A Letter from ARRA President Jason Wielinski

The Asphalt Recycling and Reclaiming Association (ARRA) appreciates the continued support from all ARRA Members and other industry partners. The Board of Directors, the team at CM Services and I cannot thank you enough for the continued membership and engagement to help promote and advance our dynamic industry.  Our Board, Committees and staff are actively supporting our many initiatives and developing new value-add opportunities for our members and their respective organizations. We truly want to increase the value all receive for membership investment.

Our Pavement Recycling Summit (PRS) in Indianapolis was a great opportunity for our membership to connect with each other, suppliers, and many agency representatives.  Indianapolis was our second highest attended semi-annual/ PRS conference to date.  One key initiative our Board is actively pursuing is to better connect our user agencies with our membership in meetings and help educate and promote success stories using our disciplines.  Eight agencies (5 DOT and 3 local agencies) shared their success stories at the conference.

We are also very excited to announce that ARRA has begun the necessary and critically important work in the environmental sustainability arena.  ARRA has contracted WAP Consultants to work with our contracting members to develop Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data for four of our disciplines.  Thank you to all members from across North America who have volunteered to provide data on this effort.  It will be strength and quality in numbers to help us accurately develop national averages for our construction techniques.  The LCA collection and ensuing publication is the first critical step for us to eventually develop Environmental Production Declarations.  ARRA is prioritizing this effort as we foresee this being a critical and high value member benefit when the time comes to provide environmental metrics to agencies as they begin to experiment and implement “Buy Clean” requirements.

2024 promises to be another exciting and engaging year for ARRA.  We plan to gather with our sister PPRA organizations February 19-23^rd, 2024 in Palm Harbor, Florida for our Annual Meeting.  We are also very excited to bring the 2024 Pavement Recycling Summit to Reno, Nevada in October 2024.  I encourage you to attend these valuable meetings and participate in or join some of our working committees.  In addition to these meetings, our Board of Directors will meet this coming summer to develop our Strategic Plan for the next three years. The feedback  provided through our membership and marketing committees will be thoroughly reviewed and vetted to help us formulate a strategy and vision that will continue to create member value and advance our industry.

Our Board recognizes that our industry and membership makeup is ever changing.  To increase membership retention and attract more regional contractors, we have implemented a tiered membership structure starting this year. 

As president, I assure you that your continued support through membership and volunteerism continues to help ARRA provide Responsible, Renewal, Reliable Results.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to express our sincere appreciation and thanks for your support of ARRA. 

Sincerely,

Asphalt Recycling and Reclaiming Association

Jason Wielinski, P.E.

ARRA President