What’s New at ISSA with Technical Director Chris Hollenback – August 2024

Hello everyone!  What’s new with the ISSA Technical Director?  Easiest answer is, everything!  I was announced as Technical Director on July 1^st and am hoping to fill in the big shoes that Bob Jerman stepped away from! 

A little about myself, starting my career in the asphalt industry I began working at Asphalt Materials, Inc. fresh out of college as a QA/QC technician.  Over the years, I progressed within the organization, transitioning to Heritage Research Group where I currently serve as the Emulsion Lab Manager. My duties include supporting technical operations across more than twenty asphalt plants, providing asphalt emulsion formulations and Micro Surfacing mix design management.  I have participated in various capacities within ISSA since 2014, including the Slurry Systems Workshop Committee, Leadership Development Team, Lab Technical Team, and as the chair of the Micro Surfacing & Slurry Committee.

First, I want to give a huge shout out to the ISSA Lab Technical Team and the chair of this committee, Jamie Wing for leading the charge on all the efforts!  The overwhelming task of reviewing and updating ALL Technical Bulletins was well received by this group, and are on target to be completed before the next Slurry Systems Workshop in January.  Be on the lookout for updated Technical Bulletins on the ISSA website, slurry.org. So far this year there have been three revised Technical Bulletins (TB 100, TB 113 and TB144) with more to come! 

One focus of mine will be Continuing momentum on the “ISSA Forum Calls”, which were initiated in 2022.  These one-hour long discussions are typically held every 3-4 months throughout the year.  For those of you that are unaware of these calls, the main objectives of these open forums are:  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 the “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.

The next Forum call will be held October 29^th at noon EST. My ask for you is to start thinking about questions/ideas/suggestions for this call.  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 chollenback@hrglab.com, Ali Mostardo at alim@cmservices.com, or Morgan Barnes at morganb@cmservices.com and ask to be added to the distribution list for the ISSA Forum Calls.

I look forward to communicating with you all and hope to continue building momentum of growth and innovation in pavement preservation through ISSA.

Chris Hollenback
ISSA Technical Director