Doug Black, president and chief operating officer of Atlanta-based Oldcastle Inc., has been elected 2013-14 chairman of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA). The election was announced during the association’s national convention, held Sept. 8 to 10 in Milwaukee, Wis.
Black began his career with Oldcastle in 1995 as vice president of business development and the following year helped create the Oldcastle distribution division with the acquisition of Allied Building Products. He was president of Oldcastle Precast Southeast Division from 1996 to 2000, was promoted to chief operating officer of Oldcastle Architectural Inc. and held the position of president and chief executive officer there from 2002 to 2006. Black was named chief executive officer of Oldcastle Materials in 2008, after two years serving as president, and was promoted to his current role in February 2012.
Oldcastle is a subsidiary of CRH plc headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and is North America’s largest integrated construction materials and building products company. The company has revenues over $12 billion, employs 37,000 people and has operations spanning all 50 states, Canada, Argentina and Chile.
In a Sept. 10 speech in Milwaukee, Black outlined four key objectives for the year ahead.
“ARTBA will advocate for a significant boost in federal funding for transportation infrastructure, as part of the 2014 reauthorization of MAP-21, while also facilitating state and local transportation funding initiatives,” Black said.
Second, as part of the implementation of MAP-21, the association will push for improved policy reforms that affect the industry’s ability to effectively and efficiently build and maintain America’s infrastructure.
The third objective is improving safety of workers involved in transportation infrastructure construction projects.
“This year, our company had three employees killed in our work zones by third party motorists … These were terrific employees, husbands, fathers, sons doing everything safely and correctly,” Black explained. “Our industry expectation must be zero fatalities and ARTBA is currently and should continue to lead the charge in discovering and sharing work zone fatality elimination best practices.”
Finally, consistent with the Strategic Plan approved by the ARTBA board of directors in 2011, Black also plans to focus on fostering innovation within the industry, calling it a driving force for the American economy.
“The world is rapidly changing in this digital age and we have to keep up,” he said. “It is part of our charter at ARTBA to foster this innovation — in how we communicate, how we build, how we partner and finance, and how we ensure that the American people get the best return from every dollar spent on transportation infrastructure.”
Black’s business career began at McKinsey & Company, where he drove strategy, sales force effectiveness and plant improvement projects in the telecommunications, airline, lumber, paper and packaging industries. As a U.S. Army Engineer officer from 1986 to 1990, he completed construction projects in the southeastern U.S., Central America and South America.
Black has been a key ARTBA leader for years, serving as senior vice chair, first vice chair, vice chair at-large, president of the materials and services division, and co-chair of the strategic planning committee. ??Black’s other industry and philanthropic involvement includes serving on the executive committee of the National Stone Sand & Gravel Association and on the board of directors for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
For more information, visit www.artba.org.
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