What's New with ISSA Technical Director Bob Jerman- May 2023

Hello, Everyone!  It’s been a beautiful Spring here in Charleston and I hope that the same is true for you and your area of the world.  For everyone in the northern hemisphere, the paving season has either already begun or is on the verge of beginning.  It’s an exciting time to be in the pavement preservation industry!

I’d like to focus a few minutes of your time and attention on the “ISSA Forum Calls” that we initiated in 2022.  For those of you that may not be aware of these calls, let me give you a little bit of background on them.  In our ongoing search for ways to engage with participants across the pavement preservation industry about ISSA’s core technologies and to familiarize call attendees with “all things ISSA”, we decided to hold these one-hour calls every 3-4 months throughout the year.  Our goals were simple:  1) to open the calls up to anyone that wanted to attend, 2) to respect everyone’s time by limiting the calls to one hour, 3) to have the content of each call primarily driven by the attendees and their questions/ideas/suggestions, 4) to highlight the many opportunities available within our Association, and 5) to encourage participation in ISSA.

As far as any “rules” for these calls:   1) “In accordance with guidance from ISSA’s legal counsel, all calls are subject to to the ISSA Antitrust Guidelines, the federal antitrust laws and all applicable state antitrust laws.  As moderator of the call, I will stop any conversations which appear to even slightly raise an antitrust issue.”, 2) it is understood that all attendees are respectful of each other’s views, and 3) that there are no “commercials” for any specific products.

Our most recent call was held on Tuesday, April 18^th.   The call included a great question from an attendee about how to address challenges with pavement markings and a follow up discussion by subject matter experts on how to address those challenges.   Additionally, there were updates from Justin Guiles on the mobile accessible website for which he’s leading  development for our ISSA Design and Inspection Manual, a discussion on the value of virtual presentations for the ISSA Workshop, an update from Todd Shields on the upcoming National Pavement Preservation Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana in September, updates from Chuck Ingram on our Web-based Training efforts, and a brief discussion by Dr. Andrew Braham regarding the successful rollout of the ISSA college curriculum on pavement preservation across the country.

While we have had good attendance on the calls thus far, the ongoing challenge with these calls is “attendee participation”.  My primary goal when these calls were initiated in 2022 was to attract new involvement from individuals across our industry that might not otherwise be participating in industry events.  On our last call, it was suggested that we “encourage” attendees by having them submit questions to be discussed/answered during the call. With that suggestion in mind, we may send out a notice one week before the next call and ask participants to submit questions, if only to see what kind of response we get to drive conversation during the call.  One other question that arose during the call concerned the notification list for the call.  We need to confirm that the distribution list is reaching the widest possible audience.  If you were not aware of these calls, or do not receive a notification/invitation when these calls are held, please reach out to me at bobjerman54@gmail.com, Ali Mostardo at alim@cmservices.com, or Tessa Poffenberger at tessap@cmservices.com and ask to be added to the distribution list for the ISSA Forum Calls.  We look forward to your active participation on these calls and throughout our industry.

"Every day is a gift!  Never take a single one for granted!"

Sincerely,
Bob Jerman
ISSA Technical Director