The PCI Foundation Board of Trustees voted to name William Simmons of Winchester, Va., as a PCI Foundation Trustee during its September 19, 2013 meeting. Simmons will take on the job as Development Council chair, overseeing the completion of the Foundation’s “A Better Way to Build” Capital Campaign. Mr. Simmons is the retired CEO of the Shockey Companies and a past chairman of the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute.
Simmons was instrumental in the launch of the campaign in 2007 before it was suspended due to the economy. It will pick up again during 2014 with a goal to complete the $5 million endowment. “We want to build not only on the great start of the initial development campaign, but also on the exciting work that the Foundation has accomplished since we started sponsoring educational programs in 2007,” says Simmons. “We now have more than 400 architects and engineers who have completed a PCI Foundation program and understand precast design in ways they would not have without the work of the Foundation. But, there is so much more we could be doing..”
The purpose of the campaign is to build an endowment that will allow the PCI Foundation to meet all of its core objectives in ways that will benefit the prestressed concrete industry not only fiscally, but also in the products created and the abilities of those designing for the industry. “The programs we have underway today are a fraction of what we can do,” says Simmons. “When the whole industry pulls together for the sake of our future, we will be able to change our industry in ways that were unimaginable at the start of the Foundation - speaker programs, research, endowed professorships at universities -- the possibilities are endless.”