Iwas born in the little town ofMeadow Grove near Norfolk, Ne-braska. Upon high school gradua-

tion in 1949, I applied and was ac-cepted in the College of Engineeringat the University of Nebraska in Lin-coln (the home of the famous Corn-huskers football team).

The year 1949 was a very auspi-cious year because it was the start ofconstruction of the Walnut LaneBridge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania– the first major prestressed concretestructure in North America. At thetime, of course, as a neophyte student,

I was unaware of the significance ofthis event nor of the impact it wouldhave in igniting the beginnings of anew industry and influencing my lifeand professional career.

Since my interests were in struc-tures, I enrolled in the Department ofCivil Engineering. At that time, therewere no courses in prestressed con-crete. (Indeed, even today, most uni-versities do not offer courses in pre-stressed concrete except at thegraduate level.) I took two courses inconcrete – conventionally reinforcedconcrete as a design component and

20 PCI JOURNAL

Norman L. Scott, P.E., FPCIFounder and Director The Consulting Engineers Group, Inc.Mount Prospect, Illinois

This article traces the evolution of the precast/prestressed concreteindustry in the United States from the Walnut Lane Bridge to thepresent. The beginnings of the industry are described in Florida andother states together with the formation of the Prestressed ConcreteInstitute. Emphasis is placed on the role the early pioneers played, theproducts they developed, and the events that shaped the industry. Inparticular, the development of seven-wire strand, the double tee,hollow-core slab, I-beam, bulb-tee girder and other products arediscussed. Early PCI efforts at writing a building code and the struggleto get provisions on prestressed concrete incorporated into the ACICode are also discussed. The article concludes by emphasizing theneed for much greater partnering design efforts in order to move theindustry forward into this century.

Reflections on the EarlyPrecast/Prestressed ConcreteIndustry in America

HISTORICAL-TECHNICAL SERIES

Norman L. Scott is founder and directorof The Consulting Engineers Group, Inc.,a design firm he established in 1966, andwhose sole objective is to service the pre-cast/prestressed concrete industry. Afterobtaining his BS degree in civil engineer-ing from the University of Nebraska,Norm Scott joined R. H. Wright & Son,Inc., in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In 1959,he was appointed PCI’s second executivesecretary and moved the PCI Headquartersfrom Boca Raton to Chicago. Over thenext 45 years, he played a major role inthe growth and success of the precast/pre-stressed concrete industry. In recognitionof his important contributions to the industry and Institute, he has been honoredwith PCI’s two highest awards – the Medal of Honor and Fellow.

concrete as a material. During Engi-neers Week, I participated in a studentscience project involving plexiglassblocks and an all-thread tensioningrod. This project gave me some insightinto the principle of prestressing.

While I was at the University of Ne-braska, I enrolled in the Air ForceROTC, which committed me to a two-year service in the U.S. Air Force aftergraduation. I graduated with a BS de-gree in civil engineering in January1954 and then briefly worked for theMissouri Pacific Railroad before beingcalled up into service by the U.S. AirForce. From 1954 to 1956, I was sta-tioned in West Palm Beach, Florida,where I worked as a personnel officer,supply officer and installation engi-neer at the Palm Beach Air ForceBase. It was in West Palm Beach that Imet and married my wife, Joan.

Shortly after fulfilling my obliga-tions to the U.S. Air Force in 1956, Iapplied and was accepted by the Har-

vard Business School. However, in-stead of going back to college for an-other degree, I decided, instead, totake a sales engineer job offered to meby R. H. Wright & Son, Inc. (a con-struction company involved in the pre-cast, prestressed concrete business) inFort Lauderdale. My lifelong friendMac Taylor was the person who hiredme. The company was managed byGeorge Ford, second president of thenewly formed Prestressed ConcreteInstitute. The decision to work at R.H. Wright & Son transformed my en-tire life and set me on a new and excit-ing career.

But before I digress any further, letme provide a brief background of thestate of the precast/prestressed con-crete industry in the United States be-fore I arrived on the scene in 1956.

Although prestressed concrete wasbasically a European invention,1 earlyapplications of prestressing had oc-curred in the United States. For exam-

ple, in the 1940s, the Preload Corpora-tion (the same company that fabricatedthe girders for the Walnut LaneBridge) was building concrete tankswith circumferentially wrapped post-tensioned wires.

Also, in the 1940s, Raymond Con-crete Pile Company (later renamedRaymond International) was makingprestressed concrete piles for support-ing oil platforms in the Gulf of Mex-ico.

The piles were made like a string ofbeads. A concrete pipe machine madecylinders with cores in them, andthen, the pipes were lined up on aroller/conveyor type apparatus and agroup of wires was threaded throughthe cores in the walls of the pipes,much like compressing a string ofbeads.

Next, the wires were tensioned andlocked off in a temporary anchorage,and then the cores were pressuregrouted. After the grout hardened, the

March-April 2004 21

Fig. 1. U.S. Bureau of Public Roads published the Criteria forPrestressed Concrete Bridges in 1954.

Fig. 2. PCI’s first Specifications for Pretensioned BondedPrestressed Concrete Products (1954).

22 PCI JOURNAL

anchorages were cut off and the ten-sioned wires transferred the prestresslike in a pretensioned member. Thesepiles were later used in the foundationof the Pontchartrain Causeway cross-ing Lake Pontchartrain near New Or-leans, Louisiana.

The major breakthrough in pre-stressed concrete came in 1949 withthe construction of the Walnut LaneBridge in beautiful Fairmont Park,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The factthat such a large bridge was beingtested and built by a very novelmethod of construction brought theproject considerable publicity whichquickly spread across North America.

Designed by Professor GustaveMagnel of Belgium, the bridge had a160 ft (48.5 m) main span, which isquite long even by today’s standards.The prestressing steel used was 0.276in. (7 mm) diameter, stress-relievedwire units. Seven-wire strand was stillin the experimental stage and in lim-ited use. (For further details on the de-sign, testing, and construction of theWalnut Lane Bridge, see Reference2.)

