that recognizes truly exceptional educators. Hannah Blum, PhD, received the McGuire Award for Junior Researchers (or MAJR) Medal. Blum is an assistant professor and Alain H. Peyrot fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UW-Madison. She was a former recipient of the Yoon Duk Kim Young Researcher Award in 2023 and the Vinnakota Award in 2016. The SSRC Annual Stability Conference is incorporated into NASCC: The Steel Conference, where Blum also received a Terry Peshia Early Career Faculty Award. SSRC also presented a MAJR Medal honorable mention certificate to Ali Imanpour, PhD, an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Dept at the University of Alberta. Cheng Huang, a research associate at Imperial College London, received the Vinnakota Award for “Flexural behavior of wire arc additively manufactured tubular sections,” a paper published in the SSRC Annual Stability Conference proceedings. This award recognizes the best student-authored paper presented at the Annual Stability Conference. SSRC also presented an honorable mention for the Vinnakota Award to Andreas Muller, a PhD candidate studying steel and composite Structures at ETH Zurich, for "Prediction of the deformation and local buckling behavior of structural systems using the deep neural network direct stiffness method (DNN-DSM,)" also published in the 2023 SSRC Conference Proceedings. Sivaganesh Selvaraj, a postdoctoral fellow at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, received the Yoon Duk Kim Researcher Award, which recognizes students or early career professionals who have already made a noteworthy contribution to the advancement of structural stability. He presented the paper "Interactive failure mode and Design of Cold-formed Steel Closed Cross-section Built-up Columns," also available in the 2023 SSRC Conference Proceedings.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Bridge experts have known the benefits of uncoated weathering steel for decades--and thanks to research by the University of Delaware’s Jennifer McConnell, PhD, we can now quantify those advantages. McConnell, recipient of the 2023 T.R. Higgins Lectureship Award, closed out NASCC: The Steel Conference by presenting findings from more than a decade of research on weathering steel bridges--work that’s crucial as the nation focuses on infrastructure, because corrosion is the most widespread problem those systems face. In 2016, the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (which is now called the Association for Materials Protection and Performance) estimated that the worldwide economic impact of corrosion across all sectors is $2.5 trillion annually. McConnell’s research focuses on weathering steel, an alloy that was first introduced in 1964 and has been used in more than 10,000 bridges. What makes it unique is that it’s intended to be used uncoated to allow its distinctive protective finish to develop. The lack of applied coatings provides cost savings both initially and throughout a structure’s service life as well as environmental benefits. However, it may not be an ideal choice for all environments. “Weather is not just precipitation,” she said. “It’s the chemical elements that make up that precipitation”--and controlling exposure is the most important thing engineers can do to ensure that a structure reaches its target lifespan. Humidity is a crucial consideration, because the chemical reactions that lead to corrosion can’t start without water. Chlorine--commonly found in the air above salt water and in deicing agents applied to roadways--act as a catalyst to speed up the process. And one of the main problems is that water and chlorides often coexist, creating the most corrosive environment that a typical steel structure can experience. McConnell set out to examine the impact of humidity and chlorides on UWS bridges over time. Over the course of roughly a decade, McConnell’s team evaluated UWS bridges that had been in service for at least 20 years (in most cases) and up to 40 years in others in two general environments: coastal conditions, and those subjected to deicing. Some bridges in the study were subjected to both. Her findings suggest that UWS is an ideal choice for environments that are neither extremely humid nor high in chlorides. As either of those environmental elements increase, thoughtful planning could be the key to success. For instance, designers could consider including a sacrificial thickness of steel--that is, use thicker steel for things like bottom flange plates (where water and salt tend to collect) to mitigate the effects of highly corrosive environments. Under those conditions, UWS may lose ⅛” of thickness after 80 years; simply adding an additional ⅛” to the bottom flange plates over heavily salted traffic lanes, for example, would counteract that and allow owners to take advantage of UWS’s cost and sustainability benefits. Designers should also consider drainage and the potential for joint leakage. McConnell pointed out that engineers could handle drainage by simply placing expansion joints behind the back wall with a drain pipe to discharge runoff away from the superstructure. Her team reviewed 70 inspection reports from four different agencies (two in coastal areas and two in areas with regular use of deicing agents) and found a striking pattern: a third of the bridges they examined had worse performance below deck joints than in the remainder of the structure. These joints were leaking--a frequent cause of compromised corrosion resistance. Ideally, UWS bridges should have as few joints as possible, and careful detailing can make a big difference, too. Although well-designed UWS requires little maintenance, some agencies have found that a surprisingly simple practice can extend the service life of a UWS bridge: washing it to clean off any accumulated chlorides after winter deicing. It’s common to wash trucks and loaders in the spring, McConnell noted, so why not wash bridges? “Reaching [a structure’s] intended service life and optimizing the associated cost relies on design and maintenance actions,” she said. “Our goal is to better understand the specifics of steel corrosion to enable us to better design and maintain steel structures to mitigate and prevent corrosion problems.”

