Tilt-Up Awards > Peter Courtois Memorial Award

Mike Wolstenholme is a luminary in the tilt-up construction industry whose career has been marked by unwavering dedication and exceptional leadership. Starting as a carpenter with Davidson & Jones Construction, Mike swiftly showcased his skill and ambition. Upon earning his Business Management degree from North Carolina State University, he seamlessly transitioned into project management, successfully overseeing a large tilt-up distribution project in Raleigh, North Carolina.

His subsequent roles as Sales Manager for Dixie Forming and Hughes Supply revealed his gift for harmonizing client relationships with market development. Since 2005, Mike has been steering Leviat’s focus on tilt-up construction as its National Sales Manager for Tilt-Up. In this pivotal role, he serves as a liaison between the company’s multifaceted teams and its valued clientele.

Beyond his professional roles, Mike has held key leadership positions in industry bodies. Notably, he was elected to the Board of Directors for the Tilt-Up Concrete Association from 2009 to 2012 and is an active member of the Professional Construction Estimators Association. His unique blend of hands-on experience, business acumen, and client focus has not only made him a respected figure in the industry but also someone who has genuinely shaped it for the better.

Mike and his loving wife, Susan, call Holly Springs, North Carolina, their home.

In conferring upon Mike Wolstenholme this distinguished honor, the TCA recognizes a career that embodies the kind of dedication to the greater good of the tilt-up industry for which the Peter Courtois Memorial Award was established.

Frank Adames serves as president of Contratistas Civiles y Mecánicos (CCM) in Santo Domingo, Dominica Republic. Mr. Adames brings decades of contracting and engineering expertise to his participation in the Association, demonstrating a constant hunger for more knowledge. His brand of tilt-up challenges many of the myths or status quos in the industry and regularly redefines the applications of tilt-up to bend to some of the most interesting and difficult programs and sites. Frank has initiated and self-funded numerous events in his country to teach architects and engineers more about tilt-up and raise the bar for the industry participants. Through his commitment, TCA hosted its first off-shore conference in Punta Cana bringing together representatives from throughout Latin America to experience the value of networking. Frank has served on the TCA Board of directors, ACI 551 and other industry collaborations to hold up with pride the experience found in Latin American markets and humbly demonstrate the commitment to hard work and perseverance. Frank was elevated to fellowship in the TCA just last year in St. Louis.

The recipient of the 2021 Peter Courtois Memorial Award is Bob Clark. Bob started Clayco with the goal of finding new, better ways to do business, and hasn’t looked back since. Over the past 30+ years, Bob has grown Clayco into one of the top full-service building firms in North America while building Clayco’s commitment to the communities in which they work and becoming a national civic and business leader. Bob has established and nurtured a culture of innovation, collaboration and a can-do attitude that continues to make Clayco one of the best options for clients, and one of the best places to work in the country.

Shawn can be described as a tilt-up expert, educator, facilitator, trainer, TCA fellow, board member, and president, a “Most Influential People in Concrete” and a coveted Murray Parker award recipient. All this describes a leader with passion, experience and commitment in tilt-up built over nearly thirty years. Shawn’s leadership has been received throughout the U.S., Canada, and as far away as the Middle-East. Shawn continues to define leadership impact on this Association yet his vision for tilt-up certification and a commitment to safety training are two of his largest contributions to the image of the TCA today. Shawn is the 2020 recipient of TCA's highest honor, the Peter Courtois Memorial Award.

Clay Fischer is the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Woodland Tilt-Up, one of the leading concrete and tilt-up contractors in the country.

Woodland, based in Jupiter, Florida, was incorporated in 1987, and presently has about 150 employees. Since its inception Woodland has constructed over 75 million square feet of concrete buildings and over 485,000 tilt-up panels. Building types include educational facilities, warehousing, distribution, industrial plants, parking structures, multi story office buildings, retail, auto dealerships, religious facilities and housing.

Woodland has received numerous awards for both their construction projects as well as their business practices including more than fifty Tilt-Up Achievement Awards.

Clay is a past president of the Tilt-Up Concrete Association and a member of the TCA College of Fellows, Past President of the American Society of Concrete Contractors, and is Past Chairman of the Associated Builders and Contractors, Florida East Coast Chapter. He is also a member of ACI, ASA, CASF and the Green Building Council. Clay also serves on the A-650 Tilt –Up certification committee at the American Concrete Institute.

Clay was selected as one of the 10 most influential people in the concrete construction industry by Concrete Construction Magazine in January 2007 and in 2014 was presented the Murry Parker award for advancing the use of tilt-up construction by the Tilt-Up Concrete Association.