It is interesting to note that three pi-oneers of our industry were involvedin the Walnut Lane Bridge – CharlesZollman (a former student of Magnel)was in charge of the construction,Arthur Anderson performed the instru-mentation on the test girder, and TedGutt drafted the construction draw-ings. The publicity and excitementgenerated by the construction of thisbridge was largely responsible for

launching the precast, prestressed con-crete industry.

About the same time as the con-struction of the Walnut Lane Bridge,Ross Bryan, another industry pioneer,designed an 80 ft (24.4 m) long two-span segmental bridge (the TurkeyCreek Bridge) in Madison County,Tennessee. This bridge, completed in1950, was made using special ma-chine-made concrete blocks post-ten-sioned together. However, this bridgeis only of historical interest today. Be-cause of its limitations, this bridge didnot have the same impact on futureconstruction as the Walnut LaneBridge.

Shortly after the successful comple-tion of the Walnut Lane Bridge (1950),the First United States Conference onPrestressed Concrete was held at theMassachusetts Institute of Technologyin Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Au-gust 1951. The proceedings of thisconference basically summarized allthe pertinent information that waslearned from the Walnut Lane Bridge,Turkey Creek Bridge, and other no-table structures in North America aswell as on-going research. One inter-esting paper presented was the onegiven by Ben Baskin, then chief engi-neer of Concrete Products Company ofAmerica, who discussed how seven-wire strand was being used to preten-sion bridge decks in Pennsylvania.

Another source of information waspromotional material produced byStressteel Corporation on post-ten-sioned, prestressed concrete girders

which were being used in the con-struction of the Lower Tampa BayBridge. This bridge was designed byBill Dean, then the chief bridge engi-neer for the Florida State Road De-partment.

Pretensioned concrete is believed tohave been developed by EugeneHoyer in Germany in the late 1930susing high strength piano wires. How-ever, no one in this country or in Eu-rope got very excited about going intoa precast, prestressed concrete prod-ucts business pretensioning with pianowire. A more practical method to pre-tension concrete was definitelyneeded.

That answer came in May 1949after Baskin had visited a precastingplant near London, England, where heobserved the fabrication of short-spanpretensioned joists and planks using 2mm (0.076 in.) diameter piano wires.Baskin realized then and there that ifhe were to succeed in producing long-span prestressed concrete members hewould need a more substantial type ofprestressing steel. The key to thisdilemma, of course, was the develop-ment of seven-wire prestressingstrand.

Upon his return to the United States,Baskin persuaded American Steel andWire (a U.S. Steel subsidiary) to de-velop a 1/4 in. (6.3 mm) diameterseven-wire strand. He purchased thestrand and in the summer of 1949Baskin’s plant in Pottstown, Pennsyl-vania, became the first pretensioningplant in the United States to use seven-wire strand for prestressing bridgemembers. Concrete Products Com-pany of America was later purchasedby American-Marietta Co.

This development gave en-trepreneurs what they needed to goahead with pretensioned, precast con-crete as a mass production business. In1952, the Perlmutter brothers (Jack andLeonard) and Mike Altenburg built aprestressing plant in Denver, Colorado.Meanwhile, Art Anderson had movedback to his hometown in Tacoma,Washington, to build a prestressingplant with his brother, Tom. This plantwas completed and ready for produc-tion in 1951.

Within months of American Steeland Wire coming up with seven-wire

Fig. 3. Announcement of Norm Scott’s appointment as assistant executive secretaryof PCI (March 1959).

March-April 2004 23

strand, John Roebling Sons Companyin Trenton, New Jersey, became thedominant supplier of prestressingstrand. Other pioneering companieswere Union Wire Rope Company inKansas City and Colorado Fuel andIron in Pueblo, Colorado. However,later these companies had competitionfrom foreign companies with the capa-bility to supply top quality strand.

Based primarily on the work of E.L. Erickson of the U.S. Bureau ofPublic Roads (the forerunner of theFederal Highway Administration)published in 1954 the Criteria for Pre-stressed Concrete Bridges.3 This doc-ument (see Fig. 1) was to have a majorimpact on the future development ofprestressed concrete bridges in theUnited States.

About the same time, the JointASCE-ACI Committee 323 was hardat work developing its report on Pre-stressed Concrete. Professor ChesterSiess of the University of Illinois atChampaign-Urbana had a prominentrole in developing this report, whichwould play a decisive role in includingprovisions for prestressed concrete inthe 1963 ACI Building Code.

Then, in the mid-fifties, T. Y. Lincame out with a book titled Design ofPrestressed Concrete Structures – thefirst American textbook on prestressedconcrete.4 This book, which has gonethrough several revisions since it wasfirst published, had a profound effecton the practice of prestressed concretein North America.

The end result of all this activity isthat a number of precast, prestressedconcrete plants had sprouted in Floridaand other states, and that their prod-ucts were being used not only forbridges but also for buildings andother structures. One important ingre-dient was missing, however, and thatwas a central organization to representthis fledgling new industry. The otherimportant item was that provisions forprecast/prestressed concrete needed tobe included in the ACI Building Codeand other legal specifications.

The situation changed dramaticallywhen on June 18, 1954, six companiesconvened in Tampa, Florida, to formthe Prestressed Concrete Institute(PCI). The six founding memberswere:

• Cone Brothers (Douglas P. Cone)• R. H. Wright & Son (George

Ford)• Duracrete (J. Ashton Gray)• West Coast Shell Corp. (Sam

Johnson)• Lakeland Concrete (Harry Ed-

wards) • Gordon Bros. (Francis Pipkin)Douglas Cone of Cone Brothers was

made president and Harry Edwardssecretary-treasurer in the initial yearof 1954-55. George Ford served aspresident in 1955-56; J. Ashton Grayserved in 1956-57, and Peter Vernafrom North Carolina followed in1957-58.

The first PCI Convention was heldat the Lago Mar Hotel in Fort Laud-erdale, April 21-22, 1955. About 300engineers, architects, contractors andproducers attended this convention.

