We are thrilled to announce that TexasBit Central Design Lab Manager Luiza Barros was selected as a Women of Asphalt 20 to Watch in 2020 recipient!
The Women of Asphalt organization seeks to support women in all aspects of the asphalt industry through mentoring, education, advocacy, and by encouraging women to seek careers in the asphalt industry. The “20 to Watch” selection criteria included:
- Demonstrating success in the asphalt industry
- Effecting positive change in the industry
- Exhibiting willingness to share expertise with others in the field, including mentoring/serving as a role model for female professionals in the industry
- Giving back to their community through such activities as sitting on boards, volunteering, and donating time or expertise to help others
We may be biased, but our team had no doubt that Luiza does all of this and more.
After receiving her master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso, Luiza joined our team as TexasBit’s Central Design Lab Manager, where she manages the asphalt mix design development and approval processes. Very few people in this industry have the opportunity right out of college to build a team, design a facility, and manage a design lab. But Luiza has done all that and more within the last year and a half. On top of these responsibilities, she has taken ownership of roadway quality control (QC) by managing and dispatching the roadway QC technicians.
TexasBit has 10 hot mix asphalt plants that service the Dallas-Fort Worth market and six asphalt plants that service the East Texas area, along with a large construction department with six asphalt paving crews. That Luiza has not only performed her job duties in a business of this size and complexity, but excelled at them while becoming an essential part of our team, only underscores how important her role is to our operations. In addition, Luiza’s leadership and mentoring skills have propelled her design lab team to successfully prepare for and pass important TXDOT certifications.
In 2019, Luiza was instrumental in the developing a new product called MAC Mix (Multi-Purpose Asphaltic Concrete). MAC Mix is a UV-resistant asphalt mixture that utilizes the Balanced Mix Design concept for superior performance and longer lasting service life for municipalities. Luiza also helps run TexasBit’s Lunch and Learn presentations, in which she helps educate city engineers about MAC Mix, and offers unique solutions to existing problems they have with normal specified mixes. She has reached over 25 municipalities and presented at the American Public Works conference last year in Dallas.
Last year, Luiza’s efforts in developing MAC Mix earned her an Innovation Award from our parent company, CRH. She was also instrumental in developing CPR (Critical Pavement Repair), a High-Performance Cold Patch product for the Texas Materials Group companies (Texas Bit, Texas Materials, and Gulf Coast).
It is a testament to her character and impressive work ethic that she has accomplished so much in so little time, and we continue to be amazed by her. Congratulations on a well-earned recognition, Luiza!
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