This award honors Robert Aiken – a founding father of Tilt-Up construction. Known for initiating a more architectural direction for Tilt-Up, Aiken is credited with the concept of casting panels face-up to provide a medium for developing craftsmanship in the construction method.
It is presented annually during the World of Concrete convention.
2013 - Thermomass
Thermomass manufactures a full line of concrete insulation systems for use in plant precast, tilt-up, and cast-in-place projects, with more than 30 years of industry experience. They are being recognized for their continued refinement of their insulated composite product, and for offering building owners a superior building envelope product.
“Given what we know about inferior building envelopes, their composite system has opened a new era of tilt-up panel production extending the competitive edge with precast and establishing new efficiencies in structural material,” said Dave Tomasula, President of CON/STEEL Tilt-Up Systems.
2012 - Tiltwerks by Tilt-Up Design Systems, LLC
In any system, there is always room for improving the quality and efficiency. Today, more than ever, technology is a key component of this process. Tilt-Up Design Systems, LLC develops integrated project design and construction technology solutions which do just that for the tilt-up concrete industry. Tilt-Werks, its online software application, provides a work flow for tilt-up that integrates 3-D building modeling, design of tilt-up concrete wall panels and automatic generation of drawings and material quantity take-offs. The knowledge base behind the technology comes from the team's extensive experience in the industry. Tilt-Werks has been utilized in the design of more than 400 buildings just as a proprietary application. Bringing this technology to market enables the industry as a whole to utilize a system that has been created through more than 10 years of user experience and more than 30,000,000 square feet of building construction. The system boasts a sophisticated user interface to link all of the parties involved in tilt-up construction, allowing for faster communication about project details and transfer of material lists to potential suppliers, thus expediting the project construction. Tilt-Up Design Systems is working with other leading design software companies to provide a total building solution for tilt-up design and construction.
"We are especially honored to receive this award and to be recognized by its members for our innovative solution for the tilt-up industry, Tilt-Werks," said Joe Steinbicker, founder and president of Tilt-Up Design Systems. "Tilt-Up Design Systems will continue to play a part in expanding the use of tilt-up with our collaborative technology for streamlining the process of design and construction."
2011 - Somero Enterprises, Inc.
As the Tilt-Up industry looked to conquer a more architectural appearance, the quality of finishes needed to improve both for the slabs and panel surfaces. With the advent of the Laser Screed®, Somero Enterprises, Inc. provided Tilt-Up contractors with a tool to achieve a high architectural finish. Invented to improve the quality of floor slabs, few could have anticipated the significance to which this piece of equipment would liberate the contractor to once again become a craftsman.
"Somero strives to be an innovative force in concrete equipment and we are proud to have been honored with the prestigious Robert Aiken Innovation Award," said Jack Cooney, President of Somero Enterprises, Inc. "TCA members represent the best of the best in the industry and we hope Somero can continue to contribute to the growth and quality practices of its members."
2010 - Textured Coatings of America
This award was presented to Textured Coatings of America, Inc. in recognition of their innovative product, COOLWALL®. The TEX•COTE® COOLWALL® Coating Systems represent a revolutionary concept in exterior wall coatings. It is the second time Textured Coatings of America, Inc. has received this recognition, evidencing their continued pursuit of excellence for this industry. Specially formulated to reflect the sun’s heat, they can lower exterior wall surface temperatures by as much as 40 degrees when compared to traditional paints in many colors.
Lower exterior temperatures mean lower interior temperatures. This paint system is a significant contributor to the energy performance of buildings and has the potential to greatly impact the sustainable characteristics of Tilt-Up construction.
“Textured Coatings of America, Inc. is very honored to be recognized by the Tilt-Up Concrete Association and its members for the TEX•COTE® COOLWALL® System,” said Richard Barnes, Executive Vice President, Commercial Sales at Textured Coatings of America, Inc. “As the Tilt-Up Concrete industry expands, TEX•COTE® COOLWALL® will contribute to the energy efficiency and green building challenges in the construction market.”
2009 - Tilt-Con Corporation
This award was presented to Tilt-Con in recognition of their pioneering efforts to develop the next generation of site-cast Tilt-Up parking garages. Although parking garages have been constructed using Tilt-Up panels around the perimeter for several years, most have employed prestressed, cast-in-place or steel deck structures and interior supports. Tilt-Con’s approach results in a total precast (site-cast) approach to parking garage construction that achieves exceptional quality and performance without a single piece of plant-manufactured or vertical cast concrete. This is a new frontier that continues the evolution of the Tilt-Up contractor as the premier craftsman and the design engineer as the innovative spirit.
“We are deeply honored to be the first contractor to receive this award,” says Tilt-Con's President Mark W. Theisen, Sr. “It shows how far we have pushed our learning curve and how innovative we have become. The opportunity to develop this new product with Steinbicker and Associates (structural engineer) has been tremendous.”
2008 - Victory Bear
The acceptance of Tilt-Up by the architectural community is certainly aided by the architectural products supplied by Victory Bear. The firm continues to respond to the needs of the industry by providing a leading catalog of reveal profiles, sister forming/chamfer products, non-chemical retarders and a myriad of other fine detailing products. The Victory Bear line of PVC extrusions from Fukuvi has made a huge impact on the Tilt-Up industry. An active member of the TCA, they have contributed greatly to the industry by hosting seminars about the merits of Tilt-Up.