Concrete associations and organizations incorporate

Concrete associations and organizations incorporate

MT. VERNON, Iowa—The Alliance for Concrete Codes and Standards (ACCS)—an alliance of concrete associations and organizations—recently incorporated in order to secure funding for building code and standards development.

According to Stephen S. Szoke, P.E., director of Codes and Standards for the Portland Cement Association, the mission of the ACCS is to identify and pursue provisions to codes and standards, as well as reference standards that improve life safety, property protection, and welfare of the general public at the national, state, and local levels through the use of concrete-based systems. As such, incorporation will allow the ACCS to operate with an organizational structure that allows the entity to be more active in the codes and standards development process, Szoke said.

With the re-organization, ACCS will be better positioned to ensure that appropriate concrete solutions for providing life safety, property protection, and welfare for the general public are included in the national model building codes and referenced standards. The combined efforts of the national, regional, state, and local industry partners will support and direct research, testing, and consulting that is necessary to substantiate code change proposals and challenges.

Identified during the Alliance’s re-organization process were 15 areas of activity. The membership agreed that the initial efforts should be focused on fire safety in multi-family construction where the threat to life safety, property loss, and harm to emergency responders can be substantially reduced with concrete construction.