Thyssenkrupp, the German engineering giant, announced last week that it would sell its elevator business to a group of private equity companies for $18.9B more than 2x the value of the entire parent company.

The sale was a last-ditch attempt to turn around years of declining profits.

But it was also the largest private equity deal in Europe since the 2008 financial crisis.

Simple: The market is dominated by an elevator-gopoly that keeps prices at the top floor.

Four companies command more than 60% of the elevator market:

In 2006, these 4 companies (along with rival Mitsubishi Elevator Europe) were found guilty of price fixing. They paid fines but continued to dominate the lucrative lift business.

After years of declining revenue in a struggling German economy, even Thyssenkrupps moneymaking elevators could no longer hold up its other businesses.

Thyssenkrupps debt got so heavy $7.1B on its latest earnings statement that activist investors began to call for the company to sell off its elevator business to pay down debts.

And so they did for $18.9B, or about 2.8x the entire parent companys market cap of $6.7B.

The elevator market is expected to remain strong thanks to increasing construction of tall buildings, particularly across Asia (more than 60% of new elevator installations occur in China).

And as elevators become more complex, giants like Otis have begun to sell subscription-based management services.

That service revenue is going up and fast. In 2018, Otis raked in $12.9B in revenue. The company says 45% of its revenue comes from the sales of new equipment and 55% comes from service.

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After ups and downs, Thyssenkrupp sells its elevator business at a top-floor price - The Hustle

The Square shopping center in Tallaght, Dublin required a car park refurbishment after it's existing 4,200m coating system had begun delaminating from the substrate.

Following a Triflex Intelligent Roof Protection and Living Life Outside CPD which was delivered by Business Development Manager, Andrew Stewart at McGovern Surveyors in Dublin, the attendees queried the use of Triflex surfacing and protection systems on car parks.

A surveyor within the McGovern team had recently acquired a car park refurbishment project at The Square Shopping Centre in Tallaght, near to Dublin. Initially, the plan for the project was to replace the failed 4,200m system with a 30mm thick asphalt system.

The existing liquid system had caused problems for many years, it was delaminating, cracked and badly worn. Leaving the client looking for an alternative solution to liquid waterproofing.

After discussing the project at length, it was clear there were a lot of obstacles that couldnt be overcome by using an asphalt system:

The surveyor believed that Triflex PMMA solutions may be the answer to the car parks issues, and found that our experience and extensive knowledge of waterproofing, surfacing and protecting car parks was invaluable. McGovern Surveyors decided to delay the tender package by a week and allowed Triflex to put forward a proposal.

With the tight timescale, the Triflex field technicians were quick to respond and carried out a thorough on-site investigation, including core and peel adhesion tests. Following the results of the on-site survey, a full bespoke specification was provided in time for the tender.

Following the tender process, the feedback from the surveyor was that the Triflex price was significantly cheaper than any of the asphalt proposals, but more importantly, surpassed the areas of concern where asphalt faltered. And so, the client and surveyors specified Triflex and appointed Triflex Authorised Contracting partners, Advanced Flooring Systems to provide the solution at The Square Shopping Centre car park.

Prior to any system being installed, Advanced Flooring Systems carried out all prework and preparations to the decks to ensure the best possible bond would be achieved between the substrate and the Triflex system. Often, Triflex is the ideal solution to overlay existing failed liquid systems as it has the highest levels of compatibility. However, in this case, the existing coating was in such poor condition that adhering to it would be pointless, and therefore, it would require removal of the existing liquid system before installation.

Once the failed system had been planed off and the substrate treated, installation works could begin. Cracks along the back of the beams were identified and, because cracking in the screed between the planks was so regular our partially reinforced system, Triflex DeckFloor was specified to provide a reliable solution.

Triflex DeckFloor is a heavy-duty, flexible system. Utilizing PMMA waterproofing technology and high tensile strength reinforcement in high-risk areas. The system has been used for more than 20 years and has been proved to extend building life, exceed health and safety requirements and enhance aesthetics for maximum visual impact.

It was requested that the finished decks matched the original colors of the previous system, but the newly installed system has provided a new spring of life. Triflex Preco Line 300 and Triflex Cold Plastic were installed to provide robust and lasting demarcation for the bay lines and arrows.

