Anne M. Ellis elected president of ACI

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. – The American Concrete Institute (ACI) introduced its 2013-2014 president, vice president, and four board members during the ACI Spring 2013 Convention in Minneapolis last month.

Anne M. Ellis was elected to serve as president of the Institute for 2013-2014.

Sharon L. Wood has been elected ACI vice president for a two-year term, and William E. Rushing, Jr. 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.

President
Anne M. Ellis, FACI, is vice president, Government Initiatives, AECOM, Springfield, Va. She has 33 years of experience with the A/E/C industry supporting public- and private-sector clients, concrete industry collaboration and advancements, and the expansion of a global, publicly traded professional services firm. At AECOM, she manages business-critical initiatives and engages in policy, legislative, and regulatory issues affecting AECOM and the clients and markets the firm serves. Additionally, Ellis oversees the day-to-day operations of the AECOM Global Advisory Board and Government Services Advisory Council, comprised of prominent leaders, external to AECOM, who are recognized and highly accomplished in business, government, and geopolitical affairs. AECOM is a global provider of professional technical and management support services to a broad range of markets, including transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, water, and government.

Prior to joining AECOM, Ellis represented the concrete and cement industries as regional structural engineer for the Portland Cement Association and as applied engineering manager for the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association. Additionally, she has been involved with numerous structural engineering projects as a design engineer and then project manager with the engineering firms Dewberry; Martin, Cagley & Middlebrook; and Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, Inc.

In support of engineering education throughout her career, Ellis has taught a variety of courses, including concrete design to undergraduate students and continuing education classes to practicing engineers.

Ellis was named an ACI Fellow in 2008. She chairs the International Forum and the ACI Task Group on International Communication, and serves on the Task Group for Next Strategic Plan Review and ACI Committee 375, Performance-Based Design of Concrete Buildings for Wind Loads. Ellis has previously served on the ACI Board of Direction, the Board of the ACI Foundation, the Financial Advisory Committee, the International Advisory Committee, and the International Partnerships & Publications Committee. She is a past chair of the Marketing Committee and the Board Task Group on Student E-Membership. She has served on many technical committees, including ACI Committees 330, Concrete Parking Lots and Site Paving; 551, Tilt-Up Concrete Construction; and C650, Tilt-Up Constructor Certification.

Working with ACI colleagues, Ellis helped institute free ACI student e-membership, facilitate ACI’s entry into social networking (Facebook), and establish the Collegiate Concrete Council and the Student and Young Professional Activities Committee. In support of sustainability, she served on the Board Advisory Committee for Sustainable Development and led the Task Group for the Strategic Development Council Concrete Sustainability Vision and Roadmap.

Ellis is a 2013 inductee into the Virginia Tech Academy of Engineering Excellence, an elite group that now consists of only 119 people out of its more than 60,000 living alumni. She is a 2007 inductee into the Virginia Tech Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni. She has completed terms on the Virginia Tech College of Engineering Advisory Board and the Civil and Environmental Engineering Advisory Board, including a term as Chair.

By appointment of the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Ellis serves on the Environmental Technologies Trade Advisory Committee (ETTAC). ETTAC provides private-sector advice to 19 federal departments and agencies, with a primary focus on promoting the export of U.S. environmental goods and services.

Ellis is active in several business and professional organizations. She is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and served as ASCE National Concrete Canoe Competition judge in 2004, 2005, and 2012.

The author of numerous articles and coauthor of the “Concrete Design and Construction” section of the Standard Handbook for Civil Engineers, fifth edition, Ellis is a frequent speaker at universities, professional societies, and industry forums. She received her BS in civil engineering from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va., and has been a professional engineer in Virginia since 1984.

Vice president
Sharon L. Wood, FACI, is the Robert L. Parker Sr. Centennial Professor in Engineering and chair of the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX. An ACI member since 1983, she has previously served on the ACI Board of Direction and as Chair of the Technical Activities Committee and the Publications Committee. She is a current member of ACI Committees 318, Structural Concrete Building Code; 369, Seismic Repair and Rehabilitation; and the Financial Advisory Committee. Wood is Chair of Subcommittee 318-E, Shear and Torsion, and a member of Subcommittee 318-SC, Steering Committee, and the Committee 318 Task Group on Reinforcement. She was named a Fellow of ACI in 1994.