The early leaders of PCI recognizedthat prestressed concrete is an engi-neered product which needs the activeparticipation of professional engi-neers. There were six classes of mem-bers – Active, Associate, Professional,Junior, Student and Honorary. Charles

Zollman was appointed PCI’s firstchairman of the Technical ActivitiesCommittee (TAC).

The stated objectives of PCI were todevelop standard specifications forprestressed concrete products for ar-chitects and engineers; to conduct firetests for roof and floor slab products;to develop and promote standardiza-tion of beam sections for bridges; andto produce a technical journal andnewsletter.

Some of these objectives werequickly fulfilled:

• On November 7, 1954, the PCIpublished the first Specifications forPretensioned Bonded PrestressedConcrete Products (see Fig. 2).5 Thechairman of the committee producingthis document was Harry Edwards.

• The first newsletter, PCItems, waspublished in 1955.

• The PCI JOURNAL was inaugu-rated in June 1956 with the first issuedisplayed at the second PCI Conven-tion at the Hollywood Beach Hotel inHollywood, Florida.

This was the scenario when I ar-rived in 1956 at the R. H. Wright

Fig. 4. PCI Fifth Annual Convention at Deauville Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida,November 3, 1959. From left to right table near side: Jo Bryan (wife of Ross Bryan),Hubert Persons (PCI’s first publications director), Ella Maude Gray (wife of AshtonGray), Ashton Gray (PCI’s third president), Jo Clark (wife of Elmer Clark), Elmer Clark(PCI’s tenth president). From left to right, table far side: Ross Bryan (Ross BryanAssociates), Robert Lyman (PCI’s eighth president and third executive director),Coletta Lyman (wife of Robert Lyman), Norm Scott (PCI’s second executivesecretary), Joan Scott (wife of Norm Scott), Charles Scott (PCI’s thirteenth president),Eva Scott (wife of Charles Scott).

24 PCI JOURNAL

Company. From this point on, my ed-ucation in prestressed concrete, andparticularly precast, pretensioned con-crete, was immediate and took off atan accelerated pace. After all, the pre-cast/prestressed concrete industry wasstill in its infancy but most of the ac-tion was taking place in Florida.

In the mid-fifties, much of the tech-nical information came from Leap As-sociates, a design firm founded byHarry Edwards in the early fifties.Harry was a visionary with a flair forpromotion but he also had a solid en-gineering background. The firm wasone of the first to offer engineeringservices. Although the double tee wasfirst developed by Prestressed Con-crete of Colorado with a copyrightedname “Twin Tee” in 1952, Harry waslargely responsible for promoting theproduct nationwide by preparing anddistributing load tables shortly after-wards. It is doubtful that Harry knewabout the Perlmutters’ twin tee initia-tive. In both parts of the country thedouble tee section evolved from thenotion of putting wings on a channelsection to cover more area at less cost.

Another firm providing technical in-formation was the Freyssinet Com-pany, which was headquartered inNew York City and was headed byRandall DuBois. In addition to selling

post-tensioning tendons, anchoragesand other hardware, the company alsoprovided engineering services likeLeap Associates and Ross Bryan.Irwin Speyer, Jim Libby and EugeneSmith were employed by Freyssinet inthe fifties.

At that time, not all of the precastproducts being manufactured wereprestressed. For example, Price Broth-ers was producing Flexicore slabsusing only mild reinforcing steel.Some companies produced non-pre-stressed double tees while others fab-ricated reinforced (non-prestressed)concrete bridge members. Of course,by introducing prestressing steel,much longer spans and better crackcontrol could be attained.

A major breakthrough occurred in1957 with the construction of the 24-mile (38 km) long PontchartrainCauseway over Lake Pontchartrainnear New Orleans, Louisiana. Thiswas an innovative project which deci-sively showed the advantages of repet-itive mass-produced members. A two-lane highway bridge could bedesigned with precast, prestressedconcrete members extending the com-plete span and width of the bridge.The 50 ft (15.2 m) spans were made inhuge pieces going from pier to pier.The project was a joint venture be-

tween Raymond International, Brownand Root, and T. L. James.

Earlier still, several other develop-ments were taking place. As men-tioned earlier, Harry Edwards devel-oped the first specifications forpretensioned bonded prestressed con-crete products less than six monthsafter the formation of PCI (see Fig. 2).This document was presented at thefirst PCI Convention in Fort Laud-erdale in April 1955.

Also, Bill Dean and Charles Zoll-man developed standards for preten-sioned I-beams with spans ranging upto 60 ft (18.3 m). Later, almost single-handedly, Dean developed theAASHTO-PCI I-beam standards.There were several other persons whoalso made major contributions includ-ing Randall Alexander, chief bridgeengineer for Texas, J. C. Rundlett atthe Boston Department of PublicWorks, W. C. Cummings and M.Fornerod at Raymond, Ed Schechterof Stressteel, and Forest Burch, LloydHill, Kent Preston and Pat Patterson ofRoebling.

Meanwhile, in 1956, the PCI real-ized that it needed a full-time head-quarters staff and a permanent loca-tion. It chose Martin P. Korn, a retiredarmy colonel, to be its first executivesecretary. Boca Raton, Florida, be-came PCI’s headquarters.

Korn was a former consulting engi-neer with design and construction ex-perience who was also an author witha flair for writing and an authority onsteel rigid frame structures. Hequickly became very enthusiasticabout prestressed concrete and actu-ally built an office next to his home inBoca Raton using prestressed doubletees. This imposing facility served asthe first PCI Headquarters.

In 1956, the PCI JOURNAL wasbeing produced by the Department ofCivil Engineering of the University ofFlorida at Gainesville. The editorswere Professors Ralph Kluge, AlanOzell, Donald Sawyer and Paul Zia.

PCItems was edited by Korn andproduced by the Peter Larkin Agency,as were other promotional materials.

In 1959, at the suggestion of PCIPresident George Ford, I became theunderstudy of Korn with a view to be-coming PCI’s second executive secre-

Fig. 5. Meeting in San Diego, California (1973). Front row, left to right: Gene Garson(secretary-treasurer of Precast/Prestressed Concrete Manufacturers of California),Charles Walter (PCI president, 1973), Michael Kupfer (San Diego PrestressedConcrete). Back row: Burr Bennett (PCI executive director), Norm Scott (CEG), Ross Rudolph (Basalt Precast).

