Charles “Rocky” Turner, one of the founders of LPR Construction in Loveland, Colo., died April 16 at age 74.

After graduating from Ball State University with a master's degree in industrial engineering, he spent some time teaching shop before moving west, where he and two close friends, Larry Boyd and Pete Carner, founded LRP Construction in 1979. Within a decade, LPR had grown to be one of the nation’s leading steel erection firms with notable projects including the America West Arena (now PHX Arena), Coors Field, Denver Art Museum, Dicks Stadium, and Marlins Park (now LoanDepot Park).

A draft of the next edition of the AISC Code of Standard Practice for Steel Buildings and Bridges (AISC 303) is now available for public review and comment.

The next edition of AISC 303 will supersede the 2022 version and is anticipated to be finalized in 2027.

Over a dozen companies collaborated closely with the Ohio Department of Transportation to help restore the damaged structure days ahead of the expedited schedule.

It took a little over three months—ahead of an already-accelerated emergency repair timeline—to get traffic flowing again after arsonists set fire to the playground beneath the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge in Cincinnati. 

Known locally as the “Big Mac Bridge”—since, when seen from afar, its yellow-painted double-arched design resembles the ubiquitous yellow-arched logo of a well-known global fast-food chain—the I-471 Daniel Carter Beard Bridge serves, once again, as a vital route for the region connecting downtown Cincinnati with Newport, Ky., traversed by over 55,000 vehicles per day. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) had been forced to declare emergency closures of its southbound lanes following the Nov. 1, 2024, fire.

The latest version of the Specification for Safety-Related Steel Structures for Nuclear Facilities (ANSI/AISC N690-24) is now available at aisc.org/standards.

This version supersedes the 2018 edition and is derived from the 2022 Specification for Structural Steel Buildings. It includes significant updates to the requirements for steel-plate composite structural elements incorporating the latest research, a new appendix containing special design provisions for impactive and impulsive loading, and modifications to the nondestructive testing provisions for ultrasonic and radiographic testing.

Donald R. Sherman, a former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a leading expert on hollow structural steel (HSS) connections, died March 26 at age 89.

Born in Cleveland, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University) and then obtained his PhD in structural engineering from the University of Illinois. He worked for ESSO Research before joining the faculty at UWM, where he retired as a professor emeritus in 1997.

Sherman was a long-time member of the AISC Committee on Specifications and the Structural Stability Research Council. He was widely regarded as an expert on the design and behavior of HSS, for which he was honored in 2002 with an AISC lifetime achievement award.