Association for Bridge Construction and Design - Western New York Chapter

Almost 50 people attended the ABCD February Dinner meeting held at the Classics V Restaurant in Buffalo. Doug Ackerman, PE and John Kowalski, PE of Region 5 NYSDOT and Keith Harlock, PE of Parsons Brinckerhoff gave a very well received presentation on the Buffalo Outer Harbor Parkway.

Other highlights included the presentation of the $5,000 ABCD Fellowship Award to Mr. Qiang Gao, a Masters student at the University of Buffalo.

The Buffalo are Balsa Wood Bridge Competition was held February 25, 2010 at the Classics V Banquet Center.

A near record turn-out of 50 bridges represented by 113 students from 6 area high schools participated. Bridge design and construction were outstanding having trusses and girder style with excellent workmanship.

Our 2010 Spring Conference will be held at the Geneseo Quality Inn's Valley Oak Event Center. We are working to bring you an 8 PDH, FHWA full-day workshop focusing on High Performance Concrete and High Performance Steel Bridge Technologies. We are currently ironing out the details to bring this event to you during the week of April 11th. Please check our website and look for future emails for details. Contact Mark Mruk of Hatch Mott MacDonald at (716) 854-1181 or mark.mruk@hatchmott.com with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

The turn of the new year found the ABCD Western New York Chapter having two events planned. The first involved a monthly meeting at the Wishing Well in Rochester, NY on January 21. We would like to thank Chris Ligozio of the CTL Group for presenting a program entailing “Assessing and Extending the Service Life of Bridges.” For the second event, on January 29, ABCD held a student outreach event with Rochester Institute of Technology that included a pre-game Pizza and wing party and watching the RIT Tigers beat the Bentley Falcons 4-1.