After earning his Master of Science in Structural Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 1976, Steinbicker began working as a structural engineer in the tilt-up industry and founded Steinbicker & Associates, Inc. in 1982. An accomplished professional in the field of structural engineering and construction, Steinbicker has provided structural engineering design and consulting services for 41 years, specializing in the design of tilt-up structures. He was actively involved in the early development and design of multi-story tilt-up buildings, incorporating both the full height and stacked panel concepts. He was also responsible for the development of a hybrid concrete parking garage system incorporating load bearing tilt-up concrete panels, site-cast precast concrete columns and site-cast precast/prestressed concrete beams built compositely with a cast-in-place concrete deck.

Steinbicker founded Tilt-Up Design Systems, LLC, the developer of the tilt-up collaborative design technology, Tilt-Werks®. He was awarded the Robert Aiken Memorial Award from the Tilt-Up Concrete Association (TCA) for his work on the technology.

Steinbicker is involved in many industry associations, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, American Institute of Steel Construction and the American Concrete Institute (ACI). He was a founding member of ACI Committee 551, Tilt-Up Construction and attended their first committee meeting on March 30, 1980 in Las Vegas in conjunction with the World of Concrete. He served as ACI 551 Committee Chair from 1992 to 1998 and was also a charter member of ACI Committee C650 - Tilt-Up Constructor Certification.

Steinbicker was a founding member of the TCA in 1986 and served on the TCA Board of Directors from 2003 through 2011. He was the 2013 recipient of the David L. Kelly Distinguished Engineer Award and elected to the TCA College of Fellows inaugural class in 2016. His company, Steinbicker & Co., LLC remains a Sustaining Member of the TCA.

In 2013 Steinbicker co-authored the book Engineering Tilt-Up, published by the TCA. Over his career he has authored or co-authored numerous articles and has been a featured speaker at many industry events on structural engineering and tilt-up engineering and design.

A registered engineer (P.E.) in 30 States and Canada, Richard J. McPherson, P.E., Chairman of the Board for Seretta Construction, received a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1963 and in 1970 earned his M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Houston. McPherson was a frequent lecturer for the College of Engineering at the University of Houston and also lectured for the College of Architecture at Rice University and the Concrete Management Program at Middle Tennessee State University where he was invited to lead the development of the Concrete Management Degree Program curriculum. This curriculum was presented to the Board of Regents in order to establish the CIM program that exists today.

In 1963, while working as a field superintendent for a concrete contractor, McPherson both designed and built his first tilt-up project, an addition to a furniture warehouse in Houston. He was the design engineer and was also the concrete superintendent on site. Throughout the 1960s, McPherson worked as a design engineer at petrochemical companies and freelanced as an independent design engineer. One of his earliest clients was K-Mart, for whom he designed tilt-up projects throughout the United States.

In 1970, McPherson started the design firm McPherson, Mitchell & Moore in Houston and in 1973 broke away from the partners and formed McPherson Engineering. In 1975, he began offering complete A/E design services and worked closely on many tilt-up projects with one of the largest developers in Texas, The Vantage Companies. Additionally, McPherson Engineering worked with a national cemetery company where they incorporated their experience in tilt-up into cemetery work, designing tilt-up mausoleums throughout the United States. McPherson continued to expand the application of tilt-up to a variety of building types including retail, industrial, distribution, office and one of the first tilt-up emergency operations facilities in the country.

With no third-party services for lifting and bracing design readily available at the time, McPherson designed the systems himself. Many times the braces had to be improvised. Whereas a building code for tilt-up was not in existence at the time, many county building departments hesitated to approve McPherson’s designs, as there was not much precedent. Facing constant resistance from building departments, contractors and owners unfamiliar with the method, McPherson spent countless hours and resources articulating and demonstrating the advantages of tilt-up.

To take more control over the process, in 1977 McPherson opened R. Joseph & Co. in Houston, which was the construction arm of the design firm. The general contracting company self-performed its concrete work as well as its own roof work and millwork. Ten years later, McPherson decided to focus on concrete and formed Seretta Construction, Inc. in Orlando, Fla. At the time, there was little, if any, tilt-up in Florida so he spent most of the first few years doing design conversions of CMU structures to tilt-up and again trying to convince general contractors and owners to use the system. Florida’s acceptance of the method of construction did not come quickly or easily. McPherson served as engineer of record on numerous projects during the early years in Florida as many of the engineers did not have experience with tilt-up.

Today, Seretta Construction, one of the largest tilt-up contractors in the United States, works throughout the country, has offices in Orlando, Charlotte and Austin, and is approaching 30 years in business.