I would like to thank Triflex and their Field Technician Team for their continuous assistance during the installation. Their attention to detail and constant monitoring of the ongoing works proved in-valuable during the project and has helped to achieve a quality end result and a happy client, said Michael Nolan, Breffni Building & Civil Eng. Ltd. T/A Breffni Group

Triflexis the leading European specialist in liquid waterproofing products and cold plastics. Ourhigh-quality systems provide reliable and lasting solutions for waterproofing roofs, balconies, and parking decks. In addition, we prove our technology leadership time and again with a whole range of special solutions. Triflex markings set the standard on roads and cycle paths, in factories and multi-story car parks.We deliver individual solutions worldwide from our production facilities in Minden, Germany. We can boast more than 40 years of experience in the market. Reliability, focus on service and innovation are the values we work by every day in our customers interest.

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Triflex Offers The Square Shopping Centre an Excellent Alternative to Asphalt - Parking Network

The floor of the Abyssinian Meeting House has been battered and bruised since the timber-frame building was raised in Portlands historic East End neighborhood nearly 200 years ago.

Members of the citys first African-American congregation stepped to their pews and fidgeted through fiery sermons. Crowds gathered to hear moving speeches by well-known abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison. And black children studied reading, writing and arithmetic before Portlands schools were integrated.

After the church closed in 1917 a tragic result of the worst maritime disaster in New England history it was converted into several low-budget apartments. Pews were ripped out, two additional floors and many walls were added, plumbing and heating ducts were installed, and decades of tenants continued the wear and tear on the wide pine planks.

Two house fires did more damage, leaving charred and weakened timbers behind.

Now, the original floor of the historic meetinghouse is being restored. Its the latest effort by the Abyssinian Restoration Project to save and call attention to a critical and long-neglected aspect of state, local and national history.

The history that the floor reveals is amazing, said Leonard Cummings Sr., a leader of the group thats restoring the Abyssinian. Its a part of black history in Maine that has been omitted for a long time and its finally being told.

With surgical precision, skilled carpenters are removing damaged sections of the 36-by-50-foot floor and replacing them with new pine boards. Smaller holes and gaps are also being filled with carefully fitted plugs or patches known as dutchmen. All of it is being done according to strict federal standards for historic preservation and restoration.

The resulting patchwork of light- and dark-colored wood has a random beauty that perhaps only preservation advocates or a restoration contractor could love.

If you look closely at a building, youll know exactly what the builders were thinking, said Les Fossel, owner of Restoration Resources, the Alna-based company thats restoring the floor.

The project is an important step toward making the Abyssinian a community center once again.

This isnt (meant to be) a museum, Fossel said. Its a living part of the community. The idea is to create a floor that people can walk on safely. So were fixing everything someone might trip over.

In past years, floors and walls added during the 20th century have been removed. The buildings remarkable timber-frame structure was repaired and restored, along with its stone foundation. The once-sacred space now soars two stories above the original floor, making it easier to imagine the people who built and used the meetinghouse.

Built in 1828, the Abyssinian is the nations third-oldest meetinghouse built by a black congregation, after churches in Boston and Nantucket. Its listed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as a northern hub of the Underground Railroad and the anti-slavery movement.

In 1826, six free black men Reuben Ruby, Caleb Jonson, Clemant Tomson, Job Wentworth, Christopher Manuel and John Sigs published a letter in a local newspaper, announcing their plan to build a church for Portlands black community. They no longer wanted to be relegated to the back pews of Portlands white congregations.

Pardon our misapprehensions, if they be such, the men wrote, (but) we have sometimes thought our attendance was not desired.

The Abyssinian thrived through the 1800s as the religious and cultural heart of Portlands black community. Church membership took a serious blow in 1898, when the SS Portland was caught in a terrible storm and sank during a return trip from Boston.

At least 194 people died when the steamship went down, including 19 crew members who attended the Abyssinian. Two of them were church trustees. The congregation never recovered and eventually closed.

City officials sold the boarded-up, tax-delinquent property to the Committee to Restore the Abyssinian in 1998 for $250. Since then, the nonprofit group has worked to stabilize, study and restore the building through grants and donations.

Cummings said the floor restoration is part of a $75,000 project that includes two circular stairways that are being built in the entryway of the church by Thomas Thomsen, a local restoration contractor. Like the original stairways, they will serve two doorways that eventually will be restored in the buildings facade.

The next major project will be the installation of eight new, 28-paned windows like the originals that stretched over two stories. Theyll cost about $125,000 and will be installed as funding is available, Cummings said.

With each improvement, the Abyssinian moves closer to becoming the community hub that it once was.

When the floor restoration project wraps up in a week or so, the boards will be washed and treated with a forgiving oil finish. Eventually, Fossel said, the pale new wood will turn honey-colored and blend with the original boards. Visitors to the meetinghouse wont even notice the restoration work unless they look for it.