March-April 2004 25

tary (Fig. 3) and moving the Institute’sheadquarters to Chicago, Illinois. Theanticipated advantages of moving toChicago were many, but the primarymotives were a central location in theUnited States and proximity to thePortland Cement Association (PCA)and other concrete related associa-tions. This move was accomplished inDecember 1959.

My first task in Chicago was to visitas many PCI Producer Members aspossible throughout the country withina short two-month period. I took mywife Joan on this arduous journey,ending up at the Fifth Annual PCIConvention in Miami Beach, Florida,November 2 to 7, 1959 (see Fig. 4).This gave me a wonderful opportunityto also meet non-member producersand especially to meet some of theearly pioneers of the industry. On thistrip, I remember specifically talking toArt Anderson, founder of ConcreteTechnology Corporation, Ted Gutt,then at the George Rackle Company,and Ben Gerwick, Jr., at Ben C. Ger-wick Company.

Over the next decade and beyond Igot to meet many other wonderfulpeople in the industry (see Figs. 5 and6), and also got to visit many interest-ing places (see Figs. 7 to 9).

One other important responsibilityentrusted to me was to conduct semi-nars on precast/prestressed concreteacross the United States. To help mein this endeavor, in July 1960, I hiredmy good friend Tom D’Arcy as tech-nical director and publications directorat the Chicago office. In addition tohis many other duties, Tom was editorof the PCI JOURNAL and PCItems.

During the early years (1950s and1960s), the Portland Cement Associa-tion (PCA) showed considerable inter-est in the prestressed concrete industryand especially in what this new tech-nology could do for them. In 1951, Al-fred Parme and George Paris pub-lished a paper on how to designcontinuous prestressed concrete flexu-ral members.6

This was PCA’s first attempt towrite an analytical paper on pre-stressed concrete. Basically, it took theanalogy of a catenary-shaped cableand looked upon it as providing an up-ward uniform load counter-balancing

the applied downward vertical loads.Later, T. Y. Lin took this same con-cept, further modified it, and called itthe “load balancing method.”7 Lin waswidely credited for popularizing thisdesign method in the design commu-nity.

Some of the other familiar namesfrom PCA who were involved withprestressed concrete at that time in-cluded Armand (Gus) Gustaferro, DanJenny, and Burr Bennett. During thistime period, Thor Germundsson washead of the PCA Structural Bureau.He was a very energetic and progres-sive engineer. Also, at the time, JackJanney, a recent graduate from theUniversity of Colorado, was doinglaboratory tests at the PCA on the be-havior of bonded and unbonded pre-stressed concrete beams.

As early as the 1940s, the AmericanConcrete Institute (ACI) had a com-mittee working on provisions for pre-stressed concrete but had not yet pub-lished a report on the subject. Thecommittee, called ACI-ASCE JointCommittee 323, was for several yearsheaded by W. C. Cummings at Ray-mond International. In the mid-fifties,PCA assigned Armand Gustaferro tothe task of putting the language of thedocument into a practical design for-mat. Later, Burr Bennett became com-mittee secretary as the report movedtoward formal publication in 1959.(Burr was later to become PCI’s

fourth executive secretary.)The committee document was

called “Tentative Recommendationsfor Prestressed Concrete” and coveredboth bridges and buildings. Althoughmuch of the report was written atPCA, the main credit of the publishedreport came as an ACI-ASCE joint ef-fort. By mutual agreement, this reportwas also published in the PCI JOUR-NAL.8

It should be appreciated that duringthe fifties and sixties most of the ACICommittee work (especially the ACI318 Building Code) was actually doneby the PCA.

In 1957, in conjunction with theACI Convention in San Francisco,California, the first World Conferenceon Prestressed Concrete was held.This conference was organized by T.Y. Lin and several other professorsfrom the University of California.More than 1200 people from all overthe world attended this conference.9

As important as the MIT conferencehad been five years earlier, the SanFrancisco conference was even moresignificant. In addition to several veryimportant papers, prestressed concretewas beginning to get extensive presscoverage, especially by EngineeringNews-Record.

This was a time when the IllinoisToll Road was just getting started, thePontchartrain Causeway was beingconstructed, the Garden State Parkway

Fig. 6. PCI 21st Annual Convention, Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada, September22, 1975. Left to right: Bob Beerbower (Price Brothers Company), Norm Scott (CEG),Joan Scott, Marge Beerbower.

26 PCI JOURNAL

had been completed, and several othermajor prestressed concrete projectswere being constructed in Florida,Massachusetts, Texas and California.

Even with growing interest in therecognition of precast/prestressed con-crete, many precast industry leaderswere not comfortable with the ACI-

ASCE document being called “Tenta-tive” and its slowness in beingadopted by the ACI Building Code.Many precasters felt the documentlacked legitimacy even though the Bu-reau of Public Roads had already usedprestressed concrete in their highwaybridge projects.

Fig. 7. Norm Scottwas and still is a

very accomplishedtennis player. He

developed histennis skills whilehe was in Florida,

and when he cameto Chicago he built

his own tenniscourt at his homein Glenview. Thispicture was takenat the Vic Braden

Tennis Academy inCalifornia in 1980.

Since ACI did not initially respondto the need for a definitive code onprestressed concrete, Peter Verna ag-gressively pushed the notion of a PCIbuilding code and T. Y. Lin actuallywrote one. This “code” became amajor motivation for ACI to do some-thing. Indeed, ACI did not really wantPCI in the code-making business, so acompromise was reached. ACI agreedto incorporate prestressed concrete inits 1963 Code and to have four mem-bers from PCI on the committee todraft it. This group was composed ofArmand Gustaferro, Ross Bryan, T. Y.Lin, and Irwin Speyer.

The inclusion of provisions for pre-stressed concrete for the first time inthe 1963 ACI Code10 was of tremen-dous importance to the industry at thetime and really helped it move for-ward because it was then officiallylegal to design and build with pre-stressed concrete. For more informa-tion on the history of building codeprovisions for prestressed concrete,see Reference 11.

