Charles F. Potts, chairman of the board of Indianapolis-based Heritage Construction & Materials, and past chairman (2008) of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), is the 2014 recipient of the George S. Bartlett Award. It was presented to him Sept. 30 during ARTBA’s National Convention in Philadelphia.
Established in 1931, and co-sponsored by ARTBA, the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the Bartlett Award annually recognizes an individual who “has made an outstanding contribution to highway progress.”
Potts’ career in the transportation construction industry spans more than 40 years. A native of Winston-Salem, NC, Potts is a former CEO for Heritage Construction & Materials, and former president of Ashland’s APAC, Inc., which, at the time, was the largest highway construction contractor in the U.S. He also had a distinguished career in public service, serving the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) for 16 years as head of its materials and research program and as its director of construction.
Potts is a recognized expert in the field of hot mixed asphalt materials and construction, and is the author or co-author of over 100 technical papers on those subjects. He is a former chairman of the board of the National Asphalt Pavement Association, former chairman and current board member of the National Center for Asphalt Technology at Auburn University, past president of the Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists, past member of the board of the National Sand, Stone and Gravel Association and past chairman of the board for the International Center for Aggregates Research at the University of Texas. He serves his alma mater as a member of The Citadels’ Engineering and Civil Engineering Advisory Councils.
Potts has spent many years advocating the national need for a long-term transportation program that boosts federal investment in highways, bridges and transit systems and that includes a coordinated, long-term strategy to facilitate the safe and efficient movement of goods.
The George S. Bartlett Award is named for the man regarded as the greatest single influence on the use of concrete roads in the United States. During his career, Bartlett was lauded by contemporaries in the concrete and highway industry for his energetic and innovative promotion of concrete roads. In 1909, he established experimental stretches of concrete working with the Wayne County Road Commission in Michigan – the birthplace of modern road construction - and the University Portland Cement Company.