Michael Drage, one of Fossels employees, doesnt mind that his careful work will someday be ignored. On his hands and knees, the carpenter from Dresden is cutting out damaged wood and carefully patching the gaps. As he mends the warped, cracked and dinged boards, his mind wanders back through the centuries.

I think about the people who made these marks, Drage said, pointing out deep grooves in an old plank. Im just putting in a floor, but this is an important place for a lot of people.

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Where the past walked, a step forward at Abyssinian - Press Herald

TERRE HAUTE A $50,000 NBA All-Star Legacy Grant to Chances and Services for Youth has jump-started a major renovation project for the gym at the Booker T. Washington Community Center in Terre Haute, where CASY makes its home.

Renovations will include refurbishing the centers gym floor, installing foam wall pads used for basketball and installing a roll up curtain that will divide the court.

Tribune-Star/Howard GreningerBrandon Halleck, chief operating officer for Chances and Services for Youth, plans to undertake $155,000 in improvements to the Booker T. Washington Community Center, spearheaded with a $50,000 NBA All-Star Legacy Grant. Halleck said CASY also has received an additional $50,000 anonymous grant. CASY hopes to raise the remainder of funds by the start of the work in August.

In addition to the NBA grant, Brandon Halleck, CASYs chief operating officer, said the organization has received an additional $50,000 from an anonymous donor. That is leading to additional improvements including new bleachers, new roof and painting, among other items.

In all, slated improvements will cost $155,000.

Halleck said he is confident he can raise the remaining $55,000 for the project prior to an anticipated August start. CASY has until February 2021, prior to the tip of the NBA All-Star 2021 game in Indianapolis, to complete the project under the grant terms.

The NBA All-Star 2021 Host Committee on Thursday awarded 21 organizations with a grant, distributing $1 million in grants up to $50,000 to 21 brick-and-mortar projects focused on health and wellness or education. The grants were distributed among 18 Indiana counties, chosen from 182 applicants statewide.

We had an overwhelmingly positive response statewide to the grant applications, Rick Fuson, founding chairman, All-Star Board of Directors and president and chief operating officer of Pacers Sports & Entertainment, said in a news release.

Narrowing the list to 21 grant recipients involved considerable review and discussion by our Legacy Committee. They had to make tough choices amongst a pool of incredibly strong and impactful grant requests, Fuson said.

Grant factors included clear project objectives, funding and budget information, identified partners, number of people served and a demonstrated need.

This grant will further expand our services in youth sports and development and help us reach our vision that every child, every age, every chance has the opportunity to grow up safe, healthy and drug-free, Halleck said.

Part of the renovation will remove five sections of wooden pull-out bleachers, replacing them with three sections of modern bleachers with a center walkway space, which makes the bleachers more accessible and safe, Halleck said. The bleachers, which will be electronically opened and closed, will have 250 to 260 seats.

It will cost $85,000 for the three sets of bleachers, Halleck said. If we need to put more bleachers in, we can address that later on.

The gyms scoreboard will be replaced and a scorers table will be added. The gym floor will be completely stripped and refurbished with new lines for basketball and pickleball, possibly with some floor mounts for volleyball nets, Halleck said.

Additionally, the gyms interior will be painted, which will cost about $7,000, Halleck said.

A center divider now at the gym is an old panel divider system, which does not remain in place, has scratched part of the gym floor and is difficult to extend with its track not fully intact. The panels were always teetering and I could envision a panel that could fall, so we stopped using it, Halleck said.

A new divider will be vinyl with a mess top and will also be electronically operated, Halleck said.

Also, Halleck said he plans to replace lights in the gym, saying the lighting system was replaced more than eight years ago with a more efficient LED system.

We are also putting a new roof on as the gym leaks, Halleck said. The roof has been leaking and will be the first thing to be done as I dont have to shut anything down for that work to start.

The plan is to begin the interior gym project in August, after the community center ends a 10-week summer camp program. Halleck said the project must be completed within one to two months due to the centers scheduling commitments.

The center, at 13th Street and College Avenue, was constructed in 1970.

The center has not really been updated since we have been here, and we came in 2008, so it is time for a renovation, Halleck said.

Reporter Howard Greninger can be reached 812-231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com. Follow on Twitter@TribStarHoward.

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Terre Haute program gets $50000 from NBA for gym renovation - The Herald Bulletin

HAMILTON

Work recently wrapped on the Butler County Fairgrounds Event Center, a nearly 8-year-old facility that until now had remained an unfinished, all-season building.

The facility in Hamilton was constructed in 2012, but there wasnt enough money at the time to complete the project, according to Doug Turner, president of the Butler County Fair Board. It sat for years as just a shell of a building, walls lined with plastic and concrete floors making up most of the interior, Turner said.