Haskell founded The Haskell Company in 1965. He was instrumental in the formation of the Design-Build Institute of America and served as its founding chairman. As a frequent speaker on design-build delivery and the author of many articles on the subject, he is well-respected in the industry. Haskell is an active community member over a wide range of industry, cultural and charitable institutions. He has served on the board for the American Society of Civil Engineers (CEFI), is a member of the Florida Council of 100, and the National Academy of Construction. He is an honors graduate of Princeton University with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and received a Master of Business degree with distinction from Harvard Business School. Haskell also attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for graduate study in building engineering and construction.

“Haskell is a contemporary visionary. His insightful understanding of tilt-up advantages coupled with his passion for Design/Build (he is the founding Chairman of DBIA) has lead the Haskell Company to be consistently acknowledged as an industry leader,” said Bob Foley, president, The Foley Group, LLC. “The Haskell Company is an inaugural member of TCA, joining in 1986. Recognizing him with the 2013 Peter Courtois Award truly honors the memory of Pete Courtois.”

An active member of the ACI 551 committee for several years, Jim Churchman was instrumental in the effort to combine tilt-up construction with the pre-engineered steel building industry through his many years at Butler Hardwall. He was one of the main developers of the Butler Delta Joist roof framing system, which was created mainly to accommodate hard wall systems such as tilt-up with pre-engineered steel framing. His efforts to produce viable solutions to upgrade buildings for a company known for pre-engineered metal buildings established another network of tilt-up professionals during a critical growth period for the industry.

"Jim was emphatic that tilt-up was the future for building types where steel deck and joist systems were being implemented," said Jim Baty, Technical Director for the TCA. "Early in my career, he was particularly vocal on the advantages he saw in tilt-up and how many opportunities there were for contractors to increase the work on projects they held responsibility on rather than hiring masonry sub-contractors to deliver durable buildings."

"Jim was an extremely talented structural engineer," said Joe Steinbicker founder and president of Tilt-Up Design Systems. "He never hesitated to question why something couldn't be done a new or better way. This search for new solutions is what led him to develop a system at Butler Manufacturing to use tilt-up effectively in combination with their pre-engineered steel buildings, expanding the market for the tilt-up industry."

A tireless promoter of Tilt-Up for decades, Sherman D. Balch served as member of the TCA Board of Directors for six years, including a term as president in 2001. For several years, Sherman, along with Shawn Hickey, led a preparation course for the ACI/TCA Certification program, which helped to grow the program and increase participation. He was a frequent speaker touting the benefits of Tilt-Up and educating others about the possibilities available with the method. In addition to Sherman's personal efforts, his firm, Balch Enterprises, set a new standard for building form through the use of subtle and dramatic curves at building corners and along building elevations. He continues to pursue new concepts for Tilt-Up through Extollo International, a non-profit organization focusing on bringing building technology education to the country of Haiti, expanding their rebuilding effort.

"Sherman's leadership in the industry came at a critical time where designers were challenging the industry to expand the palette of form and finish. His commitment to education for emerging Tilt-Up professionals as well as a career dedicated to producing challenging examples of Tilt-Up excellence have set the standard for many contractors that have followed in his footsteps," said Jim Baty, technical director of TCA.

"It is a great honor and I am humbled by the award as there are so many hard working men and women that have contributed so much to the TCA," said Balch.

As one of the founding members of the TCA, Bob Foley served on board of directors from 1986-1996 and was president of the association in 1988. Prior to his retirement at the end of 2008, he served as president of CON/STEEL Tilt-Up Systems, an international network of general contractors licensed to perform Tilt-Up.

During his 34-year tenure with CON/STEEL and its parent company, LJB, Inc., Foley was an active member of the Tilt-Up industry. A licensed professional engineer, he also served on ACI’s 551 Committee and is well known for his efforts to spread the word about the merits of Tilt-Up. In 2007, Concrete Construction named Foley one of the 10 Most Influential People in Concrete. Upon his retirement from CON/STEEL Tilt-Up Systems, he founded The Foley Group, LLC to assist manufacturers in the evaluation, testing and introduction of new products into the concrete industry.

“Bob Foley is a pioneer in the Tilt-Up franchising arena,” said Jim Baty, technical director of the TCA. “Bob helped grow the Tilt-Up industry and energize contractors about the building method. He has been a tireless promoter of Tilt-Up and an active supporter of the TCA for decades.”

"I am honored to be recognized by my peers with the Peter Courtois Memorial Award,” said Foley. “Peter was a good friend and my mentor. He was a driving force in the founding of the Tilt-Up Concrete Association in 1986. I am humbled to be recognized with the industry leaders who have preceded me in receiving this award and I take great satisfaction in seeing the spectacular advancements the Tilt-Up industry has made over the past 24 years. The leadership and membership of TCA can take pride their continuing contribution to our ever growing industry."