The 1950s were a very interestingtime period. With increasing competi-tion in the marketplace, the industryhad to come up with a selection ofproducts and systems that made sensefor bridges as well as for buildings.Again, a number of developments andopinions were going on that would in-fluence the use and direction of theseproducts and systems.

The Walnut Lane Bridge had used abulb tee with a wide flange at top anda narrower bottom flange where themain prestressing reinforcement waslocated. A little later, Concrete Prod-ucts of America, later renamed Ameri-can-Marietta, was promoting a productcalled a box beam, placing the unitsside by side. The company had somesuccess selling these box beams inPennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana andIllinois.

At about the same time, the Bureauof Public Roads (BPR) and Bill Deanin Florida were designing bridges withI-beams which had a cast-in-placeconcrete deck. Dean was at odds withE. L. Erickson, contending BPR hadtoo many standard sections and hewanted fewer. Dean, however, didgive Erickson due credit for his lead-ership in providing a federal endorse-

Fig. 8. Norm andJoan on a recent

vacation in New Zealand.

March-April 2004 27

ment to the use of prestressed concretefor bridges.

Charlie Zollman, representing PCI,along with Bill Dean who representedthe American Association of StateHighway Officials (now called theAmerican Association of State High-way and Transportation Officials)brought key people in AASHO to-gether with PCI producers and createda set of I-beam standards for bridges.They settled on only four sections:Types I, II, III, and IV.

Everyone went along with this ap-proach except for Art Anderson, whowrote a scathing criticism of thesestandards which was published by En-gineering News-Record (ENR).12 Inessence, he showed that the bulb-teesection was structurally more efficientthan the I-section and, therefore, advo-cated the use of the bulb-tee girderwhich was being used in Washingtonand Oregon.13 In retrospect, Andersonwas right. Indeed, today, the newbulb-tee girder standards are graduallyreplacing the old AASHTO–PCI I-beam sections because the bulb tee ismore efficient and much more attrac-tive than the I-beam.

Although Anderson’s letter to ENRbrought a flood of letters from readers,he eventually lost his battle regardingthe bulb tee as a nationwide standard.Dean said he did not want the bulb teebecause he regarded it as a “delicate”section. Earlier, Dean had a poor ex-perience with a 4 in. (102 mm) websection on his first prestressed con-crete bridge over the Lower TampaBay.

In the fifties, Dean maintained thatquality control could not guarantee thekind of precision necessary to makethin-web bulb tees. On the other hand,Anderson believed fervently that theindustry was not taking proper advan-tage of the potential of prestressedconcrete, that is, the bulb sectionswould be lighter, span farther and bemore economical if done his way. An-derson and a few others continued touse the bulb tee in the Pacific North-west while Dean’s I-beam standardswere almost immediately accepted inFlorida and twenty other states.

This trend continued in the earlystages of development of bridges forthe Interstate Highway Program,

which began in 1956 and continuedinto the seventies and eighties. How-ever, near the end of the InterstateProgram, there were still many bridgesyet to be built. The steel industrystarted winning jobs by convincingstate bridge engineers that 100 ft (30.5m) long spans required three interme-diate piers. This solution, of course,made crossings less safe for under-neath traffic and also was not very at-tractive. With spans of 120 to 135 ft(36.6 to 40.2 m), steel girders couldsolve the problem with only one inte-rior pier.

A product development problemforced the industry to come up with asolution because the steel competitionwas taking too much of the bridgemarket. PCI and AASHTO revisitedthe advantages of the bulb tee and de-veloped the Type V and VI girders in1968, but they were still too heavy.

By 1987, PCI waged the battle aloneand issued standards which were muchcloser to those advocated earlier by ArtAnderson. Improved production tech-niques and better quality control madethis possible. So, the bulb tee was rein-troduced and prestressed concrete re-captured the long span bridge marketbecause it now had a product thatcould compete with steel and had aes-thetic durability advantages in addi-tion.

The same situation as for bridgeswas also evolving for buildings. From

the beginning, the double tee hasemerged as the industry’s most popu-lar product. And yet, it has been chal-lenged time and again. Surely, therewas a better way to span floors androofs. In fact, many different struc-tural systems have been tried, butmost have failed to stay the course.

In the early sixties, some practition-ers looked to what Europe was doing.In their search for a new product, Ma-terial Service Corporation in Chicagosent a marketing-technical team to theold Soviet Union to see what the Rus-sians were doing. The country was inthe midst of a state-sponsored housingbuilding program and what impressedthe Americans the most was the use ofa wide lightweight box beam.

Upon their return from overseas,Material Service embarked on the de-velopment of a 24 in. deep by 8 ftwide (0.61 x 2.44 m) four-cell boxbeam with a top flange only 11/2 in.(38 mm) thick. They called the newproduct “Dynacore.” It spanned a longdistance and it looked very elegant.Unfortunately, it was also exceedinglyexpensive to fabricate and, therefore,could not compete in the marketplace.Several other “miracle” products alsocame and went.

In the sixties, T. Y. Lin & Associ-ates, a consulting firm in Los Angeles,California, developed a single tee thatwas 8 ft wide and 3 ft deep (2.44 x0.92 m). Many producers bought

Fig. 9. Norm and Joan enjoy a relaxing walk on Marco Island.

28 PCI JOURNAL

forms to fabricate this single tee,which was also called a “Lin tee.” De-spite its elegance and eye appeal, thisproduct did not survive the market-place because it did not efficiently usematerials and labor. The product wasalso unstable during storage, haulingand erection. It should be mentionedthat some producers today use a modi-fied single tee to span the roofs ofwater tanks.

On the other hand, some producerscontinued to have “deep faith” in thedouble tee. Over the years, the productbecame successively wider anddeeper. And with each leap forward,the double tee became more efficientand economical, and thus guaranteedits place in the marketplace for spansranging from 35 to 100 ft (10.7 to 30.5m). Astonishingly, the double tee isnot widely used in Europe except forItaly and the Scandinavian countries.In retrospect, we might say the doubletee is an American phenomenon.