Now, after months of renovation, all the concrete at the event center is covered with drywall and barn metal. Added to the center was a dressing room for brides and a storage room for table and chairs. The sparse kitchen was completed and painted, and an overhead door replaced plywood that had to be uninstalled and reinstalled from windows every time there was an event.

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We had a structure, but not a finished product, and now we have a finished product, he said.

Added to the fairs office was drywall in the foyer, painted walls and newly installed lighting. Floors have been polished and bathrooms repainted.

Community involvement played a part.

Its been pretty awesome as to how many organizations and people have stepped up to either donate their time, services or money and help get this project completed, Turner said. All were missing now is a parking lot.

Prior to the improvements, the Butler County Commissioners in 2018 had asked Butler County Fair board members what was on their wishlist to get done. The event center, with its exposed insulation and concrete and no drywall, was an obvious choice.

MORE: Hamilton native competing in Inked Magazine contest: The normal gal feels empowered

Commissioners made a committment to help fund the project with the Fair board, saying if the board could come up with anything up until $50,000, the county would match that amount. The fair board raised that amount, commissioners matched it and a matching grant from the Ohio Department of Agriculture brough the total raised to $150,000.

The biggest thing is, when we were showing the building to brides it just wasnt an attractive facility, Turner said. To make it look like what they wanted it to do, there just had to be an awful lot of decorating to be done.

Ray Rigby, of Brailey Promotions Inc., helped organize last months Tri-State Outdoor Show. He said the group was so pleased with the facility and its hospitality that the show officially moved it there from another location.

It is a perfect size for an event such as ours and the improvements made since our first meeting has made it a crowning jewel of your community, Rigby wrote in a letter to fairgrounds officals.

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All were missing now is a parking lot: Butler County Fairgrounds event center completed a - Hamilton Journal News

Machine vision is a mature technology with established incumbents. However, significant advancements in chipsets, software, and standards are bringing deep learning innovation into the machine vision sector.

According to a recent analysis by global tech market advisory firm ABI Research, total shipments for machine vision sensors and cameras will reach 16.9 million by 2025, creating an installed base of 94 million machine vision systems in industrial manufacturing. Of that installed base, 11% will be deep learning-based.

Machine vision systems are a staple in production lines for barcode reading, quality control, and inventory management. These solutions often have long replacement cycles and are less prone to disruption. Due to the increasing demands for automation, machine vision is finding its way into new applications, said Lian Jye Su, Principal Analyst at ABI Research. Robotics, for example, is a new growth area for machine vision: Collaborative robots rely on machine vision for guidance and object classification, while mobile robots rely on machine vision for SLAM and safety.

A different breed from conventional machine vision technology, deep learning-based machine vision is data-driven and utilizes a statistical approach, which allows the machine vision model to improve as more data is gathered for training and testing. Major machine vision vendors have realized the potential of deep learning-based machine learning. Cognex, for example, acquired SUALAB, a leading Korean-based developer of vision software using deep learning for industrial applications, and Zebra Technologies acquired Cortexica Vision Systems Ltd., a London-headquartered leader in business-to-business (B2B) AI-based computer vision solutions developer.

At the same time, chipset vendors are launching new chipsets and software stacks to facilitate the implementation of deep learning-based machine vision. Xilinx, a Field Programmable Gated Array (FPGA) vendor, partnered closely with camera sensor manufacturer Sony and camera vendors such as Framos and IDS Imaging to incorporate its Versal ACAP System on Chip (SoC). Intel, on the other hand, offers OpenVINO for developers to deploy pre-trained deep learning-based machine vision models through a common API to deliver inference solutions on various computing architectures. Another FPGA vendor, Lattice Semiconductor, focuses on low-powered Artificial Intelligence (AI) for embedded vision through its senseAI stack, which offers hardware accelerators, software tools, and reference designs. These technology stacks aim to ease development and deployment challenges and create platform stickiness.

On the standards front, vendors are bringing 10GigE (Gigabit Ethernet) and 25GigE cameras into industrial applications. Continual upgrades on video capturing and compression technologies also generate a better image and video quality for deep learning-based machine vision models. This ensures the futureproofing of machine vision systems. Therefore, when choosing machine vision systems, end implementers need to understand their machine vision requirements, consider integration with their backend system, and identify the right ecosystem partners. Deployment flexibility and future upgradability and scalability will be crucial as machine vision technology continues to evolve and improve, concludes Su.

These findings are from ABI Researchs Machine Vision in Industrial Applications application analysis report. This report is part of the companys Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.

