Brad Cobbledick, retired Vice President of Technical Services of Brampton Brick Limited in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, was presented with ICPI’s Honorary Membership award on August 16 at the CMHA Midyear Meeting held at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego, California.
ICPI’s Honorary Membership award provides an opportunity for its members and partners to be recognized on a national level for their superior work and contribution to the interlocking concrete pavement industry.
Brad graduated in 1985 with a ceramic engineering degree from McMaster University located in Hamilton, Ontario. Before retiring last year, Brad was Vice President of Technical Services for Brampton Brick where he worked for over 25 years. He also worked at Saint-Gobain Advanced Ceramics, a ceramics product manufacturer, for eight years.
Brad is equally comfortable in the technical arena of clay brick production and manufactured concrete products. Evidence of this is from his involvement with Brampton, which manufactures clay bricks in Indiana and Ontario. In the clay and concrete spheres, his constant aim was always to manufacture the highest quality products in the marketplace.
Brad is well-known in the ceramics and brick world. He’s published dozens of technical papers through the Canadian Ceramic Society and the National Brick Research Center based at Clemson University. He’s a past president and fellow of the Ceramic Society and a past chair of the Brick Research Center, which he also earned speaker of the year in 2009.
Besides serving on a technical committee on clay masonry, Brad served on the Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee on Precast Concrete Paving Elements Committee for 8 years. This committee was responsible for updating the Canadian paver and slab product standards. He brought his expertise and experience in product manufacturing and testing methods.
Brad was a member of the ASTM C15 Committee on Manufactured Masonry Units and served on subcommittees involved in testing brick and pavers. For pavers, he made a big impact by including optional freeze-thaw durability testing in ASTM C936. In addition, Brad received the Gilbert C. Robinson award from ASTM in 2012. This prestigious award was for “exceptional technical contributions that assist C15 Committee in its work and advances the state-of-the-art within the scope of the committee.”
Brad has an impressive resume with ICPI. He started his participation with the association in 2008 as a member of the ICPI Technical Committee. He served on this committee continuously until his retirement in 2020. He also served on the ICPI Executive Committee from 2017 to 2020. In another service to ICPI, he was a member of the Literature Review Committee from 2015 to 2021. That committee reviewed all publications, press releases and other information prior to release to the public. Brad advanced the longer-term potential of pavers and ICPI by serving three times on the Strategic Planning Committee. The strategic plan became another avenue to actualize his passion for quality in manufacturing. Brad drafted a guide for best manufacturing practices and was appointed and served on a Technical Committee task group that enhanced the manual. He also appointed a task group to develop brief PowerPoint modules as a refresher for plant personnel. As Chair, Brad also represented the ICPI Technical Committee by serving on the ICPI Foundation Program Committee.
Brad was best known for his friendly attitude when it came to sharing technical knowledge and providing the industry with his time, experience and resources. To everyone’s delight, he had the gift of balancing perspectives on technical subjects thanks to his manufacturing experience and extensive knowledge of materials.
In recognition of his incredible technical talents and contribution, the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute is proud to bestow Brad Cobbledick with the ICPI Honorary Membership Award.
CMHA is the national trade association representing multiple market segments within the manufactured concrete products community, including concrete masonry, segmental concrete pavement, segmental retaining walls, articulating concrete block, and manufactured stone veneer.