From a historical viewpoint, onlythose products that withstood the “testof time” have survived. The single tee,Dynacore, mono-wing, gull wing, Y-section, and wedge joist all lost out tothe double tee.

Hollow-core slabs have a similarsuccess story as the double tee. In1953, Henry Nagy in Milwaukee,

Wisconsin, bought a slip-form ma-chine in Germany and had it shippedto the United States. The machine castconcrete over tensioned wires to ex-trude a hollow-core product. The orig-inal machinery was in fact an old rustymachine which used piano wires forprestressing steel.

No longer using piano wires, Nagyemployed 1/4 and 3/8 in. (6.3 and 9.5mm) diameter seven-wire strand thathad only recently been developed. Hecalled the resulting 1 meter (3.28 ft)wide product “Spancrete,” and it wasthe first prestressed concrete hollow-core slab produced in North America.

Several practitioners tried to comeup with their own 3.28 ft (1 m) wideextrusion machine. One of the moresuccessful hollow-core products was“Flexicore,” but even this manufacturerwent out of business a few years ago.

In the early days, Harry Edwardsgot involved in the hollow-core slabbusiness, but his venture was not en-tirely successful. The problem wasthat not enough producers wanted tobuy these machines and invest theirresources in the high degree of qualitycontrol that was required. The end re-sult is that Spancrete is still today oneof the best hollow-core slab productsavailable in terms of its quality, di-mensional control and finish.

In retrospect then, the two most im-portant building products the industryhas today is the double tee and thehollow-core slab.

Over the years, the PCI Plant Certi-fication Program has had a major ef-fect in improving overall industryquality. The certification program wasfirst proposed in 1958 but not for themost noble of purposes. Early propo-nents of the program thought it wouldkeep “backyard operators” out of thebusiness and thus restrict competition.

By 1963, Bill Dean had retired fromthe Florida DOT and, while workingfor a private consulting firm, wrote thefirst PCI Quality Control Manual. In1965, PCI hired Ross Bryan & Associ-ates to be the certifying agency. At thetime, Ross Bryan stated that the PlantCertification Program had to be mean-ingful or else he was not going to haveanything to do with it. His early re-solve has guided the program eversince. Today, it is a nationally recog-nized program which is obligatory forevery PCI Producer Member.

In 1963, I left the PCI as executivesecretary and took a position as generalmanager of Wiss, Janney, Elstner andAssociates (WJE). This firm then, asnow, is engaged in structural consult-ing, forensic engineering, failure inves-tigation, research, development and

Fig. 10. Florida Suncoast Dome, St. Petersburg, Florida (1989). This project was a joint CEG-Illinois-Texas job.

March-April 2004 29

testing. Jack Janney and Dick Elstner(two of the founders of WJE) were twopersons who I highly respected fortheir integrity and dedication. I stayedat WJE for the next three years.

Ultimately, my heart and passionwere in the precast/prestressed con-crete business. In 1966, I took the boldstep of establishing my own consult-ing business and founded The Con-sulting Engineers Group, Inc. (CEG),in Glenview (a north suburb ofChicago). From the beginning, themission of CEG has been to servicethe needs of the precast/prestressedconcrete industry.

In a little more than a year later, Ihired Jerry Goettsche as our first full-time employee. Jerry had previouslyworked for an architectural/engineer-ing firm and had recently applied for asales engineering position with a pre-caster who happened to be my client.Jerry decided he was not interested inthe sales position but liked CEG’s vi-sion and the future promise it wouldhold.

It was not long afterwards that LesMartin also joined the firm. Les and Ihad met earlier as classmates at theUniversity of Nebraska. Les hadworked for structural engineeringfirms in Omaha, Nebraska, and Den-ver, Colorado, and later was employed

Fig. 11. Connecticut Tennis Center, New Haven, Connecticut (1991).

Fig. 12. Penn Street Parking Structure, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland(1992).

by the PCA in Nebraska and Iowa be-fore joining CEG.

A little later, Armand (Gus) Gusta-ferro joined CEG. Gus was alreadywell recognized as an authority onconcrete materials and fire issues aswell as prestressed concrete. At thetime, he was head of the Fire Research

Laboratory at PCA. Earlier, he hadmanaged one of the precasting plantsthat produced prestressed concretebridge girders for the Illinois TollHighway.

My next partner was Tom D’Arcy.Of course, I knew Tom from the timewe worked together at the PCI office

30 PCI JOURNAL

in Chicago. After leaving PCI, heworked for four precast producers inNorth Carolina, Massachusetts, Col-orado and Texas. In 1982, Tomopened the CEG Texas office.

Walt Korkosz originally worked inthe Chicago office and then went to

Texas where he is now president ofCEG-Texas. Larbi Sennour is execu-tive vice president there. Mike Mal-som had been a roommate of Walt’s atthe University of Illinois. It was atWalt’s suggestion that Mike applied toCEG. Currently, Mike is president of

CEG-Illinois and Jeff Carlson, whojoined the firm in 1987, is executivevice president. Mike is now boardchairman and CEO of the parent CEG.

Over the years, CEG has grown anddiversified to meet the varied needsand applications of the precast/pre-stressed concrete industry. For exam-ple, new technology had to be devel-oped with the emergence of justicefacilities in the eighties and stadiumsin the nineties.

Today, the Chicago office has 32personnel and Texas has 33. In addi-tion, CEG has satellite offices in FortLauderdale, Florida, Bella Vista,Arkansas, Horseshoe Bay, Texas,Apple Valley, Minnesota, and Cincin-nati, Ohio.

Some of the proudest jobs CEG hasbeen involved with include the firstall-precast major league baseball sta-dium (the Florida Suncoast Dome) inSt. Petersburg, Florida (see Fig. 10).This job was a joint effort between theChicago and Texas offices of CEG.Originally, the stadium was planned tobe built using cast-in-place concrete,but Pomco sold the job in precast, pre-

Fig. 13. In foreground, Atlanta Braves Baseball Stadium (formerly the Olympic Stadium), Atlanta Georgia (1996). Background leftcorner is the Georgia Dome which was also designed by CEG. Note that the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (middle ofpicture above front stadium) has since been torn down.

