Farmington Hills, Michigan (March 24, 2009) — The American Concrete Institute (ACI) introduced its new president, vice president, and four board members last week during the ACI Spring 2009 Convention in San Antonio, Texas.

New ACI President Florian G. Barth officially assumed his one-year term, and new Vice President Kenneth C. Hover began his two-year term, while four new Board members began their three-year terms.

Florian G. Barth is the founder and former president of FBA, Inc., a structural engineering firm with offices in the San Francisco Bay area, Sacramento, and Orange County, Calif., specializing in concrete structures. Barth is a professional engineer with over 30 years of experience, having analyzed, designed, and evaluated more than 700 prestressed concrete structures.

Barth has been a member of numerous ACI technical committees, including being a voting member of ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code, since 1995. Barth chairs the Task Group on TAC Communication and also serves on the ACI Executive Committee, ACI Foundation, International Partnerships subcommittee of the International Committee, and the Financial Advisory Committee. Barth is a past president and former director of the ACI Northern California and Western Nevada Chapter (1993 to 1997). He is also a past chair of the chapter’s technical committee.

A Fellow of ACI, Barth is the recipient of several awards, including the 1996 Concrete Construction Award presented by the ACI Northern California and Western Nevada Chapter for outstanding contribution to the concrete industry, Recognition for Meritorious Civic Services Award presented by the Mayor of San Francisco, the Certificate of Merit for outstanding services from the Mayor of New Orleans, and the ACI Delmar L. Bloem Distinguished Service Award for outstanding contributions to ACI Committee 224.

An active member and Fellow of the Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI), Barth has served as instructor for many national PTI seminars. He is chair of the Repair and Rehabilitation Committee, past chair of the Technical Advisory Board, a member of the PTI Slab-on-Ground Committee, and a past member of the PTI Board of Direction. In 2005, Barth was inducted as a charter member of the Post-Tensioning Institute Hall of Fame “Legends of Post-Tensioning.” He has also coauthored many publications related to prestressed concrete design, evaluation, and repair.

Barth received the equivalent of a bachelor’s and master’s degree in structural engineering from Karlsruhe University in Germany, and a master’s degree in architecture from California State University, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Kenneth C. Hover is professor of civil and environmental engineering and Stephen Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. An ACI member since 1980, he currently chairs ACI Committee 301-C, Concrete Mixtures, Handling, Placing, Consolidating, and Curing, and serves on several other technical committees. Hover previously served on the ACI Board of Direction and was named a Fellow of ACI in 1992. In addition, he is a past president of the ACI Greater Miami Valley Chapter.

Hover started his career as a project engineer and project manager for Dugan and Meyers Construction Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was involved in construction of buildings, interstate bridges, and water treatment plants. After serving as a Captain in the Army Corps of Engineers (15th Combat Engineer Battalion), he then joined the structural consulting firm of THP, Ltd., in Cincinnati, advancing to partner and manager with experience in project design, specifications writing, design team management, and contract administration. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a PhD in structural engineering from Cornell University.

Hover came to Cornell with the assistance of a grant from the Exxon Foundation, designed to bring experienced engineers to the faculties of U.S. colleges of engineering, and he was among the first winners of an ACI scholarship. He joined the faculty in 1984, where he teaches reinforced and prestressed concrete design, concrete materials, and construction management. His research focuses on the impact of construction operations and the construction environment on concrete quality.

A licensed Professional Engineer in Ohio and New York, Hover lectures nationally and internationally on concrete materials and construction. ACI has honored him with the Joe W. Kelly Award, Robert E. Philleo Award, and Structural Research Award. He is also a winner of the ASCE Materials Division’s Best Basic Research Paper Award. The Weiss Presidential Fellowship is Cornell University’s highest teaching award and he has received many other teaching awards in his department and college. In January 2006 at World of Concrete, he was named one of the “Ten Most Influential People in the Concrete Industry.”

Elected as a new member of ACI’s Board of Direction is Dennis C. Ahal, chairman and CEO of Ahal Contracting Company, Inc., a 63-year-old concrete contracting firm in St. Louis, Mo., that specializes in flatwork, tilt-up, small foundations, and architectural concrete. He has 48 years of experience in the concrete business, with 23 as president of Ahal Contracting and nine as its chairman.