Wood has served on the faculty at the University of Texas (UT) since 1996, where she teaches classes on design and behavior of reinforced concrete structures, earthquake engineering, and engineering professionalism. Prior to joining UT, she served on the faculty in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, for 10 years.

Early in her career, Wood’s research focused on studying the seismic response of buildings. She has investigated building performance after earthquakes in Chile, California, and Turkey. She has also conducted static and dynamic tests of reinforced concrete frame and wall systems in the laboratory and investigated soil-foundation-structure interaction in the field. More recent research has focused on design and evaluation of reinforced and prestressed concrete bridges and development of passive sensors to detect the onset of corrosion in reinforced concrete structures.

Wood has received the Joe W. Kelly Award and the Henry L. Kennedy Award from ACI, the Alfred Nobel Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Arthur J. Boase Award from the Reinforced Concrete Research Council, and she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2013. She was also honored by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute with the Distinguished Lecture Award. She has served on federal advisory committees for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Wood received her BS in civil engineering from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., and her MS and PhD from the University of Illinois. She is a licensed professional engineer in Texas.

Directors
Dean A. Browning, FACI, is the project director of the Charles Pankow Foundation, Vancouver, Wash. He is a member of ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code; the Concrete Research Council; the Hot Topic Committee; and Subcommittees 318-A, General Concrete and Construction, and 318-B, Reinforcement and Development. He is a past Chair of the Hot Topic Committee and a past member of the Educational Activities Committee and Convention Committee.

While living in the San Francisco Bay area, Browning was a member of the ACI Northern California and Western Nevada Chapter, where he served as president, board of direction member, and co-chair of the ACI Fall 2004 Centennial Convention held in San Francisco. He was named a Fellow of ACI in 2006.

Prior to joining the Charles Pankow Foundation in 2011, Browning retired from Charles Pankow Builders, where he worked for 37 years, primarily in the San Francisco office. While at Pankow Builders, he started as a field engineer and retired as senior vice president/chief operating officer, serving in many field and office positions during his career. Most of these positions included managing significant design-build projects, with duties that included managing both the design and the construction team. While at Pankow Builders, Browning was a speaker on techniques for managing multiple disciplines during a design-build project and a past member of the Design-Build Institute of America.

A native of Indiana, he received his BS in 1971 and MS in 1974 in civil engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., where he met Charles Pankow, who convinced him to move to the West Coast. Between his BS and MS degrees at Purdue, Browning worked for the State of Indiana Highway Department as a Highway Engineer at the Research and Training Center in West Lafayette, Ind., studying the impact of research projects funded by state and federal programs.

At the Charles Pankow Foundation, Browning is responsible for administering 21 active research grants funded by the Foundation for immediate and practical use to practitioners in building design and construction. Many of the grants target structural concrete issues needing material testing and analysis to justify significant code changes.

Cary S. Kopczynski, FACI, is senior principal and CEO of Cary Kopczynski & Company, Inc. (CKC), a structural engineering firm based in Bellevue, WA. CKC provides structural design services for major urban projects throughout the United States and beyond. The firm has won over 35 regional and national awards and has twice been selected by ZweigWhite and Structural Engineer magazine as a top structural engineering firm to work for.

Kopczynski is a member of ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code; the Financial Advisory Committee; and Subcommittees 318-C, Safety, Serviceability, and Analysis; 318-B, Reinforcement and Development; and 318-WA, International Workshop-Structural Concrete in the Americas. He is a past chair of ACI Subcommittee 318-F, Two-Way Slabs; and previously served on Joint ACI-ASCE Committee 352, Joints and Connections in Monolithic Concrete Structures, and the Strategic Planning Task Group. He is a Past President of the ACI Washington Chapter and was named a Fellow of ACI in 1999.

