Try @ TXST

Giselle (00:03):
Hi everybody. My name's Giselle, and I'm the digital marketing strategist here at Texas State. You're listening to Try at Texas State, and today we're talking to concrete industry management at Texas State. It's not often that you think about what all goes into concrete or how much it's involved in our everyday lives. Concrete is the second most used substance in the world after water, and at Texas State we have one of five programs in the nation that focus on concrete industry management. When I met up with Dr. Moro in the Mitte building, he guided me through the concrete lab where students were pouring, mixing, and testing the concrete for an upcoming exam.

Student (00:42):
Do we have to make sure all the equipment's wet or damp or is it gonna be kind of like that for us?

Carlos Moro (00:47):
No, you need to make sure. I'm Carlos Morro and I am an assistant professor at Texas State.

Giselle (00:52):
Perfect. Okay. So what courses do you teach Dr. Moro?

Carlos Moro (00:55):
So I teach courses in both the technology and the CIM program. In the CIM program I teach fundamentals and properties of concrete, but also understanding the concrete construction system. And then in the technology part, I teach statics and strengths of materials.

Giselle (01:12):
How did you get involved in all this concrete stuff? Cause I know you were a different major. Yeah. You already graduated.

Joe Grout (01:20):
Yeah, so I had, I had studied animation.

Giselle (01:23):
This is Joe Grout.

Joe Grout (01:24):
I'm Joe Grout, I am a CIM student at Texas State.

Giselle (01:28):
I met him whenever I went to visit the concrete lab. He's not your traditional freshman. He was an animation major at a different college before he came to CIM at Texas State.

Joe Grout (01:38):
I had started to look for something that would take care of my needs financially, but then separately be creatively fulfilling. And weirdly enough, the thing I started to do in my free time that was scratching the creative itch for me was I started making concrete sculptures. Don't know what it was that got me into that, but I just found my way into that and had worked out this method for making molds and it was really satisfying. So I was playing around with that a lot and really enjoying working with concrete. On the other hand, I had ended up working at a funeral home and cemetery. One of the things we deal with is concrete outer burial containers, uh, that caskets are placed in for burial. And so we worked with a concrete prefab manufacturer to get those. And after we had a meeting one time where they were talking through their product lines with us and the processes they're using to make it, which was like, you know, first introduction into the prefab side of concrete.
(02:31):
And I was like, you know, I never thought about working with concrete. And so, but those two kind of came together and I started to think about like, look, working in concrete. And one of the job postings I ran into listed as preferred education experience as concrete industry management. So I looked up concrete industry management, and I was living in Austin at the time and I was like, what are the chances that we've got this program right in my backyard? The more I looked at it, the more I was like, oh no, this seems like it'd be a really good fit and kind of gradually warmed back up to the idea of going back to school. And now that I'm here, I'm really excited about the path that's putting me on and all that the program's got me involved with. And I can tell that it's like gonna put me on a really good trajectory.

Giselle (03:14):
What makes this program so rare and unique?

Carlos Moro (03:17):
You only have five universities that makes this, like not only in the US but also in the world. That's why like this program is such a good opportunity because you have like different completely different jobs all in the same industry, but like after graduation, we have like a hundred percent of job placement because of that, because we have so many opportunities to fulfill those, those positions. So this industry is like, so big. Concrete is the most used material and in fact construction material in the world.

Giselle (03:48):
What is the kind of research you're doing in this concrete lab?

Carlos Moro (03:50):
So what I, we are trying to do in my research specifically to make our materials more sustainable. Uh, we can make it in three different ways as I like saying that using the three Ps.

Giselle (04:03):
So those three Ps are performance, pollution, and production.

Carlos Moro (04:06):
So it is like changing the performance of the material, like making our material more strong, more durable. So it is gonna last more so you don't have to rebuild our highways like every 10 years, for example. Also reducing the pollution, there are ways that the concrete can update the nox gases, nox, N-O-X. Mm-hmm. . So it's basically the gases that the cars produce. Okay. So, uh, like there are like types of concrete that can like kind of eat that and convert it in another thing that is harmless. Also, we can uptake CO2 from the environment, like permanently uptake CO2 and store it in our materials. And then finally production that is using recycled materials. So instead of using like new material raw material, you can go to a landfill and you can get recycled materials from old structures that you can reuse and cook. At the end of the day, it's everything, uh, about sustainability.

Giselle (05:01):
What kind of skills do you think you have gained since being in this program that you didn't have before?

Joe Grout (05:07):
There's one way in which like, it channels a lot of like, that hunger, that desire to like, to get out and to work. In a very short period of time, I've had no end of opportunity to learn and to grow. I've had the chance to get involved with Dr. Moro's research. I've had the chance to travel to a bunch of industry conferences, you know, I've got a nice internship lined up for the summer, and it's all there just for the taking. If you're willing to work hard, there's a lot of great opportunity. And so that's all been really, really rewarding.

Giselle (05:39):
Can you guys go through what a conference is like? Because I, you guys talked a lot about conferences when I visited. Is it a weekend? Is it a week? What are these like?

Carlos Moro (05:47):
Yeah, actually we are both going to the ACI, that stands for American Concrete Institute. So like industry researchers go there, presenters, companies like showing their work what is new in the world of concrete. So they are just showing what the next pieces are gonna look like, what the future is. Also, they show the discoveries like throughout the year and also is of course like a really huge networking because since this is like worldwide, you can speak with someone that is from like Japan, that is from Italy, that is from Australia. And at the end of the day, we are all in the same place in the same moment.