Ahal currently serves as Secretary of ACI Committee 302, Construction of Concrete Floors. He is co-chairing a Committee 302 task group studying delamination of lightweight concrete on trowel-finished floor slabs. A Fellow of ACI, he is a recipient of ACI’s Roger H. Corbetta Concrete Constructor Award.

A past president of the American Society of Concrete Contractors (ASCC), Ahal served as initial co-chair of a strategic alliance between ASCC and the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA). Ahal is a past president of the Concrete Council of St. Louis, and has been elected to the St. Louis Concrete Council Hall of Fame as one of the initial five inductees, and has received the St. Louis Concrete Council Award of Honor.

Emmanuel K. Attiogbe has also begun his post as a member of ACI’s Board of Direction. He is currently head of technical services at BASF Construction Chemicals, LLC–Admixture Systems in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to joining BASF Construction Chemicals (then Master Builders) in 1990, he was a structural engineer with Associated Consultants in Accra, Ghana, and a research engineer, first at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan., and then at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. He rejoined BASF Construction Chemicals (then Master Builders) in 1998 after five years as a research scientist at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait, where he led concrete research projects sponsored by the Kuwait government and the local construction industry.Named a Fellow of ACI in 2005, Attiogbe is the current chair of the TAC Technology Transfer Committee. He served on the 2007 Strategic Planning Task Group that developed the Institute’s third strategic plan.

Attiogbe represents BASF Construction Chemicals on the ACI Foundation’s Concrete Research Council and Strategic Development Council. The author of several technical papers on the materials and structural engineering aspects of concrete behavior, he was awarded ACI’s Wason Medal for Materials Research in 1995.

He received a BS in civil engineering from the University of Science and Technology, Ghana, and an MS and PhD in civil engineering from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan.

Also joining the ACI Board of Direction for the first time is Ron Klemencic. He is president of Magnusson Klemencic Associates, Inc., an award-winning structural and civil engineering firm based in Seattle, Wash. He is a Fellow of ACI and a member of several technical committees, including 318, Structural Concrete Building Code.

Klemencic has worked on projects in 16 states and 15 countries, and his current focus is complex high-rise and mixed-use designs. He recently led the development of the high-rise design method known as performance-based seismic design (PBSD), which provides buildings with increased safety and reliability at a reduced cost and is being adopted throughout the U.S. Klemencic is also involved in the industry through presentations, papers, and teaching at the university level.

Klemencic is licensed as a Professional Engineer in 12 U.S. states and one Canadian province, and over his 22-year career, he has acquired a reputation among developers, architects, and contractors for providing creative engineering solutions and value-added innovations. His designs cover the spectrum of project types and materials and incorporate the latest technically advanced approaches. He received his BS in civil engineering from Purdue University and MS in structural engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

Joseph C. Sanders, a 30-year veteran in the field of construction, also joins the ACI Board of Direction this year. Sanders is senior vice president and director of Operations for the Charles Pankow Builders, Ltd. (CPBL), Pasadena, Calif., a division of Pankow, one of the foremost innovators of concrete construction methodologies and an industry leader in design-build project delivery in the U.S.

Since joining Pankow in 1979 as a field engineer, Sanders has held various leadership roles including project sponsor, regional manager, and director of engineering. He has been in charge of all aspects of preconstruction and construction as well as directing the design and construction activities of building teams and his contributions can be seen in a number of significant projects.

Throughout his career, Sanders has supported the construction industry through active involvement in ACI. He currently serves as chair of the Concrete Research Council and is a trustee of the ACI Foundation. In addition, Sanders serves on the Advisory Council of the Charles Pankow Foundation.

Sanders received a BS in civil engineering from Purdue University. He is a licensed Professional Civil Engineer and a LEED Accredited Professional by the U.S. Green Building Council.

High-resolution photos of the new officers can be obtained by contacting Sara Steptoe at sara.steptoe@concrete.org or 248-848-3148.

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For more information, contact:

Sara Steptoe
Marketing Communications Specialist
248-848-3148
Sara.steptoe@concrete.org

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