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Local Engineer Wins TxDOT Award

AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Transportation is proud to announce its 2009 Dewitt C. Greer Award winner as Duane A. Schwarz, TxDOT’s Waco District Director of Construction.

Schwarz, described as calm, supportive and highly professional started out working at TxDOT for four years as a summer employee before signing on full time.

Those with whom he has worked see him as a person who demonstrates attention-to-detail and an exemplary work ethic that has gained noteworthy respect from coworkers, peers and community leaders alike.

Schwarz displayed leadership qualities very early on in his TxDOT career, where he worked in a lead resident engineer position office for three years. In this position, he devoted his service to the community by working to provide a safe transportation system – his number one priority.

When area citizens brought concerns to his attention he gathered stakeholders and developed solutions that resolved the issues.

Later, Schwarz took over the largest area office in the TxDOT Waco district, spearheading major safety and mobility projects on one of the state’s busiest travel corridors – Interstate 35.

During this tenure he earned statewide - even national - recognition as an expert in pavement materials and highway construction, especially Hot Mix Asphaltic Concrete (HMAC) pavement. Schwarz innovatively displayed a willingness to take risks. One trial led to an experiment using copy machine toner as an asphalt binder modifier for HMAC, and piloting the first project in the state for a heavy-duty riding surface known today as Porous Friction Course, or PFC.

In non-technical terms, PFC increases safety on highways where it is used, especially in wet weather, because it gets water off the road quicker and noticeably improves visibility during rain. It also reduces road noise as vehicles travel over it.

Schwarz was selected to rewrite TxDOT’s asphalt pavement specification in 2004 and continues to solve problems and pave the way for new construction processes leading in the development of the first large scale Post-Tension Concrete Pavement project.

Last year, he was nationally recognized for excellence and leadership by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute for TxDOT’s first totally prefabricated bridge system constructed on I-35.

Schwarz - an extremely proud Aggie parent with a son and daughter enrolled at Texas A & M University - with all of his professional obligations and church activities, can still lead you to some of the best fishing spots in central Texas.

The Dewitt C. Greer Award is named for one of the legends in the Texas highway industry, a man whose career spanned more than 50 years with the department from 1927 to 1981. The award recognizes and rewards the skill, dedication, civic mindedness, innovation, and performance excellence of TxDOT engineers.

For more information, contact TxDOT Government and Public Affairs Division at (512) 463-8588.

The Texas Department of Transportation
The Texas Department of Transportation is responsible for maintaining nearly 80,000 miles of road and for supporting aviation, rail and public transportation across the state. TxDOT and its 13,000 employees strive to empower local leaders to solve local transportation problems, and to use new financial tools, including tolling and public-private partnerships, to reduce congestion and pave the way for future economic growth while enhancing safety, improving air quality and preserving the value of the state's transportation assets. Find out more by visiting our Website.