He is a Fellow of the Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI) and an honorary member of the Wire Reinforcement Institute. He chairs the PTI Technical Advisory Board; is a member of PTI Committee DC-20, Building Design; and serves on PTI’s board of directors. ENR magazine selected Kopczynski as one of the “Top 25 Newsmakers for 2007” based on CKC’s pioneering work in the use of high-strength reinforcing bar for seismic confinement.

Kopczynski is a licensed professional civil and structural engineer in many states. He received his BS in civil engineering from Washington State University, Pullman, WA, and did graduate studies in structural engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

Kevin A. MacDonald, FACI, is president and principal, Beton Consulting Engineers LLC, Mendota Heights, Minn., with specific expertise in the production and performance of concrete. He is a licensed professional engineer in Minnesota and Ontario, Canada, and was named a Fellow of ACI in 2004. MacDonald is co-chair of ACI Subcommittee 130-B, Production/Transport/Construction; vice-chair of ACI Committee 306, Cold Weather Concreting; secretary of ACI Committee 132, Responsibility in Concrete Construction; chair of the NACE Task Group; and chair of the TAC Awards Task Group. He is a member of ACI Committees 130, Sustainability of Concrete; 223, Shrinkage-Compensating Concrete; 301, Specifications for Concrete; 302, Construction of Concrete Slabs on Ground; 560, Design and Construction with Insulating Concrete Forms; C620, Laboratory Technician Certification; the Financial Advisory Committee; the Session Review Task Group; TAC Design Standards Committee; and the Technical Activities Committee. He also serves on ACI Subcommittees 301-G, Shrinkage Compensating Concrete and Industrial Floor Slabs; 318-WA, International Workshop-Structural Concrete in the Americas; and C601-D, Decorative Concrete Finisher.

MacDonald is the current president of the ACI Minnesota Chapter and serves on the Steering Committee of the Aggregate and Ready Mix Association of Minnesota, a local sponsoring group offering ACI certification. He is a member of ASTM Committees C01, Cement; C09, Concrete and Concrete Aggregates; and C15, Manufactured Masonry Units; the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE); and Professional Engineers Ontario. He has published a number of papers dealing with the durability of concrete and practical aspects of the production of high-performance concrete using large quantities of recycled materials. He is a recipient of the ASCE Charles Pankow Award for Innovation for work on high-performance concretes with 98 percent reclaimed materials.

MacDonald received his Baccalaureate degree in chemical engineering, cum laude, from the University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada. He was awarded the University of Windsor Board of Governors Medal for highest standing in class, as well as the Chemical Institute of Canada’s Medal for Academic Achievement. He also received his master’s degree and PhD in engineering materials from the University of Windsor. His dissertation and theses dealt with chloride ion-induced corrosion of steel in concrete and designing concrete for transport and resistivity properties.

David M. Suchorski, FACI, is senior technical services manager/sales manager for the Ash Grove Cement Company, Des Moines, Iowa, and has more than 30 years of experience in the cement and concrete industries. He is chair of the ACI Educational Activities Committee and ACI Committee 308, Curing Concrete. He is a member of the Convention Committee and ACI Committees 124, Concrete Aesthetics; 225, Hydraulic Cements; 303, Architectural Cast-in-Place Concrete; 330, Concrete Parking Lots and Site Paving; 522, Pervious Concrete; and E701, Materials for Concrete Construction. Suchorski is also a member of ACI Subcommittees 308-A, Curing-Guide; 308-B, Curing-Specifications; 308-E, Internal Curing; and C601-B, Concrete Quality Technical Manager; the Task Group on ETC Product Development; and the Task Group on International Chapters. He was named a Fellow of ACI in 2011.

Suchorski has served as president of the ACI Kansas and Iowa-Minnesota chapters and is a member of the ACI Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas Chapters. He is also an active member of ASTM International, Portland Cement Association, and many regional concrete associations. Suchorski received his BS from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, in 1977. He is a licensed professional engineer in Kansas and Wisconsin.