2027 Conference Program Agenda
The 2027 Minnesota Concrete Conference on Thursday, January 14, 2027 will be held at the Anderson Student Center on the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul MN campus from 7:00 AM to 4:30 PM Central Time. An optional networking reception will be held at the conclusion of the conference. Presentation information will be able by early October.
Presenters:
Mary Vancura, PE, PhD, MBA, LEED AP - Principal Engineer & Owner of Ayd Mill Concrete Engineering
Forrest Prillaman - FlatironDragados
Construction of the New Harbor Bridge in Corpus Christi, TX, was mostly completed in 2025. It is the longest cable-stayed bridge in the United States and was a design-build project between Flatiron-Dragados Joint Venture and the Texas Department of Transportation. The original engineer-of-record proposed a 170-year service life design for non-replaceable bridge parts to set their proposal apart from competitors. Over 9 years of bridge construction, through a change of engineer of record, and an almost 100% turnover of the original joint venture design build team, the implementation of a 170-year concrete service life design persisted due to the commitment of the mid-level project team and the relationships between them.
This presentation, told from the perspective of a FDJV field engineer and service life engineer of record, will discuss the challenges of concrete material procurement, continuous quality control for concrete production, a switch to self-performing concrete production part way through the job, maintaining a positive relationship with the DOT and owners' representatives through project challenges, and managing mass concrete and service life design submittals.
Presenter:
Dr. Marc Rached, P.E., - Master Builders Solutions
This session will address how to design concrete to withstand various exposure conditions. It will review key durability requirements from ACI codes and standards and examine how available materials can enhance concrete performance and extend service life.
Presenter:
Edith Gallandorm, P.E. – PCI
Presentation details coming soon!
Presenters:
Brett Holland P.E., S.E., PhD
Julia Hogroian, P.E.- SGH
In this presentation, SGH’s Brett Holland and Matthew Sander will explore practical strategies for specifying lower-embodied-carbon concrete while maintaining structural performance, durability, and constructability. They will discuss how material selection, performance-based specifications, environmental product declarations, and early collaboration across the project team can help reduce carbon without compromising project outcomes. As embodied carbon requirements continue to evolve, understanding the tradeoffs—and planning for them early—will be increasingly important.
Presenter:
Patrick Huston - MnDOT
Presentation details coming soon!
Presenter:
Bruno Martinez, P.E., PhD - Baker Construction
Presentation details coming soon!
Presenters:
Benjamin Worsfold, Steve Barbachy, Cathy French - U of M
The 2021 tragic collapse of Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida, claimed 98 lives. As part of the ongoing investigation led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), researchers at the University of Minnesota have constructed and tested full-scale replicas of basement beam-slab-column connections using representative materials. NIST’s preliminary findings suggest that punching shear failure in the pool deck initiated the collapse, which subsequently propagated into the tower through the basement connections. This presentation will describe the large-scale experiments conducted at the University of Minnesota’s Multi-Axial Sub-assemblage Testing (MAST) Laboratory to support NIST’s investigation of the collapse mechanism.
Presenter:
Kate Golden – Mortenson
Presentation details coming soon!
Continue the conversations from the conference at our optional post-conference networking reception.
