• CAPA hosted representatives of CDOT, APWA, ACEC, and CARSE at its Board of Director’s spring meeting in April. As a result of the meeting and the summary information provided by each organization, a comprehensive quality improvement (Customer Response) report has been developed. Products of the report include the following:
The initiation of a Quality Improvement Work Group comprised of member company representatives.
The development of a pre-paving meeting agenda.
The development of a guideline HMA specification.
The development of a HMA Mix Selection and Pavement Design seminar.

• The CAPA/APWA Asphalt Technology Scholarship Program continues to grow and six excellent candidates attended the NCAT “Short Course in Asphalt Technology” at Auburn University in March. Attendees were from the following agencies: City of Golden, Douglas County, City of Loveland, El Paso County, City of Aurora, and the City of Brighton.

• A comprehensive “Best Practices” Asphalt Environmental briefing folder was developed in April. The folder contains environmental information on the production and use of asphalt in Colorado. CD-ROMs have been developed so that member companies can tailor the information to their specific needs. The information is available to all member companies for distribution to interested parties.

• CAPA took a lead role in the planning of the 30th Annual Rocky Mountain Asphalt Conference & Equipment Show held in February. The show with the theme “Riding the Road of Change – Celebrating 30 Years of Progress” attracted 1,300 participants (1,000 attendees, 300 staff, exhibitors, etc.) and very good feedback was received. The equipment show was expanded, the outside demonstrations grew and the presentations were generally well received.

• CAPA has taken a lead role in fostering the establishment of a Heavy Construction Program at Colorado State University – Construction Management Department. The program will include a major emphasis in asphalt technology. An asphalt professor has been hired (Dr. Scott Shuler) and plans are underway for undergraduate education, graduate student research, and an asphalt laboratory.

• CAPA worked proactively with CDOT in support of the development of a Pavement Type Selection Process for major corridor new/widening/reconstruction projects. In a March 21, 2003 memo approved by Tom Norton in early April, changes to CDOT’s pavement type selection process were formalized and a specific process has been established. The new process identifies the selection criteria (user costs, initial costs, constructability, etc.) that will ensure an objective selection process on future projects.

• The 2003 RMAEC/LabCAT Program Summary Report has been compiled and indicates that great benefit is being received from the program. Over 95% of the 239 certification course attendees indicated that the quality of the program is either VERY HIGH or HIGH. One comment is profound, “Best cert course I’ve ever attended.” Also, the new Asphalt Inspectors course had 142 attendees in 2003, has been endorsed by CDOT, and we expect to transition the course into a CDOT requirement for Inspectors during 2004. An Asphalt Maintenance and Repair course was also introduced in 2003.

• The CAPA website continues to grow in value and use by our industry and the agencies we serve. The National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) has selected the CAPA website (www.co-asphalt.com) as one of two winners in NAPA’s 2003 Outstanding Website Award competition. CAPA will be recognized with the award at the NAPA Convention in Phoenix in January, 2004.

• CAPA interacted successfully with CDOT to ensure the asphalt industry interests were represented in several specification changes. These changes include the P-200 specification, the aggregate quality requirements, and VMA requirements. In addition, by year end CAPA had worked with CDOT to establish a task force with the objective of developing a test result dispute resolution specification.

• 24 new members joined the CAPA membership roster in 2003. The new members included three new Producer Members (A&S Construction, Walsenburg Sand & Gravel, and Western Engineering) and seven new Affiliate Agency members (Archuleta County, City of Cripple Creek, City of Durango, Town of Estes Park, City of Northglenn, NW Parkway Highway Authority, and Pueblo West Metro District).