Fig. 14. Ravens NFL Stadium, Baltimore, Maryland (1998).

March-April 2004 31

stressed concrete, and then CEG madeit happen from a design viewpoint.Tom, Les, Jerry, Walt and I accom-plished this task over a long weekendin San Antonio in 1988. This projectwon Tom D’Arcy and Jerry Goettschethe Lyman Award for their article inthe January-February 1990 PCIJOURNAL.

Another interesting project was theConnecticut Tennis Center in NewHaven, Connecticut (see Fig. 11). Thisjob used a variety of precast/pre-stressed concrete components as wellas some architectural precast concrete.This project won Les Martin theLyman Award for his article in theJanuary-February 1992 PCI JOUR-NAL.

Of the many parking structures CEGhas done over the years, the PennStreet Parking Structure for the Uni-versity of Maryland in Baltimore,Maryland, proved to be one of themost interesting structures (see Fig.12). This structure required consider-able architectural treatment.

The list of CEG projects also in-cludes the first all-precast prison forthe State of Virginia; other precastmodular prisons in other states; morethan thirty major stadiums – in partic-ular the Olympic Stadium in Atlanta,Georgia, with its baseball conversion(see Fig. 13); also, the PhiladelphiaEagles Stadium in Pennsylvania be-cause of coordinating the engineeringfor two different precasting compa-nies. Another outstanding stadium isthe Ravens NFL Stadium in Balti-more, Maryland (see Fig. 14).

Among the many important parkingstructures CEG has done is the Mall ofAmerica in Minneapolis, Minnesota(one of the world’s largest parkingstructures) and the Midfield Terminalparking structure in Detroit, Michigan,the world’s largest such structure (seeFig. 15). Another recent job is theNewark Airport, for which CEG wasthe engineer of record. One of themore notable justice facilities thatCEG-Texas has done is the CCA Cali-fornia Prison in California City, Cali-fornia (see Fig. 16).

In the decade between 1951 and1961, more than 230 precasting plantswere built in the United States – fartoo many plants for them all to be

profitable considering the industrywas so young and prestressed concretehad not yet been totally acceptedwithin the design community. Someof these companies failed while othersmerged. The number of plants peakedin about 1975 when there were about500 plants. Today, that number hasleveled off to about 280 plants.

A study of the market during the

past 25 years shows that structuralprecast concrete has been gainingmarket share at about 31/2 percent peryear while the rate is about 2 percentfor architectural precast concrete. Inthe case of bridges, the market share isabout a 3 to 4 percent rate of growthper year. If we use the U.S. gross do-mestic product of 3 percent per year asa frame of reference, we see that our

Fig. 15. Midfield Terminal parking structure (world’s largest), Detroit, Michigan (2000).This project was a CEG-Texas job.

Fig. 16. CCA California Prison, California City, California (1997). This project was aCEG-Texas job.

32 PCI JOURNAL

industry has been keeping pace withthe general economy.

The challenge today is how to in-crease market share. Since structuralsteel and cast-in-place concrete can bedesigned by an architect or engineer al-most single-handedly, the same is notthe case for precast/prestressed con-crete. More often than not, precast con-crete needs the services of a specialtyengineer. But before that stage is evenreached, the precast option might wellhave disappeared. It all depends on theattitude of the architect/engineer and

how well he or she is disposed to usingprecast concrete.

Part of the challenge is knowinghow to network with decision makerswho have knowledge about projects inthe planning or, preferably, in the pre-planning stage. The ideal situation isfor a project to be headed by a con-tractor and a well-informed precasterwho can engage in a meaningful dis-cussion with the owner as early aspossible. The objective then is to beable to get a “seat at the table” duringthe early stages of a project and be

able to have the opportunity to showthe owner and design team that a pre-cast solution will not only result in aquality structure but will also savemoney.

The approach I advocate is partner-ing for quality design, which is out-lined in an article I wrote in theNovember-December 1998 issue of thePCI JOURNAL.14 The key here is thatthe architect or engineer needs to knowthat he or she does not have to be anexpert in precast/prestressed concrete.

In other words, it is quite legal and

PROFESSIONAL PARTICIPATION AND RECOGNITION

Les Martin Tom D’ArcyNorm ScottGus Gustaferro

Since its founding in 1966, The Consulting EngineersGroup, Inc. (CEG) has devoted its entire focus in servingthe precast/prestressed concrete industry. This involve-ment is best exemplified by the large number of CEGprincipals and personnel that participate in PCI Commit-tee work and other allied professional organizations.

Gus Gustaferro served as the second PCI TAC chair-man (Charles Zollman was the first TAC chairman). Guswas followed by Norm Scott, Les Martin and TomD’Arcy. Scott, Martin, D’Arcy, Jerry Goettsche andMike Malsom have all served on the PCI Board of Direc-tors. Norm, Gus, Les and Tom have also served on im-portant ACI committees dealing with the ACI BuildingCode, and other ACI committees on Prestressed Concreteand Precast Concrete.

D’Arcy is currently chairman of PCI’s Research andDevelopment Committee. Scott served as president of theACI in 1983. In addition, other CEG personnel currentlyserve as chairmen or members of several PCI technicalcommittees.

Martin has been the principal editor of the prestigiousPCI Design Handbook on three separate editions, includ-ing the ground-breaking first and the current Sixth Edi-tion under development. Gus is the author of the PCI De-sign Manual for Fire Resistance of Precast Prestressed

Concrete, and D’Arcy is the principal author of the “PCIStandard Design Practice” and co-editor of the “Recom-mended Practice for Design and Construction of PrecastPrestressed Concrete Parking Structures.”

Scott, Gus, Martin, D’Arcy, Goettsche, Korkosz, Mal-som and other CEG personnel have been authors of re-ports and papers that have been published in the PCIJOURNAL and other professional journals. Some ofthese articles have won national awards.

