23 Terracon and Women of Asphalt Member We recently sat down with Terracon’s Alicia Winterstein and got to knowmore about her career, her life, and the benefits of her membership in the Women of Asphalt. We enjoyed getting to knowmore about her and want to thank her for time. You are from Chicago! What brought you to Utah? My parents moved out here for work when I was 14. I’ve been here more than half my life, so I consider myself a Utah native. Chicago is too cold and bitter in the winter because of the winds. It is to-the-bone cold, and I don’t miss that at all. What is your academic background? I have high school and some general college courses here and there, but no degree. However, I hope to go back to school at some point and get a degree in safety. When I started at Terracon, I had never worked in a materials lab, with asphalt or in construction. Now I am the Office Safety Coordinator and Radiation Safety Officer, too. It’s been great, and I’ve learned a lot. Work here is all about the certifications you have. I have been able to get some laboratory certifications the last couple of years: • Embankment • Aggregate • Lab 1 (which covers certifications the first two don’t) • Asphalt How did you become a Terracon lab tech? Previously, I had worked in the service industry and as a teaching assistant. However, I had never done anything like this before. A friend who had worked at Terracon for several years knew I liked looking at pretty rocks on hikes and told me about the lab job opportunity. I applied, and they hired me even though I had no experience. It has been fun to learn everything. Would you please tell us a little about your job? I work in the Materials Testing lab at Terracon. We do compaction soil tests, check plastic limits, test concrete and brake cylinders. We also test a lot of asphalt, do extraction testing, calculate theoretical densities, and ensure the mix design matches the test. In addition to my lab responsibilities, I am the Office Safety Coordinator and Radiation Safety Officer. As Terracon’s Office Safety Coordinator, I help enforce safety policies, and I make sure people have adequate stocks of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and are wearing it. At a minimum, PPE includes safety glasses, work-appropriate gloves and hard hats. As the Radiation Safety Officer, I ensure all the paperwork is in order and in compliance with DOT regulations for our nuclear gauges, which have a nuclear source and are used for conducting density and moisture tests in asphalt and soils. Work is a lot of fun. We run some tests every day, but sometimes we get interesting tests we don’t get to run that often. How has the pandemic affected your work? Terracon is a national company, and we have Corporate policies to keep employees safe. We have a Corporatewide COVID response team and then another team in the office on the local level to stay safe despite the increased business. Everyone is taking precautions. When we work in the same building, we take care of each other and are safe for each other. For us, everyone in the lab is spread out. Each station in the lab has 6 feet of distance between workstations. We sanitize them and sanitize tools so other people can use them. Also, we wear running masks while running samples. The asphalt samples are 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and it is super hot. Terracon has grown in Utah because there was a lot of time to look for projects after the pandemic shutdown started. We have gotten busier and busier and busier since the pandemic started. Work should slow down in December for the construction industry, but it didn’t slow down this year or last year. The company found more work, and the regular work did not disappear. We have more people working and more tests being run. What is Terracon’s link to UAPA? Terracon has been involved with UAPA for many years because of its relevance to our work every day and MEET ALICIA WINTERSTEIN continued on page 24
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