To honor and recognize the lifetime achievements of Astec Industries Founder Don Brock as a leader in the transportation design and construction industry, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s Transportation Development Foundation (ARTBA-TDF) announced Sept. 11 that its annual innovation event and awards program has been permanently renamed the “Dr. J. Don Brock TransOvation Workshop & Awards Program.”

Brock’s friends and colleagues joined in common purpose to establish a fund to support future “TransOvation” activities in his name. The ARTBA Foundation hosted a special dinner Sept. 11 during the association’s national convention in Memphis, Tenn., to celebrate his professional accomplishments and innovative spirit.

In 2011, the ARTBA-TDF created the TransOvation event for the specific purposes of fostering innovative thinking within the transportation design and construction industry and publicly recognizing its proven innovators. The name plays off the meanings of three words — “transportation,” “innovation” and “ovation.”

TransOvation includes an annual two-and-a-half day workshop led by world-renowned innovators from both within and outside the industry and an annual awards program. The awards honor “innovative transportation infrastructure-related products, services, technologies and techniques introduced over the past five years that can be documented to provide a high return-on-investment by: improving transportation safety; saving transportation users and taxpayers time and/or money; or making our transportation infrastructure more environmentally sustainable.”

“The many pioneering products and technologies that Don Brock developed in his long career have touched virtually every phase of road building and related construction activity,” said ARTBA Foundation Chairman Leo A. Vecellio Jr., the chairman and CEO of West Palm Beach-headquartered Vecellio Group. “He led the way, spurring industry-wide innovation to improve not only roads but road construction itself, making the process safer and the equipment more durable, efficient and environmentally friendly.”

TransOvation supports ARTBA’s educational outreach activities with legislators, media and the public by providing “real world” examples of the outstanding return on investment the public receives from transportation infrastructure programs.

Forty years ago, Brock started Astec Industries in Chattanooga, Tenn., creating a company that “builds the equipment that moves America and the world from rock-to-road and beneath.” Along the way, he became the holder of over 90 U.S. and foreign patents on construction machinery and drying equipment.

Today, Astec Industries is a leading manufacturer of equipment for asphalt road building, aggregate processing, pipeline and utility trenching, oil, gas and water well drilling and wood processing, offering more than 200 products. Brock serves as chairman and chief executive officer.

Under the leadership and direction of ARTBA-TDF Trustee Charlie Potts, CEO of Heritage Construction & Materials in Indianapolis, nearly 50 firms and individuals have already made contributions to the fund.

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