Very deservedly Gus, Scott, Martin and D’Arcy havewon PCI’s most prestigious award – the Medal of Honor.All four are also PCI Fellows. Scott has won the ACIHenry Turner Award (1993), the Henry Kennedy Award(1999) and the ACI Chicago Chapter Henry CrownAward (1996). In 2000, he was named a DistinguishedAlumnus by the University of Nebraska, Department ofCivil Engineering. Scott and Gus have also received theFIP Medal from the Fédération Internationale de la Pré-contrainte.

At ACI’s recent 100th Year Anniversary Conventionin Washington, D.C., in March 2004, Scott received the2004 Wason Medal for most meritorious paper for his ar-ticle “In Construction Who is Responsible for What?,”which appeared in the May 2002 issue of Concrete Inter-national.

March-April 2004 33

ethical for the engineer of record todelegate specialized engineering to acontractor, subcontractor, or an inde-pendent professional, such as a PCIProfessional Member, as long as thatwork is carried out by an engineer reg-istered in the state of the project. Thisrequirement is important in solving theproblem of responsibility and the is-sues that make design engineers feeluncomfortable.

Architects and engineers also needto know that precasters are interestedin bidding on their jobs. That assur-ance is built on mutual trust and re-spect. This practice of mutual respectis best exemplified in the state of Col-orado where competing precasterswork with architects, engineers andowners for the benefit of all con-cerned. This special relationship withthe design community needs to be fos-tered in other parts of the country.With more widespread partnering ef-forts, I believe that the market share ofprecast/prestressed concrete will in-crease significantly.

CONCLUDING REMARKSDuring the past 50 years, the pre-

cast/prestressed concrete industry hasbuilt up an impressive record. From azero sales volume in 1950, precast/pre-

stressed concrete is today a multi-bil-lion dollar industry. Across the country,there is a large variety of low-rise tohigh-rise precast/prestressed concretestructures to showcase with almostevery imaginable type of application.

Today, architectural precast con-crete cladding adorns the façade ofmany prestigious buildings as well asa multitude of other structures. About70 percent of state-funded bridges arecurrently constructed with prestressedconcrete. The majority of parkingstructures today are built using pre-cast, prestressed concrete. For themost part, all these structures haveshown excellent durability.

Over the years, the quality andworkmanship of precast concreteproducts have improved and, in gen-eral, architects and engineers recog-nize precast concrete as a viable build-ing material. Much of this success isdue to the Plant Certification Programand to the PCI itself, which through itstechnical arm and especially its publi-cations, has developed a body of tech-nical knowledge that is credible to thedesign community.

What about the future? First, I be-lieve that the precast industry pos-sesses an engineered product that isvery versatile, and, therefore, the in-dustry’s future is bright.

For the industry’s long-term success,I suggest the following approaches befollowed:

• Continue to cultivate a strong rela-tionship with the design community.

• Encourage a partnering design ap-proach whereby the precaster can gaina seat at the table during the earlystages of a project.

• Foster total precast concrete struc-tures in which the entire frame is com-posed of precast columns, beams,floor members, exterior finished mem-bers, stairs and elevator shafts.

• Where appropriate, integrate struc-tural members with an architecturalfinish.

• In the case of bridges, also pro-mote totally precast structures with theuse of precast/prestressed girders, aswell as precast decks and piers.

• For long-span bridges, use splicedbulb-tee girders for structural effi-ciency and aesthetics.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to express my deep gratitude

to Karen Goettsche for the time andpatience she took interviewing me andto George Nasser, Editor Emeritus, forhis many suggestions and assistance inmodifying the original manuscript.

1. Billington, David P., “Historical Perspective on PrestressedConcrete,” PCI JOURNAL, V. 49, No. 1, January-February2004, pp. 14-30.

2. Reflections on the Beginnings of Prestressed Concrete inAmerica, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, Chicago, IL,1981, 366 pp.

3. Criteria for Prestressed Concrete Bridges, U.S. Department ofCommerce, Bureau of Public Roads, Washington, DC, 1954.

4. Lin, T. Y., Design of Prestressed Concrete Structures, First Edi-tion, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1955, 456 pp.

5. Specifications for Pretensioned Bonded Prestressed ConcreteProducts, Prestressed Concrete Institute, Boca Raton, FL, Oc-tober 1954, 3 pp.

6. Parme, Alfred L., and Paris, George H., “Designing for Conti-nuity in Prestressed Concrete Structures,” ACI Journal, V. 23,No. 1, September 1951, pp. 45-64.

7. Lin, T. Y., “Load-Balancing Method for Design and Analysisof Prestressed Concrete Structures,” ACI Journal, V. 60, No.6, June 1963, pp. 719-750.

8. ACI-ASCE Committee 323, “Joint ASCE-ACI Report on Pre-stressed Concrete,” PCI JOURNAL, V. 2, No. 4, March 1958,pp. 28-62.

9. World Conference on Prestressed Concrete, Proceedings, SanFrancisco, CA, July 29-August 3, 1957, 800 pp. [Produced bythe University of California at Berkeley, CA.]

10. ACI Committee 318, “Building Code Requirements for Rein-forced Concrete (ACI 318-63),” American Concrete Institute,Detroit, MI, 1963.

11. D’Arcy, Thomas J., Nasser, George D., and Ghosh, S. K.,“Building Code Provisions for Precast/Prestressed Concrete: ABrief History,” PCI JOURNAL, V. 48, No. 6, November-De-cember 2003, pp. 116-124.

12. Anderson, Arthur R., “How Beam Design Affects PrestressedConcrete Bridge Costs,” Engineering News-Record, October17, 1957, pp. 326-328. See also Reader Comment, “CTCBeams Are Too Thin,” in the December 5, 1957 issue of Engi-neering News-Record, pp. 12-15.

13. Anderson, Arthur R., “An Adventure in Prestressed Concrete,”PCI JOURNAL, V. 24, No. 6, November-December 1979, pp.76-93.

14. Scott, Norman L., “Partnering for Quality Design in PrecastConstruction,” PCI JOURNAL, V. 43, No. 6, November-De-cember 1998, pp. 23-25.

REFERENCES