By Michael Frew, president, Tilt-Up Industry Leaders of Tomorrow

As TCA’s Tilt-Up Industry Leaders of Tomorrow (TILT) begins its fifth year, we are excited to welcome three new directors from a large pool of outstanding applicants! Kyle Eason, Darian St. Michael, and Stephen Flora were all nominated and unanimously approved by the existing TILT Board. Made up of 11 Directors, the board represents many of TILT’s top supporters, and is comprised of volunteers who are greatly invested in our mission and committed to developing the TCA’s future leaders. Each new director will serve a three-year term.

Kyle Eason, senior estimator at Martin Concrete, has been involved with TILT since its inception at World of Concrete in 2018. With fantastic backing from a TCA Sustaining Member, Kyle attends many events and introduced several coworkers to the TCA and TILT. Virtually, he is also one of TILT’s most active members. Very few days go by without Kyle adding to our conversation by asking for opinions and advice, or by assisting with his own experience and knowledge.

Darian St. Michael, a project superintendent at Hughes General Contractors, is always a friendly face at every TILT event, and contributed significantly at TILT’s first panel discussion during the 2021 TCA Convention in St. Louis. He is an active voice on our Slack platform, giving incredibly valuable insight from a field perspective. Darian is an important resource in our network; he is quick to answer or return messages with his honest insight and opinion.

Stephen Flora, the national sales manager at Insteel Engineered Products, got involved with TILT and the TCA two years ago when he started at Insteel. With a long history of volunteering in his past associations and organizations, Stephen quickly reached out to see how he could get involved with TILT. He has been an active participant in the mentor program and a consistent industry promoter. His ability to recruit and engage others has already helped several TILT initiatives. Stephen’s past board experience will also be a great asset. 

As we welcome these new directors to the TILT Board, we understand how fortunate TILT is to receive such tremendous support from TCA’s member companies. Encouraging your young people to get involved helps us develop our ideas and initiatives while returning these resources to the industry. On behalf of TILT, we thank you for your outstanding support!

In closing, I offer you the TILT mission statement: “The mission of TILT is to cultivate relationships among emerging talent, encourage collaboration to solve industry-related problems, and empower future leaders to better the tilt-up industry through social engagement, knowledge sharing, and mentorship.”