Back to Black

Uncover the basics of rubberized asphalt performance in our webinar series.

Here at Polyco, performance goes beyond the status quo. We believe that asphalt should be engineered to perform. We have a responsibility to continuously innovate, reimagining the use of resources to engineer more sustainable and better performing products. In this webinar series, we’ll explore the different ways our partners in academia and the construction industry are continuing to push the envelope for rubberized asphalt performance — on the road and around the world.

Get ready to expand your knowledge and hear from some of the most experienced asphalt experts in the industry. Stay updated as we announce webinar dates, topics and guests.

Al Palmer

A self-proclaimed “asphalt guy,” Al’s career has spanned more than 40 years, working in a variety of capacities across the country. He was most recently the Technical Sales Director at Polyco, focused on expanding the company’s footprint in the South and Midwest from his homebase in Oklahoma.

Bob Rivers

Bob is a veteran (and legend) of the asphalt industry in the Western States. His decades of experience in performance-grade asphalt sales make him the go-to expert in his current role. He is Polyco’s Technical Sales Director West of the Rockies, including Arizona, Nevada and California — calling the latter home for more than 40 years.

Date: November 19, 2024, 9:00 AM CST

Do you prefer bitumen or binder? Regardless of your nomenclature, we can all agree that we want high-performance results on our roads. In this webinar, gain an international perspective on performance and sustainability. Traveling from Texas to Portugal, we’ll learn about the real world results of using performance-grade tire rubber in road construction projects with high percentages of recycled materials in the mix. No passport required.

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Guests

Henrique Borges Miranda

Henrique Borges Miranda, Ph.D. is a Pavement Engineer and Assistant Professor at ISEL (Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa), the leading engineering university in Lisbon, Portugal. He has forged partnerships with highway authorities and multi-national oil and gas companies in Europe to facilitate research around sustainable pavement designs.

Robert Lee

Robert Lee, P.E. serves as the Regional QC Director for Texas Materials, a CRH Company providing technical support and direction to CRH companies throughout Texas and the South Division. Robert has almost 40 years in the industry, working for TxDOT and the private sector, and now serves on the ASTM E-17 committee, as a board member of the Southeast Asphalt User Producer Group, and as chairman for the Quality Asphalt Paving Committee for TxAPA.

Terminal Blended Tire Rubber Performance: A producer’s perspective of PGTR for a sustainable future webinar

Date: January 21, 2025, 1:00 PM PST

Rubberized asphalt has come a long way and, together, we will explore its journey. In the second installment of our Back to Black webinar series, we will revisit CALAPA’s 2021 session on recycling tire rubber for sustainable pavements, which highlighted innovations like terminally blended asphalt rubber and its applications. Featuring a live panel of experts, this webinar will dive into advancements in rubber-modified binder technologies, changes in industry practices, and the ongoing impact of innovations like terminally blended asphalt rubber.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how these developments are shaping the future of sustainable pavement solutions!

Hosted by Bob Rivers

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Guests

Skip Brown

A seasoned figure in pavement consulting, Skip Brown owns Asphalt Consulting Services (ACS). For more than 60 years, Skip has been a leading voice in asphalt binders, hot mix asphalt and pavement construction. He has authored numerous reports, delivered various oral presentations and has been featured in several industry publications, including Pavement Preservation Journal and California Asphalt Magazine.

Peter Sebaaly

Peter Sebaaly, Ph.D. is an esteemed Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Western Regional Superpave Center at the University of Nevada, Reno. Dr. Sebaaly’s groundbreaking research on using recycled materials in pavement engineering has led to breakthroughs for the future of sustainable asphalt mixtures.

Bob McGennis

Technical Manager for HF Sinclair

Lance Allen

Pacific Emulsions

Date: Q3 2025

Not all rubberized asphalt is created equal. With all of the various performance testing methods in use today, which ones provide the most accurate assessment of performance-grade tire rubber (PGTR)? In this webinar, we’ll gain an academic understanding of the characteristics that enable terminal blend PGTR to outperform all other asphalt rubber hotmix (ARHM) technologies and make the case for a Delta TC spec in an effort to standardize performance measurements.

 

Guests

Angel Mateos

Angel Mateos is Principal Investigator of the UC Pavement Research Center at Berkeley. He has served as Principal Investigator in numerous research projects funded by the Spanish Ministry for Public Works, the European Union, the World Bank, and Caltrans, among others. His main expertise is in full-scale and mechanistic-empirical design of asphalt and concrete pavements, and fundamental characterization and modelling of pavement materials. Angel is member of scientific committees at TRB, APSE, ASCE, and NRRA.

John Harvey

John Harvey, Ph.D. is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the UC Pavement Research Center (UCPRC) at the University of California, Davis. He is former chair of the Transportation Technology and Policy graduate group. He is Principal Investigator for projects for research, development and implementation for a wide range of pavement technology, management, cost and environmental topics for Caltrans, FHWA, FAA, CalRecycle, the California Air Resources Board and industry.

Jeffrey Buscheck

Jeffrey is a research engineer and lab manager at the UC Pavement Research Center. He has worked with and developed emerging and existing construction technologies including: asphalt balanced mix design (BMD), long-life asphalt pavements (LLP, Perpetual), cold-in-place recycling (CR, CIR, PDR), high recycled content asphalt (RAP/RAS), asphalt rejuvenation (Rej.), asphalt reinforcement (fibers), asphalt blending and aging (PG), full and partial depth recycling (CR, PDR, FDR), asphalt modified with rubber (RHMA), rapid-set concrete (CSA and Portland Cements), performance related asphalt testing and specifications (PRT, PRS), and laboratory management databases.

Enhancing the performance of hot mix asphalt, sustainably.

For the paving industry, SigmaBond translates into sustainability, safety and cost savings. Pavements are better protected and stay darker and smoother longer — improving driving conditions for all. See how SigmaBond enables the use of more upcycled materials in the paving lifecycle to build a sustainable infrastructure.

 

Sustainable Success

  • The excellent performance of the first 3 years of the TRMSS in terms of no reflective cracking, no scuffing, no raveling and no bleeding indicates that the TRMSS would very easily offer another 4-5 years of excellent performance.
    City of Buena Park
  • We need to raise the bar as an industry — SigmaBond ensures that asphalt endures and performs.
    Hotmix Producer
  • The use of TR-modified asphalt as a tool to improve performance in California dense graded mixes is very exciting as we evolve to balanced mix design (BMD) and emphasize on improving the age and crack resistance of our pavements.
    Jeffrey Buscheck, R&D Engineering Manager at the UC Pavement Research Center

Insights

Our experts share their thoughts on asphalt sustainability, innovation, safety and creating a culture of care.

Featured Article: Rubberized Binders for Dense Graded Hot Mix Asphalt

As the Director of Technical Sales at Polyco, I’m excited to share highlights from a recent collaboration with Skip Brown, a seasoned figure in pavement consulting and Dr. Peter Sebaaly, Director of the Western Regional Superpave Center at the University of Nevada, Reno. With a career spanning over four decades in the pavement industry, I’ve …

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Polyco makes inroads into Northern California

For years contractors in California have tried to incorporate used tire rubber into asphalt to extend the life of their roadways but with limited success. Recently, Polyco landed contracts in Northern California to assist with several paving projects powered by our proprietary Rapid Digestion Process™ (RDP), SigmaBond a revolutionary asphalt that enables hot mix contractors to …

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