Two New Awards Shine Spotlight on 3 Winners

PCI Foundation Board of Trustees Chooses

Partner of the Year and Community Engagement Award Winners

Recognizing the importance of industry partners and community engagement, the PCI Foundation’s board of trustees established two new award programs for selection in late 2019. Partner of the Year recognizes an individual who has shown exemplary leadership and is dedicated to the educational mission of the Foundation. The second new award is for Community Engagement and recognizes a professor or professors who have worked with their local community to engage students in a collaborative precast concrete project. Both awards will be presented during the PCI Convention on March 5th in Fort Worth, TX.

PCI Foundation Community Engagement Award -

Criteria for this first-time award included proof that a nominee, from a university working with PCIF, went beyond the classroom as part of their PCIF grant curriculum program. They must have made a significant impact, with a tangible benefit to the community. The awardees must contribute to the enhancement of the PCI Foundation’s reputation, extend the foundation’s mission and enhance opportunities for students and staff to participate in community-based learning, service and/or research activities.

Selected as winners of The Community Engagement Award for 2019 are two University of Southern California (USC), School of Architecture professors; Karen Kensek, Professor of Practice, LEED BD+C and Douglas Noble, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, PhD, FAIA. The initial nomination paperwork, which included 14 letters of recommendation, including five from USC students, came from Kensek nominating Noble. However, the judges chose to give the award to the pair in recognition of the years of commitment from both to the precast industry.

Most notable is the school’s current project with the U.S. National Park Service at the Joshua Tree National Park in southern California. With more than a million acres of ecologically delicate land, and more than a million visitors annually the park charged USC with designing a shelter that followed strict environmental guidelines yet would protect visitors from the climate extremes of the park’s two-desert ecosystem.