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ABI Research: Installed base of machine vision systems in manufacturing to reach 100 million by 2025 - Modern Materials Handling

If you're sensitive to noise, there's plenty you can do to reduce unwanted sounds.

Maybe you're being acoustically assaulted from outside, upstairs or just the next room. I'll give you a few strategies to reduce noise transmission, but keep in mind that sensitivity to noise is highly subjective, and the type of noise can make a big difference. For example, continuous "white" noise may be far more tolerable than a softer noise that is intermittent. Some people are more sensitive to low, rumbling noises than others.

You usually get what you pay for, though, and there is a gradient of improvements. Some strategies may be fairly cost-effective, but they won't necessarily get you anywhere close to recording-studio sound isolation. Sadly, some people spend a lot of money trying to reduce noise and end up not being much better off because they didn't understand the best strategy for their situation and unique source of noise and how it's actually being transmitted through walls, floors and ceilings. This is one of the areas of construction where I've learned through experience that this isn't really a good area for DIYers to address not because the construction is difficult, but because the solutions are complex and first-timers probably won't be able to predict the end result with any level of certainty.

The most common objectionable situation is that you can hear people talking in the next room. Your options here are to install an acoustically absorptive material on the common walls, such as Homasote panels, either fabric-covered and exposed to the room, or underneath the Sheetrock. A more effective solution is to add a product called QuietRock basically, Sheetrock with a special acoustical core over the existing wall surface. This will help, but probably isn't going to be perfect.

An additional strategy is to increase the mass of the wall, maybe with another layer or two of Sheetrock. Ideally, you can get inside the cavity of the wall and install acoustical batt insulation. A heavy masonry wall would be optimal, of course, but seldom practical.

Historically, a resilient suspension system for holding the Sheetrock has been used to reduce noise transmission, but it's been my experience that unless this is installed very carefully by someone who knows what they are doing, this is often not very effective and can be a waste of money.

If the noise is coming from the street, you may be able to install dense landscaping which will cut down the noise level significantly. And while you might try installing acoustically designed windows, unless you also upgrade the walls to a similar noise reduction level, street noise can easily get through.

The key to the success of any wall or ceiling solution is using special acoustical sealant to caulk all joints, and to use special sound covers behind electrical outlets, switches and light fixtures so that noise doesn't sneak through. Surprisingly, small gaps can defeat a lot of hard work and money. (As one acoustical engineer told me, an ant shouldn't be able to get through.) And failing to trace the full path of noise through the structure can also mean wasted money. Noise might be traveling under a door, transmitted through the ductwork or through the ceiling joists.

If your source of noise is mechanical equipment, such as a furnace, you may need to look into ways of mounting the equipment so that its vibration is not being transmitted through the structure. Often, you can install special acoustical vibration dampers.

If it's the person upstairs who is causing you grief, you may be dealing with impact noise rather than airborne noise, which requires a completely different strategy. Even heavy concrete floors are no match for impact noise. (I remember as a college student, one of our favorite pranks in the dorm was to drop metal ball bearings on our concrete floor to torture our poor neighbors on the floor below.) The best way to deal with impact noise is to have a floor that is either highly cushioned such as carpet on a thick pad or add a special cushioned layer below hardwood or tile floors, which will then need to "float" above the actual structure.

An acoustical engineer can be an excellent investment to make sure that you aren't wasting your money, since different types of noise require different strategies, and different strategies have different levels of effectiveness. Especially in a condo situation, where you may need to prove a certain level of sound isolation to your homeowners association, an acoustical engineer can take before-and-after measurements of sound levels to prove your compliance with the condo's rules.

The science of acoustics is complex and the building code is filled with terms like "sound transmission class" (for airborne noise) and "impact isolation class" (for impact noise) to be able to compare different construction systems. If noise is disrupting your life, I highly encourage a consultation with a professional. And certainly, if you are thinking about remodeling or adding to your house, it is far, far less expensive to incorporate noise-reduction features when it's being built initially than afterwards. Talk about your noise concerns with your designer.

Richard Morrison, AIA is a residential architect and interior designer with a Bay Area practice specializing in home remodeling. His website is richardmorrison.com.

