A team of students of the Concrete Industry Management (CIM) program from California State University, Chico and Middle Tennessee State University traveled to France in September to continue concrete bunker evaluation and research at the World War II D-Day landing site at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, France.

Pointe du Hoc was one of the key locations for the historic World War II D-Day landing in June 1944. During their time abroad, the students learned first-hand about historic concrete deterioration, state-of-the-art non-destructive evaluation, and about this important site and its history. Following the first trip to work at the site in 2008 by the Chico State team, the recent trip included four students from Chico as well as two students from Tennessee.

Pointe du Hoc is one of the most culturally important sites of the 1944 World War II Normandy invasion. The coastal battery consists of a variety of structures such as gun emplacements, casements, and personnel and ammunition bunkers. Constructed as part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall campaign, it was strategically placed between the Utah and Omaha invasion beaches. An American military cemetery is located several miles from the Pointe.

Tanya Wattenburg Komas, Ph.D., director of the Chico State CIM program, set up the research opportunity with colleagues at Texas A&M University. The team from A&M had been working for several years with the American Battle Monuments Commission on a project to survey the site and evaluate the cliffs of the historic landing site on which the concrete structures rest.

The Chico team was invited to participate in the project in 2008 to do an initial assessment of the condition of the concrete structures and provide needed information about the depths of the foundations.

The recent work focused on in-depth evaluation of six of the key structures, including non-destructive testing and laboratory analysis of concrete core samples, which will result in Historic Structure Reports (HSR's) for each of the structures. The project is planned to continue for several years, culminating in HSR's for all 20 structures at the site.

Recognizing the need for people with enhanced technical, communication and management skills, the CIM program (ConcreteDegree.com) was developed in 1996. The individuals graduating from this program will have the skill set necessary to meet the growing demands of the progressively changing concrete industry of the 21st century.