President's Note

It is an honor and pleasure to be the current President of PAPA. Looking at the list of names of the previous Presidents that have served before me, it will be a huge job to match their accomplishments. I have been associated with the asphalt paving industry since the mid-80’s both in Maryland and Pennsylvania and have had the opportunity to be involved in production, lay down, QC, and aggregate supply. One of the things I wanted to do in the 80’s was understand the issues and obstacles facing the paving industry, what were the “hot” topics; highway funding, quality of material, recycling, life cycle of pavements, Superpave mixes, longitudinal joint, testing procedures, night paving, work zone congestion and safety of the workforce and traveling public, etc. Sound familiar? 25 years later, same issues! However, we have come a long way in many respects, concerning quality, proven life cycle benefits, joint construction, testing, work zone safety to name a few and, new opportunities are facing us: warm mix, recycled shingle use, lower liquid mixes at higher quality, higher RAP percentages, porous pavements, etc.

Obviously, funding will always be open for discussion. Our current system of funding is obsolete since the tax on fuel consumption with the push to increase mpg and use alternate fuels, is regressive and not sustainable. Collectively, we need to work on alternate sources of revenue to fund our large backlog of highway program needs.

In closing, I look forward to working with our new Executive Director, Gary Hoffman, the many good and involved members of PAPA, along with the staff to meet the needs of the association.

Chris Kaminski
President, Pennsylvania Asphalt Pavement Association