Working For You

Continuous Improvement in a Virtual World

With travel restrictions and event cancelations ongoing, the NPCA outreach team continued to expand its virtual reach. NPCA implemented new processes and activities to cultivate a dynamic program that both meets academia’s needs and brings staff members to virtual industry events.

Despite the obstacles, the outreach calendar is filling quickly with virtual presentations to specifiers and students, which has proven to be both time and cost effective. Virtual presentations also help increase NPCA’s presence at industry trade shows and within the academic community. Other outreach activities, such as codes and standards participation along with certification and specification efforts, remain strong while operating in the virtual world.

As always, NPCA encourages members to get involved in outreach, and we will continue to provide opportunities to do so.

Outreach Education

NPCA technical staff trained 425 specifiers and 380 students through 15 virtual presentations between January and April. NPCA professional staff members are slated to present both virtually and, potentially, in-person through the remainder of the year.

The outreach team revamped tracking abstract and topic submission deadlines for industry events in 2021, bringing precast education to a wider range of audiences while increasing the number of NPCA’s first-time participation at industry events. This includes ASCE’s International Conference on Transportation Development.

The 2021 Specifier Webinar Series kicked off in April and features four installments throughout the year. NPCA’s 2020 Specifier Webinar Series brought in a record 2,063 attendees for the year – a number that we hope to surpass in 2021. The April installment was an exceptional start with nearly 800 live session attendees.

Here is the remaining 2021 Specifier Webinar Series schedule (all webinars begin at Noon Eastern):

• June 22 – Use of Precast Elements for Accelerated Bridge Construction presented by Michael Culmo, P.E., CHA Consulting, Inc.
• July 13 – Essential Highway Infrastructure – Precast Retaining Walls in Transportation Works presented by Ryan Berg, P.E., D.GE, Ryan R. Berg & Associates, Inc; Daniel Alzamora, P.E., FHWA; James Collin, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE, The Collin Group
• December 7 – The Truth about Converting to Precast: Faster Schedules, Lower Cost, and Greater Resilience presented by Cyndi Glascock, Gainey’s Concrete

To learn more or to register for the remaining webinars, visit: precast.org/npcawebinars.

Trade Show Presence

Historically, trade show participation has been an important component of NPCA’s outreach efforts. The association’s presence at trade shows provides unique opportunities for staff to get a deeper understanding of local challenges and trends and to increase the visibility of precast by engaging attendees on a conversational level.

During the last several months, NPCA collaborated with design professionals to rejuvenate the association’s presence at industry trade shows and develop several new trade show booth materials. The new design, expected to be completed by the end of the year, will allow NPCA to customize exhibit spaces to each audience – from transportation to onsite wastewater to NPCA Plant Certification and more.

Precast Days 2021

Precast Days is a weeks-long event during which members are encouraged to open their plants to their local communities to provide an inside look a precast concrete manufacturing. NPCA coordinates a national marketing campaign to highlight the events and showcase the opportunities for precast careers and construction using precast concrete.

Precast Days 2021 will take place during the weeks of November 1-12 and features new opportunities for member involvement. NPCA has put together a three-tier sponsorship package for members looking to show their support of national outreach efforts. The sponsorship benefits include recognition on the Precast Days registration page and logo placement in all print or digital advertisements as part of the national marketing campaign.

Learn more about participating in Precast Days 2021 by visiting: precast.org/precastdays.

Building Academic Relationships

NPCA’s efforts to deliver precast concrete-related education in an academic setting go beyond conducting guest lectures and student chapter presentations. This year, the outreach team is sending resource packages to colleges across the nation to get resources and curriculum guides in the hands of students and professors. The “Faculty Care Packages” include technical resources tailored to each of the target programs (CIM, construction management, engineering, and architecture), scholarship opportunities for students, student and faculty membership information and more.

Building and maintaining relationships within the academic community is a focal point for NPCA’s outreach program in 2021.

Stay in the Loop

NPCA’s Working for You page is dedicated to keeping members informed on the association’s past and upcoming outreach activities. The page provides weekly reports on

NPCA’s recent outreach related presentations, codes and standards, and specification development activities along with year-do-date metrics updated monthly.

Visit precast.org/working-for-you to stay in the loop between Precast Inc. quarterly publications.

Get Involved

A key component of NPCA’s outreach program is creating and identifying ways in which all members can get involved, no matter the level of outreach experience or available resources. Here are a few upcoming or ongoing opportunities:

Join NPCA staff on a presentation. Check out the Technical Services Representation listing (found on the Working for You page) to see if NPCA staff is slated to conduct outreach to your local audience or an audience with which you’ve been interested in connecting.

Send your leads to NPCA. Members who identify opportunities to expand the visibility of precast as a material and industry can share those leads with NPCA. The outreach team will assist in making that connection to coordinate presentations or provide technical resources.

To learn more and take advantage of these opportunities to get involved in NPCA’s outreach efforts, email Ashley Benson at [email protected].