49er Students Place First in Concrete Competition

A team of Construction Management and Civil Engineering Technology students from UNC Charlotte placed first in the 2019 ACI/ASCC Concrete Construction Competition, an international competition sponsored by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) and the American Society of Concrete Contractors (ASCC). Team members were Ross Newsome, Benjamin Hager, George Poulos, Kenny Wang, and Joseph Ocampo. The ACI team was mentored by Associate Professor Dr. Tara Cavalline.

The competition was open to all university, college and technical school undergraduate students at universities in the U.S. and abroad. This year’s competition included preparation of a bid for construction of concrete portions of a police station in a challenging construction setting – a high-altitude, mountainous rural environment on Navajo Nation land. The team presented its winning solution, which resulted in a bid price differing only 2.4 percent from an expert’s estimate, to ACI’s Construction Liaison Committee at the ACI Convention in Quebec City, Canada in March 2019.

Over the past several years, the UNC Charlotte team has been highly successful in this competition, winning three times (2013, 2015, and 2018) and placing third twice (2016 and 2017). Two UNC Charlotte teams placed in the top ten in the 2014 competition.