Equity, diversity, and inclusion are critical to ensuring vibrant architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) communities today and tomorrow. So naturally, EDI had a home at this year’s NASCC: The Steel Conference in Charlotte, N.C., from the exhibit hall to the ever-popular Elevate reception. As the sun set over the Charlotte skyline, Elevate reception participants celebrated the rise of industry coalitions determined to improve representation in AEC workplaces. The Elevate reception highlighted the work of Professional Women in Construction (PWC), the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), the NCSEA SE3 Committee, She Built This City, the SEAONY Diversity Committee, Women in Structural Engineering (WiSE), WE Engage! and Engage ME! UNC Charlotte, the Association of Women in Metal Industries (AWMI), the Coalition for Women in Industry, the National Black Contractors Association, and the Ironworker Management Progressive Action Cooperative Trust (IMPACT). The organizers behind She Built This City, a Charlotte-based nonprofit that recruits youth, women, and members of marginalized communities into skilled trade professions, connected with other honorees and guests at Elevate. Prior to the reception, conference participants had the opportunity to hear from She Built This City at their session on stocking the skilled trades pipeline through intentional community engagement and skills education. Bringing more women into fields like construction and manufacturing begins with encouraging young girls to explore creative spaces they may not have been previously exposed to, says Executive Director LaToya Faustin. “Our work focuses on building a skilled-trades pipeline,” Faustin said. “It’s about changing the narrative––bringing all new exposure and new opportunities to the communities we serve.” In her welcoming remarks, AISC Director of Workforce Development Jennie Traut-Todaro shared how Elevate has evolved to be more inclusive since its 2016 inception, and she announced that the NASCC Planning Committee will establish a new subcommittee devoted to increasing the number of sessions focused on equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility across AEC starting at next year’s Steel Conference. “AISC is always looking for new ideas from our members, our event attendees, and our allies,” Traut-Todaro said. “We all have our own conscious and unconscious biases and can miss opportunities to do better.” Becky Dolan, international membership chair for AWMI, said she loved seeing everyone at Elevate come together for a shared purpose. “We’re all in the same storm, even if we’re in different boats,” Dolan said. Several of the featured groups, including the Black Contractors Association for the Carolinas, AWMI, and IMPACT, also exhibited booths at the trade show. At the AWMI booth, Dolan engaged visitors in the organization's history, mission, and progress while sharing how to get involved. Since its founding 42 years ago, AWMI has worked to empower women in metal industries by fostering relationships, career growth, educational outreach, and shared knowledge. “Women needed a support team and there wasn’t one, so they said, ‘well, we’re going to create our own,’” Dolan shared of AWMI’s founders. Sharing spaces with successful women who also encourage the success of their peers has been a pillar in Cast Connex Vice President Jennifer Anna Pazdon’s career development. Pazdon is a member of PWC, a New York-based national association, in addition to several of the other honored organizations. “Before I joined, I had never really had female role models in leadership positions,” Pazdon said. “Then suddenly I was in the room with presidents, vice presidents, and CEOs—I finally had role models I saw myself reflected in.”