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Sound causing fury in your home? Get tips on a variety of solutions to dampen the noise - Palo Alto Online

I would tell you my emotional responses to the gorgeous works in the Donald Judd retrospective that has opened at the Museum of Modern Art if I had any. I was benumbed, as usual, by this last great revolutionary of modern art. The boxy objects (he refused to call them sculptures) that Judd constructed between the early nineteen-sixties and his death, from cancer, in 1994, irreversibly altered the character of Western aesthetic experience. They displaced traditional contemplation with newfangled confrontation. Thats the key trope of Minimalism, a term that Judd despised but one that will tag him until the end of time. In truth, allowing himself certain complexities of structure and color, he was never as radically minimalist as his younger peers Dan Flavin (fluorescent tubes) and Carl Andre (units of raw materials). But Judd, a tremendous art critic and theorist, had foreseen the change (imagine, in theatre, breaking the fourth wall permanently) well before his first show of mature work, in 1963, when he was thirty-five. Slowly, by erosive drip through the nineteen-sixties and seventies, the idea that an exhibition space is integral to the art works that it contains took hold. It is second nature for us nowso familiar that encountering Judds works at moma may induce dj vu.

We are talking about, for example, an untitled piece from 1964: a wall-mounted, square-sectioned, polished brass tube, seven feet long, from which descend five vertical tubes in iron, lacquered blue. Of the same vintage, theres a rectangular box, almost four feet long, with a top and sides of translucent orange Plexiglas and ends of hot-rolled steel. The works register as material propositions of certain principleschiefly, openness and clarity. They arent about anything. They afford no traction for analysis while making you more or less conscious of your physical relation to them, and to the space that you and they share. As installed by the curator Ann Temkin, with perfectly paced samples of Judds major motifsamong them, floor-to-ceiling stacks of shelflike units, mostly of metal-framed, tinted Plexiglas, which expose and flavor the space they occupythe second of the shows four big rooms amounts to a Monument Valley of the minimalist sublime. Dont miss it. Less enchanting, though expertly appointed, are a room of tentative early work and two that feature such later developments as boothlike, angled constructions, at joins of wall and floor, in raw plywood; large aluminum boxes containing differently oriented, lushly colored sheets of Plexiglas; and a huge congeries, nearly six feet high by more than twenty-four feet long, of stacked, bolted, and multicolored horizontal aluminum open boxes.

Not represented are Judds curatorial adventures, which included an exquisitely revamped building at 101 Spring Street, where he lived for a time and experimented with ways of installing art. It has been preserved as a museum. Then came the artists Bayreuth, his Mecca, in the remote (from anywhere!) desert town of Marfa, West Texas. There, starting in 1971, he converted old military, civic, commercial, and domestic buildings to house permanent and temporary installations of his work, that of artists he favored, and his collections of Navajo blankets and other choice craft objects. He also created studios, guest quarters, and his own living space, tucked into one end of a former gymnasium.

Works by Judd are almost routinely beautiful, but coldly and even imperiously so, as if their quality were none of your business. If you have any feeling, it might be chagrin at being underqualified to cope with so rigorous a visual intelligence. Hes Donald Judd; youre not. He came on as a Savonarola of art in early writings and interviews, preaching a chastened aesthetic that should be non-naturalistic, non-imagistic, non-expressionist, in addition to unrelational, nonillusionistic, and neither painting nor sculpture. That dispenses with an awful lot of what normally appeals to people about art, leaving, in my case, a state of chilled awe. The one solid pleasure still provided is that of decoration: art that is meant not to be looked at but to be seen in relation to the environments that it enhanceskeeping in mind that Judds ideal environments are voids. (Come to that, we owe to Minimalism the stubborn fashion in architecture and design of hygienically spare, white-walled interiors and sleekly simplified commodities.) Success did not mellow him. Nor was he much given to humor. His statement of purpose, in 1986, for the Chinati Foundation, which he instituted for Marfa, admits no doubt about the grandeur, and the grandiosity, of his enterprise: Somewhere, just as the platinum-iridium meter guarantees the tape measure, a strict measure must exist for the art of this time and place. Visiting those places, youre not an art lover. Youre a pilgrim.

Judd was born in 1928 in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, the son of a Western Union executive. In 1948, after Army service, he began studies that led to a degree in philosophy andbut for a thesisone in art history, from Columbia University. His early work evolved from so-so abstract painting to such tentative three-dimensional experiments as the relief of a yellow, concave, plastic letter from a sign embedded in a Masonite panel painted cadmium red light (a favorite Judd hue). Manually, he was a klutz. Nothing quite fits in his initial constructions, and his drawing style is rudimentary. His first really strong workswoodblocks, from 1961, of tine-like vertical stripes contained by a diagonal shapewere executed by his father, Roy (who co-signed the backs). Starting in 1964, almost everything Judd made was commercially fabricated. He was a thinker and a designer of far-seeing intellect and, if you will, profound taste. Indeed, his main holdover from modernism was a high seriousness in matters of discrimination, asserting preferences as gauges of integrity that expand beyond the aesthetic to the moral. You cant know now from looking only at his work that his politics were left-libertarian, but he seemed sure that sophisticated viewers would implicitly understand his stance. The populism of Andy Warhol repelled him, but he found Roy Lichtensteins formal prowess hugely satisfying.

