Vol. 15 No. 8 - November/December 2015

Bart Rockett, 46, began working with concrete back in 1987 after joining Patterned Concrete Industries (PCI) and working for one of its local franchises outside of Philadelphia in southern New Jersey.

A stack of award submission requests are sitting on my desk staring me down and deadlines are popping up all over my calendar. Many associations and local, regional and national companies and groups in the decorative concrete realm host award programs to help recognize the best of the best.

If you look for advice about how to promote and grow your business, you’re bound to encounter how important it is to be using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram. I think this is a problem, because it’s simply not true for everyone.

Since the first Concrete Decor Show in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2010, the goal has been to provide world-class training opportunities for decorative concrete professionals while also leaving behind something tangible for the hosting community.

It was not your best-case scenario. A new Army/Air Force main exchange, an indoor mall with multiple vendors and a food court, was slated to open at Fort George G. Meade in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in six weeks. The floor had been ground and polished, the racks staged and the food vendors’ equipment installed.

Buildings don’t often sparkle like jewelry, but in the case of the chiller plant on the Ohio State University campus, it does just that, thanks to a highly polished RetroPlate finish and the application of dichroic glass.

Let’s say you’re part of a design and construction team that has settled on a stunning look for a high-profile exterior concrete project — the entry to a corporate office, a monument to fallen heroes or maybe a creatively upgraded pedestrian walkway for a downtown shopping district.

In a recent conversation with Todd Scharich, decorative concrete technical specialist with the American Society of Concrete Contractors, this question came up: What happens when plastic, lumber or construction debris is left on colored concrete during initial curing?

Standing alone, a color is amoral — entirely relative to what surrounds it. This extends not only to the colored border around your design, but also to the walls and ceilings in your peripheral vision when you glance at the floor.