2017 has been an eventful year at the TCA. We kicked off the year at World of Concrete with our annual Winter Tilt-Up Jubilee, hosted regional events in Dallas, Vancouver and DC, published multiple new resources for the industry, conducted numerous certification exams, assisted members dealing with horrific natural disasters, maintained a world-class technical hotline, celebrated our largest convention ever in Miami and experienced sustained membership growth. Both the board of directors and executive management continue to implement ways to better service our members and the tilt-up industry as whole.

With the coming of the new year, the organization will introduce an entirely new, user-friendly website. It will include an extensive project database that will allow anyone visiting the site to look at projects across numerous building categories. Throughout the website, tilt-up will be showcased as more than just a “big box” building method: its versatility in all types of building categories will be highlighted. Allowing people (especially people who are not too familiar with the diversity of tilt-up) access to such an extensive and impressive library will benefit our members and the tilt-up industry as a whole.

2018 will also see the unveiling of the TCA’s online education, Tilt-Up Academy. The webinars will be approved for continuing education credits (PDH’s) as well as for fulfilling the continuing education requirements for the ACI Tilt-Up Supervisor/Technician Certification renewal. We are working to have our educational offerings approved for state contractors’ license renewals when state licensing requires continuing education (PDH’s). We expect to have these state contractor approvals soon. We are excited to see the results of our online education work, which has been going on for over a year. Not only are the online classes helpful to our members who need to fulfill their license renewal requirements for continuing education, but we also believe they can help expose tilt-up to architects and engineers who may not be familiar with the methodology. The more we can share the benefits, good design practices and details to owners, architects and engineers, the better for both our members and the tilt-up industry.

This is my last letter as board president, and with the exception of Mitch constantly hounding me about always being late with these letters, I have greatly enjoyed my position in such a distinguished organization. It has been a pleasure to work alongside this creative, competent group of fellow board members. The TCA has strong, forward-thinking leadership from both the board members and the management team, making it better than it has ever been—and I see it as only getting more so in the future.
Here’s to a strong and prosperous 2018!
life.

Andrew S McPherson