Judds extraordinary connoisseurship shines in the reviews he wrotesome six hundred of thembetween 1959 and 1965, most for Arts Magazine. Gathered in a cherishable book, Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975, they combine lucid description and fearless judgment in a bracingly forthright, no-nonsense style that makes other critics of the time, and most of us since then, seem flabby by comparison. Almost always, when an artist is familiar to me Judds assessment is penetrating and dead-on correct, while never gentle. (Imagine being Charles Cajori, a fair-to-middling second-generation Abstract Expressionist, and reading a review of your work that begins The color is gray, varied some, and a little grayed blue and orange. It could not be less considered.) Judds later writing, from the seventies to the nineties, runs to jeremiads against the thick-headedness and what he deemed the incompetence of art-world institutions. He regularly had good reason to complain of damage to his works returned from museum shows. Minimalist art was long vulnerable to art handlers and viewers who barely saw it as art, and to children who mistook it for playground equipment. Absolute physical perfection, destructible by a nick or a fingerprint, is as essential to Judds aesthetic as it was, before him, to Brancusis, and, more recently, to that of Jeff Koons.

A wonderment of the MOMA show is that it is installed with no physical, or even indicated, barriers. Temkin, fingers crossed, acknowledged to me that the presence of the works would be compromised otherwise. Its worth pausing to note that probably only MOMA commands the clout, the cash, and the expertise to gather, from many collections, the number and quality of so many fragile treasures. The chance surely wont recur to take the measureplatinum-iridium grade or notof an artist whose influence on our art and, sub rosa, our lives in common, remains beyond large, engulfing.

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The Cold, Imperious Beauty of Donald Judd - The New Yorker

Editors Note: The following story ran in the Feb. 26 special edition of Todays Women.

THOMASVILLE - Thomasvilles Parks and Recreation director Vickie McKiver has a true passion for her job.

McKiver has been the parks and recreation director for eight-and-a-half years. She enjoys building the trust of Thomasville citizens and making a difference in their lives.

It was always one of my goals to become a director of parks and recreation because I love working with people and I enjoy planning programs, athletic programs and special events that will enhance the life of others, she said.

McKiver said she enjoys partnering with different agencies that allows the city to build good working relationships thus enabling her department to offer programs and activities for the citizens. When she became director of Thomasville Parks and Recreation, she helped lead an effort to renovate five playgrounds by putting new equipment in each playground. The name of the playgrounds are Carver Park, Memorial Park, Central Park, Turner Street Park and Doak Park.

Doak Park is (designed) for children with disabilities and it has a rubber foundation and the other parks have kid cushion mulch for their foundation, McKiver said. We (refurbished) the windows at our recreation main office. We renovated Strickland Center and added a new shelter. We renovated the skate park and we are in the process now of renovating the gym at Central Recreation Center. We renovated the floors at Ball Park Recreation Center and we renovated the scoreboard at Finch Field. We just built a new Disc Golf Course at Memorial Park.

McKiver said she is very proud to be able to get funding and support from the Thomasville City Council, Finch Foundation, Rotary Club and Novant Health. The support enables her to be able to do the renovations to the facilities and parks.

As director, McKiver's responsibilities are preparing the annual budget requested by city manager and city council, preparing capital improvements plan for our department, presenting to the city council and recreation committee information on budgeting and other departmental matters, ensuring that revenue is properly accounted for, preparing regular reports for city council and recreation committee, overseeing all city recreation programming, overseeing marketing and publicity tied to recreation programming, assisting with fundraising initiatives for our department, supervising department staff and monitoring policy compliance while ensuring appropriate staffing levels for the usage of facilities.

McKiver said a normal workday is overseeing the budget and the operations of the parks and recreation department and supervising the recreation staff while interacting with other department heads.

Under her leadership, the city has installed a new AC unit at Ball Park Center and the recreation main office. The city also replaced lights at Cushwa Stadium.

We installed a new HVAC at Central Recreation Center, McKiver said. We are renovating the gym at Central Recreation Center with new windows, new LED lights, new doors, painted the gym, removed fans and installed windows, added new basketball brackets to our existing goals, removed the press box, painted the outside of the building, and a new wooden gym floor for basketball, volleyball and pickle ball. We renovated the equipment at our skate park, painted the foundation, installed a new entrance gate and a new sign with the rules and guidelines. We designed and installed a new Disc Golf course at Memorial Park, it is a Premiere nine-hole course.

