February 2024 Updates

Cold Recycling Committee

The Cold Recycling (CR) Committee has welcomed a new Co-Chair, Mat Nayagam- The Miller Group, to it’s leadership. Mat joins previous Co-chair Megan (Yount) Schuetz in representing our members’ perspectives and sharing association direction.

The CR committee has taken on several agenda items this past quarter. The group is making strides to share committee updates and documents with members online as meetings and progress take place, as well as implementing a routine committee meeting schedule. Improvements to the awareness around ARRA committee awards are underway, along with support for contractors in the data collection phase of the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) efforts. The committee is committed to seeking input from members for upcoming events, webinars, research needs, and industry movements.

Cold Planing Committee

The ARRA Cold Planing Committee is beginning work on two key projects for ARRA members.  The first is a consolidation of milling specifications for US states and Canadian provinces.  The committee will determine a list of key components of milling specifications  relevant to ARRA members.  We will then combine these key points into a single database where members can browse them by state or province.  The committee is also building a one page document that outlines when and when not to employ 3D milling technologies.  Many agencies and owners have shown confusion on this topic and the one page document will provide a tool for ARRA members to share with customers as a resource for determining when to consider 3D milling.

The committee is also hoping to strengthen participation in annual cold planning award nominations.  There have been several years recently where no projects have been nominated.  The committee will encourage members to identify these projects early on within the construction season in order to document their success while the projects are completed.  By doing so, we hope to bring greater attention to the successful projects our members complete and celebrate that success collectively as an organization.  

Hot In-Place Recycling Committee

Sustainability committee: HIR has 4 active members working on this committee. They have been presenting their findings, collecting materials, and communicating to all within our group. This includes materials for the sustainability calculator to further the processes for LCA’s and EPD’s

Membership Committee: Continuing to promote ARRA to key prospects mostly consulting firms. Each committee member has been tasked with approaching engineering firms and consultants to further spread the ARRA narrative and increase membership. We also have on HIR member (Joe Dillion) now working on the Membership committee.

Working on ways to improve our committee meeting topics and attendance. This may include new speakers and data driven results. We are also collecting updated pictures of the processes for the marketing committee (at the request of Steve Cross).

Full Depth Reclamation Committee

During the October 3, 2023 Committee Meeting, the committee reviewed the following items.

The FDR section of the Road Resource Treatment Resource Center was discussed and the need for reviewing the FDR section.  Items needed are primarily picture updates.

For the New ARRA member effort – Encouraged the committee attendees to think of possible new members and discussed why a non-member would want to join. Dan Schellhammer explained membership committee efforts that should be able to provide benefits that are attractive to non-member contractors.

An FDR Seminar Toolkit was created and submitted to the Marketing Committee.

A Soil Stabilization Brochure has been finalized and is ready for our membership. The FDR Brochure review had begun and suggested changes are being made and it is nearing completion.

A request was made for membership to provide FDR pics and example projects for both general use by ARRA and for use in success stories. The group was encouraged to work on award nominations and success stories earlier than in the past so that nominations had the required information included at the time of nomination. It was also suggested that all project award nominations should be made into a success stories.

Membership Committee

The Membership Committee continues to work on three main objectives;

Retaining current members
Increasing ARRA membership
Driving value for members

To retain existing members and attract new members, the membership committee is working with the marketing committee to develop tools that effectively communicate the value and benefits of ARRA membership in the form of a Membership Toolkit.  The Membership Toolkit continues to be a work in progress, stay tuned for more information here.  To broaden our reach to potential members, the Membership and Marketing committees have proposed to the Board of Directors that ARRA attend the NACE (National Association of County Engineers) Annual Conference and PWX (Public Works Expo) in an effort to promote our organization.

To help with membership recruitment activity, both committees urge members to reach out to Ali, Tessa or anyone from the Membership Committee with names and contact information for any potential ARRA members.  In addition, utilize tools like our two-page flyer with QR code when exhibiting at any local or national events.  The QR code will direct prospective members to the ARRA membership web page.  It’s important to inform potential Government Agency members that membership in ARRA is FREE.  Contact ARRA Staff for the flier!

Sustainability Committee

The ARRA EPD Working Group has been working, in conjunction with our consulting partner, WAP Sustainability Consulting, since the fall of 2023 to develop national average Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for CIR, CCPR FDR, and HIR. The committee has been meeting every other Monday at 1pm EST to complete their work.

The objective is to collect, develop, analyze, and model the data for the identified life cycle stages for the development of national average Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) and EPDs using the ISO 21930 core Product Category Rule (PCR) for each of aforementioned disciplines.

This work will be performed over a one-year period of time and WAP intends to lay the groundwork with Phase 1 for Phase 2, including development of a software tool.

We are now in the middle of the data collection stage using worksheets developed by WAP to collect data from the four ARRA disciplines. Phase 1 involves an exhaustive collection of data on every aspect of energy consumption necessary to complete an in-place recycling project, from fuel, water, emulsion, and horsepower of equipment.

The next meeting of the Committee will be February 26, where WAP expects to report on the ongoing data collection and next steps. If there are any ARRA contractors that would like to be included in this working group that have not been included up to this point, please let me or others on the Board know as your participation is welcomed and key to our success.    

Marketing Committee

Executive Summary –

The Marketing Committee continues to work on the development and implementation of strategies to grow the use of ARRA solutions.  This effort is largely being focused in the following areas:

1. “Why ARRA”
2. Market Outreach
3. Website content review and enhancement RoadResource.org and ARRA.org
4. Training Seminars

Summary –

Why ARRA

Committee members created a short PowerPoint to challenge engineers to re-think historical road maintenance (remove and replace).  How can the engineer do more miles with a reduced budget or an equivalent budget?  The presentation highlights the efficiency and sustainability of the ARRA solutions.

Market Outreach

The Marketing and Membership Committees identified NACE (National Association of County Engineers) and PWX (American Public Works Association) as two national organizations that ARRA should be actively engaging to grow our business opportunities.  ARRA is financially supporting the endeavor.

• Need – The Marketing Committee needs volunteers to man the booth. NACE is on April 15-18 in Palm Springs, CA.PWX is on September 8-11 in Atlanta, GA. Contact John Morgan if interested.

Website Review

The committee has primarily reviewed content on RoadResource.org but also discussed ARRA.org.  Opportunities for improvement have been identified, discussed, and then conveyed to CM Services to be changed.  Sometimes, Vario must make the change.

• Need – We recommend a “task force” be formed to spearhead. We should consider the chairperson from core committees and the Technical Director to ensure accuracy and efficiency.

  Training Seminars

  ARRA would like to begin offering and promoting seminars.  Many discussions have been held about the how, when, and where.  Core committees have been asked to help develop training “tool kits.”

• Need – Contact the committee if you have ideas and you’re passionate about this program.