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - With hundreds of thousands of industry jobs remaining unfilled across the U.S. and more than 23% of current skilled professionals at or near retirement age, there is a massive opportunity for young workers to embark on careers in the skilled professions. At the forefront of the mission to introduce a new generation to America’s skilled workforce is Be Pro Be Proud, an initiative to bring the public’s perception of technical careers into the 21st century. Participants at NASCC: The Steel Conference had the opportunity to interact with Be Pro Be Proud at its hands-on mobile workshop, housed in a 78-ft, custom-built trailer. Inside, a variety of virtual-reality simulators offer visitors the unique chance to drive a tractor, practice welding, guide an excavator, and much more. “When we first bring our workshop to people, especially students, they often view it as a fun distraction from academics or work,” said Andrew Parker, the executive director of Be Pro Be Proud. “Later, the experiences they had stick with them and become a reason to achieve more meaningful training and education.” The Be Pro Be Proud initiative targets many audiences, including high school and nontraditional students, current skilled professionals, legislators, parents, teachers, career coaches, and employers. First established in Arkansas in 2016 and later in North Carolina in 2022, the initiative aims to dispel myths that deter people from entering skilled professions. “For a long time, we’ve been seeing people label themselves as somewhat of a failure if they don’t attend a four-year college or complete their four-year college degree, when often they weren’t a good match for it in the first place,” said Wade Butner, director of external affairs for SPEVCO Special Vehicles Company, which builds Be Pro Be Proud’s trailers. “We’re changing that perception and encouraging people to make these careers their top choice.” Part of overcoming such myths involves showcasing the vocational pride held by skilled professionals and highlighting the many training and career opportunities available across several fields, including the construction, manufacturing, transportation, and utility industries. “One of the biggest myths surrounds the financial opportunities gained from entering into the skilled professions. People are surprised at how easy it becomes to earn a six-figure income just five years out of high school,” Butner said. “The people we reach are the future owners of companies and will manage 30 to 40 employees themselves later in their careers.” Since North Carolina’s Be Pro Be Proud team introduced its two units in October 2022, it has reached more than 20,000 students--and there are more than 300 entries on a waitlist of requests for a trailer visit. With that demand, leaders anticipate that the student tally will top 75,000 by the end of 2023. Given its popularity, it’s clear that Be Pro Be Proud is striking a chord with both its young and experienced workshop participants. “Everywhere we go, adults tell us they wish they had this program when they were young,” Parker said. “All of us see ourselves in the audience this reaches.” Check out this video of a student event elsewhere in North Carolina: In the coming years, Be Pro Be Proud has its eyes set on expanding its presence beyond the states it currently serves (Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and New Mexico) and into the rest of the country. Also, its leaders are especially interested in engaging parents, who have been historically challenging to reach, to show them all the benefits of encouraging their children to learn a skilled profession. Visit Be Pro Be Proud’s website to find out more about the initiative and how you can get involved.

The new bipartisan Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (IIJA) is expected to increase infrastructure investment by nearly 40% – and this year's NASCC: The Steel Conference keynoter will tell us what the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) priorities are and how this public/private partnership will deliver a once-in-a-lifetime generational investment to meet our infrastructure needs today and in the future. FHWA Administrator Shailen Bhatt will also provide valuable insights into the FHWA’s ongoing research and technology programs. “This is a great opportunity to hear first-hand about the impact the IIJA will have on the steel design and construction industry,” said Charles J. Carter, SE, PE, PhD, president of AISC. “Shailen Bhatt is a dynamic speaker with a lot of keen insight, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.” Bhatt administers more than $350 million in IIJA funding, provides leadership on strategic initiatives and policy, and oversees more than 2,700 employees. He has held leadership positions in the public and private sectors, including the Kentucky, Delaware, and Colorado Departments of Transportation; the Intelligent Transportation Society of America; AECOM; and as FHWA's Associate Administrator for Highway Policy and External Affairs during the Obama administration. Bhatt brings to his role a passion for improving safety and protecting all road users on America's roads, bridges, highways, and other surface transportation infrastructure, including people using them for walking and biking. He is also committed to transforming our nation's infrastructure systems to address transportation's impacts on our global climate, while making them more equitable and fair for all. The Steel Conference takes place in Charlotte, N.C., April 12 to 14, and includes more than 200 technical presentations and 280 exhibitors. It also incorporates six specialty conferences: the World Steel Bridge Symposium, QualityCon, Architecture in Steel, SafetyCon, the SSRC Annual Stability Conference, and the NISD Conference on Steel Detailing, all of which are included with your registration fee.