Director of Codes and Standards Eric Carleton, P.E., traveled to West Lafayette, Ind., on Nov. 12 to offer precast concrete education in both the civil engineering and construction management programs at Purdue University.
This semester, nearly 40 civil engineering students in Dr. Robert Jacko’s Senior Design Course were challenged with replacing an existing 1905 railroad stone arch bridge to accommodate today’s transportation needs.
During the presentation, Carleton and co-presenter Jeff VonHandorf, P.E., with Pretek Engineering, offered precast solutions for the students to consider when tackling their real-world challenge.
NPCA professional staff members have offered 11 presentations to more than 670 civil engineering students at Purdue since 2013 – the majority of which is attributed to seven consecutive semesters of training offered to Dr. Robert Jacko’s Senior Design Course.
Now, NPCA is working to expand the role of precast in the construction management program. Following the presentation to Dr. Jacko’s course, Carleton presented to roughly 25 construction management graduate students in Dr. Hubo Cai’s Computer Applications in Construction course.
Carleton effectively tied precast concrete applications into building information modeling (BIM), and provided many students with their first insight into working with precast.
NPCA professional staff will travel to Purdue University again in February to assist with Dr. Jacko’s spring senior design project for an eighth semester. The association hopes to continue involvement in the construction management program during that visit as well.
For assistance and direction on conducting local academic outreach, watch our Precast Learning Lab video on Building Education Relationships.
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