Sacramento State's Concrete Solutions team had another national first-place finish, topping the field in Chicago. (Sacramento State)

The Concrete Solutions team – team captain Jon Hernandez, Brett Snyder, Greg Zotalis, Jordan West, Daniel Vergara, and Igor Ubryanov – won first place at the Associated Schools of Construction’s student competition held Oct. 18-21 in Chicago. This was Hornet Concrete’s eighth consecutive podium appearance – and sixth first-place finish – in national competitions in just five years. 

“The ‘problem’ sponsor, Lithko Concrete, asked the teams to turn an existing two-story cast-in-place parking garage into a 10-story luxury hotel,” Hernandez says. “The parking structure required a vast amount of demolition work. The big issue on this project was placing new concrete core walls between existing floors in the parking structure.

“Hornet Concrete was able to think on the fly and come out with the most detailed solution, resulting in a first-place finish.”

Cheering on the students were their longtime coaches Mike Seegert (co-owner of Modern Builders), Brad Dent (project manager with CEMCO) and Tony Tipton (adjunct CM faculty and a civil engineer with Cal Trans), along with Mikael Anderson, professor and chair of the CM department.

The Concrete Solutions team also had the support of the Sacramento Construction Management Education Foundation (SCMEF), a nonprofit advisory board made up of area leaders in the building, heavy highway, civil and specialty contractor industries. – Dixie Reid

Related coverage:

Construction management students win big at competition (Sac State News)

Hitch up the tiny house: Students head to SMUD contest (Sac State News)

Professor is nation's top construction management educator (Sac State News)