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - You pick up a few things when you’re immersed in structural steel design for half a century. Louis F. Geschwindner, PE, PhD, is one of the few people to have that experience. He’s a professor emeritus in architectural engineering at Penn State University, a retired American Institute of Steel Construction vice president, and a senior consultant at Providence Engineering in State College, Pa. He shared the wisdom of that unique perspective with a crowd of participants at NASCC: The Steel Conference on Thursday. The goal: Give engineers something to think about as they use the information they already have--and what they learn--to design tomorrow’s structures. “All that we accomplish as structural engineers is, in some way, based on what those who came before us have accomplished,” he said, be they mentors, colleagues, teachers, or others engineers know only by name (or not at all!). After tracing the history of engineers’ understanding of bending; load and load combinations; and safety reliability, Geschwindner reviewed the differences between 1986 AISC Specification for Structural Steel Buildings, which introduced load and resistance factor design, and the 2005 unified Specification, which combined LRFD with the existing allowable stress design approach. LRFD is both a probability-based specification and a limit states-based specification; Geschwindner noted that the latter was also true for ASD since 1961. The 2005 Specification combined the best aspects of both approaches to determine a single resistance for each limit state. That number is then modified by a resistance factor in LRFD or a safety factor in ASD. Ted Galambos, to whom the 2022 edition of the AISC Specification is dedicated, summed it up this way in 1988: “The job of the design engineer is not to slavishly follow the specification but to think through the complete structural action under load.” So where does that leave today’s engineers? Geschwindner boiled his advice down to a few simple points for engineers designing steel their way: default to LRFD and use the direct analysis method for stability analysis (only use the effective length method for braced frames). “As structural engineers, the most valuable thing we can bring to our clients is our ability to apply engineering judgment,” Geschwindner said. That judgment is based on previous generations’ discoveries, and therefore a basic understanding of history is a vital tool for any structural engineer--a tool with which all engineers in that Steel Conference session on Thursday are now equipped.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - America must seize the once-in-a-generation opportunity presented by new infrastructure funding to build communities, boost the U.S. economy--and demonstrate America’s strength in an increasingly fractious world, Federal Highway Administration Administrator Shailen Bhatt told thousands of NASCC: The Steel Conference participants Wednesday morning. As competition with China intensifies and Russia tests the limits of its power in Ukraine, it’s crucial to continue the work President Eisenhower started with the Interstate Highway System (which, Bhatt noted, was a crucial counterpoint to the Soviet Union and helped win the Cold War) into the 21st century. “When we invest in the U.S., we are investing in our competitiveness in the world,” he said. And that’s more than a philosophical matter for Bhatt. His office administers more than $350 billion in Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (IIJA) funding--a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a difference, he says. That means more opportunity to revitalize American communities, too. FHWA estimates that every $1 billion spent on infrastructure could create roughly 30,000 jobs. “[Humans] have been building bridges for more than 6,000 years, but we have never had a better opportunity to make U.S. bridges the envy of the modern world,” he said. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law could allow the country to not just tackle the maintenance backlog from years of insufficient funding but to build for the future, with an eye toward safety, resilience, and sustainability. Bhatt challenged the Steel Conference audience to use infrastructure projects to tackle larger problems, like climate change and road fatalities. “I’m not a fan of technology for technology’s sake; I’m a fan of technology for an outcome,” Bhatt said, emphasizing that conversations around advancements in automation and smart infrastructure should center on making roadways safer and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. FHWA is already working with the National Steel Bridge Alliance and Georgia Tech to explore new innovations, like whether it’s practical to essentially 3D-print steel bridge components. America’s fabricated structural steel industry stands ready to help transportation agencies around the country put that funding to work and reinvent the domestic transportation network. The American steel industry produces more than 6 million tons of structural steel--much of it recycled directly from decommissioned bridges, in fact, emerging from mills as new steel ready to go into new bridges with estimated service lives of a century or more. “Every generation leaves a legacy,” Bhatt said. “Let ours be that we created a safe, cutting-edge transportation system that will support and empower our people and our nation for generations to come.”