Joe Grout (06:24):
And then of course there's the competition. So we're taking a concrete bowling ball to the ACI conference next week.

Giselle (06:32):
That was the concrete bowling ball that you showed Caleb, right? That's right, yeah, that's right. Explain to me what you explained to Caleb about this concrete bowling ball situation.

Joe Grout (06:40):
Yeah, so the challenge with the concrete bowling ball, well one, making a large sphere out of concrete is kind of tough. And the other challenge we have with that is that it's whatever the weight of it would be if it was solid, we have to make it half that weight. So we have to figure out how to maintain a cavity inside to half the total weight. Also part of the expectation is to use some fibers to increase the strength to help with kind of the properties of it holding its shape and maintaining strength.

Giselle (07:13):
When you're at the conference, are you going to bowl?

Joe Grout (07:15):
Yeah, yeah. We're, I think we're doing five rolls. One of the parts of it is we're predicting how many pins we'll get across those five uh, times. So our score will factor into the decision, but then also our prediction of how effective we are at scoring will factor in.

Carlos Moro (07:32):
Basically, I mean, because of safety, we are not gonna like throw the ball like rolling the ball. So we are gonna use like, uh, these, you know, these tools that they use the kids, but they,

Giselle (07:44):
When you, it's like a training wheels for bowling.

Joe Grout (07:46):
I think they, they call 'em uh, granny bowlers, ,

Carlos Moro (07:49):
Granny bowlers. So something like that. Yeah, something. So you, we are gonna like put the ball there and the ball is gonna roll and then we are gonna crush it.

Giselle (07:56):
The final thing is crushing it?

Joe Grout (07:59):
Yeah. And so that's part of showing its strength, but it's also like there's a very particular way that we're crushing it so that it applies a little bit of force and then holds it for a while and then applies a little bit more. And so that, something about that is testing to see how much it can like maintain its disformed like bend shape without fully breaking because of the use of the fibers.

Giselle (08:19):
What is your dream job in the concrete management system?

Joe Grout (08:23):
Um, there's just a lot of really good solid work to do, but I had the good fortune, Dr. Torres helped me get connected with the Air Force research laboratory to do an internship this summer. And we're working with concrete 3D printing that's still a very new industry, but largely they're getting the systems in place where they can mix and batch the concrete on site and pump it through hoses into a nozzle that's, you know, either on the top of a robotic arms or a gantry system that maneuvers it and can precision place concrete. There's a decent bit of companies that are starting to produce houses and work through the logistics of producing that way. Uh, it's really gonna be really cool to get involved with the research and get to see what kind of opportunities are out there, you know, so I'm very interested to see what can I do to make this more than just the fun thing I did one summer in college, right.
(09:17):
You know, if that was something I could get more involved with, it would be, it would be really, really cool. The construction industry has largely had little to no adoption of automation, right? So we've seen like other manufacturing, car production, all of those have taken up automation and radically increased the capacity of their productivity. And particularly in construction, we've seen almost no automization of the way we built homes has hardly changed at all in, well a hundred years, give or take, you know, if we can bring in automation, right, that means we can make the productivity of that industry increase and make homes more affordable, more accessible. But there's still a question of, you know, how much room is there in that industry right now? You know, can I find work in it? And, you know, I might be able to, and certainly I think this program is putting me into as ideal of a position to pursue that as I can.

Giselle (10:16):
What kind of advice would you guys give to a student who knows nothing about this industry, this program at Texas State and wants to get into it?

Joe Grout (10:25):
I've had all these chances to travel, which has been really fantastic, but I think something really important for people to know coming into the program: the school's not paying for any of that. I'm not paying for any of that. Um, that's all coming through industry donations, right? So that is a big thing that speaks to how hungry the industry is for people. Like I would so much encourage people to take a look at it and get a deeper understanding of what's going on in the program. Because it's not a degree in mixing concrete, it's not a degree in finishing and pouring concrete, it's science, it's management, you know, we're doing material science and understanding the applications to how to lead projects and applying that, right. And how to, you know, maintain productions of concrete, right? So I haven't talked to anyone who doesn't come away from a conversation being, having a deeper understanding of like, oh, there's a lot going on with concrete and it's very interesting. So there's a lot of great opportunity, there's a lot of hunger in the industry, and so if that's in your ballpark of things you're interested in, really take a look at it. Right. Yeah.

Giselle (11:37):
I love that. Well, thank you guys. Appreciate it. Yeah. Awesome.
(11:44):
Thanks so much to Dr. Moro and Joe for having this conversation with me. I followed up with them to see how their concrete bowling balls did at the conference, and Dr. Moro replied: "The airline broke one of our balls. They were inside a checked bag, and the other one broke during the bowling part after doing nine out of nine strikes. So in short, they were well designed, but unexpected things demolished our hopes. Otherwise we would've been in the top five or so." Oh, so bittersweet. But y'all are still top five in my heart. Anyways, thank you for listening to this episode of the Try at Texas State Podcast. Make sure to tune in next time to learn more about something else you can try on campus at Texas State. And remember to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube at T-X-S-T. This podcast is a production of the Division of Marketing and Communications at Texas State University. Podcasts appearing on the Texas State University Network represent the views of the hosts and guests, not of Texas State University. Again, I'm your host, Giselle Kowalski, and I'll see you guys next time. Bye, y'all.