In recognition of her work, McKiver has received the Martin Luther King Award in Thomasville. She has 34 years of service with North Carolina Recreation & Park Association. She also has received the Arts and Humanity Award for the Dot Slick Chick Cloggers.

McKiver said she has loved working for the City of Thomasville because the city is all a family. Each department is willing to help when needed, she said.

I want to thank Kelly Craver, City Manager, and Tony Jarrett, finance director, for their support, McKiver said.

McKiver graduated from High Point College, now High Point University, in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in physical education. She said her mother, Ella McLean, encouraged all of her children to get a good education, set goals and strive to achieve them.

She taught us to respect others, McKiver said.

Some of her lifes highlights include being a member of the 1978 National Championship women's basketball team at High Point College. McKiver received a basketball and volleyball scholarship from High Point College in 1976.

In her spare time, she loves to read, watch sports and spend time with her family, especially her grandson. She said her interest is to serve God and be the servant that he called her to be.

Her husband is Abraham McKiver, who works for High Point University. She has three daughters, Latasha Jacobs, an employee for State Employees Credit in Archdale; Ashley McKiver, who works at Enterprise in Charlotte; and Nora McKiver, who works at Butler High School and is training to run track professionally. Her grandson is 3-year-old Mekhi Jacobs.

Darrick Ignasiak is a freelance writer and former crime reporter for The Dispatch.

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McKiver reaches goal as director - Lexington Dispatch

CARLETON, P.E.I.

Trout River Industries may have found an in with one of the most cutting-edge companies in the world.

In an interview with the Journal Pioneer, the president and the founder of Trout River Industries give the gist of their November phone conversation with officials with The Boring Company.

When they called us, they said, We are sitting around watching your videos right now, said Darrin Mitchell.

They watched all our videos on YouTube and called us up and said, We think you might have the solution were looking for.

The Boring Company, owned by Elon Musk of the Tesla and SpaceX companies, completed a test tunnel near Los Angeles, Calif., and was working on a transportation loop under the Las Vegas Convention Centre. Paving the tunnels floor proved to be a challenge, though.

Trout River Industries, an Island-owned business, builds live-bottom and shuttle floor trailers for trucking industries around the world.

Mitchell and company founder Harvey Stewart made their way to L.A. where they toured the test tunnel and agreed they could build a modified trailer to travel it.

"You dont get that phone call every day so, when you do, you hop on a plane and make stuff happen, said Mitchell. He added he was stoked about supplying a technological solution to a world leader in innovation.

The modified trailer was built and delivered. This week it started supplying asphalt to a small paving machine.

Its tight quarters, Stewart explained. The drilled tunnel is 14-feet in diameter and once re-enforced the opening is just 12 feet in diameter. A traditional trailer just wouldnt fit.

They asked if we could help them out because there was no way to get the asphalt and the gravel in the tunnel after theyd dug the hole, Stewart said.

The Boring Company had bucketed the gravel and asphalt in for the test tunnel.

The trailer, delivered with bold Trout River and The Boring Company decals on the sides, has its own diesel motor power source.

The decals are strategic.

We just figured, if (Musk) is at a press release somewhere, someday, hes going to go, whats that'? Mitchell said.

Its us. Dont forget us; were the one that helped you, Stewart said.

If the Boring Company had not been pressed for time, Trout River wouldve used an electrical power source, keeping with plans the Tesla founder has in mind for the tunnels. A 15-minute walk across the Las Vegas Convention Centre can be trimmed to a minute in the tunnel using compatible autonomous electric vehicles, capable of reaching speeds of 165 miles per hour.

The Boring Company attached the trailer to a truck which had to be cut down to fit in the tunnel. It did not have an external power supply and Trout River installed a diesel engine to power the live-bottom floor.

Mitchell and Stewart are hoping their test unit will be the first of many sales to Musks suite of companies.

If it works, wed like to be part of it. If it doesnt, were awfully glad we got this far (because) I think it just highlights a lot of our ability to innovate, said Mitchell.

And our ability to respond, said Stewart.

In a video they shot before shipping off the trailer, they joke about finding a way to get the trailer into space, a reference to Musks SpaceX tests and experiments. The flame-throwers they attached for the video were removed prior to shipping.

Theres a lot of pride in knowing our Island innovation has value all over the world, Stewart said.

We have been involved in wind turbine projects but this this may be the biggest green project yet.

Theyre still waiting feedback on how well the modified trailer performs. They might get to see for themselves, soon, as they will be back in Las Vegas March 10 to 14 for ConExpo, North Americas largest construction equipment trade show.

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P.E.I. company supplies innovative solution to tunnelling project - The Journal Pioneer