NEWARK , November 10, 1999 -Thirteen New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) students paving their road to success recently learned what it takes to pave America's highways and byways at a unique NJIT-Tilcon New Jersey Hot-Mix Seminar at the asphalt manufacturer's Millington Quarry in Basking Ridge.

      Tilcon New Jersey, a division of Tilcon New York, is an integrated aggregates, asphalt producer and paving contractor serving the northern New Jersey and New York area. The company's participation in earth science and technical education programs has helped it earn numerous community relations awards.

      The Construction Technology students, all seniors in NJIT Professor David Washington's Paving Engineering class, learned how modern technology involving both massive earth moving equipment and precision engineering is used to crush, separate and mix 200-million-year-old basalt rock into highway pavement able to withstand the rigors of heavy traffic and weather.

      With students listening and watching in rapt attention during a classroom session in Tilcon's Central Materials Laboratory, the Company's Aggregate Quality Control Manager Lou Noftsier explained how far highway technology has come since 18th Century Scotsman John L. McAdam discovered that crushed stone makes great roadway material because it grows more compact and stronger with use.

      "It's a lot more complicated today," said Noftsier.

     Today's highways are constructed of material that must meet the high standards defined in the so-called Superpave method of testing.

      Among many other requirements, said Noftsier, Superpave requires that stone particles ranging from an inch to micron size be angular so they won't slip or "flow" under pressure, and that the asphalt that binds the stone together hold up under certain temperature ranges, depending on the geographic location in which it is being used.

      Earlier in this century, he noted, there was no recipe as to what constituted a good or bad mix; "They took some crushed stone, put some sticky stuff on it -- asphalt, the heavy portion of crude oil that doesn't flow under room temperature -- and laid it down."

      Noftsier explained how in the 1950's, the need for a national highway defense network (which ultimately became the Interstate Highway System) prompted the need to develop uniform paving mixture standards. In response, the Hveem Method, the Marshall Method and most recently, -- in answer to highway wear and tear caused by radial tires - the Superpave method were developed.

      As students gathered around various laboratory devices, Technicon Quality Control Technician James Panarisi demonstrated how a Superpave test batch is produced by carefully weighing all ingredients, heating and compacting them, and then measuring the stability of the pavement sample produced and its flow when put under pressure.

      "I'm absolutely getting a lot out of this," noted 22-year-old NJIT student Alfred Minacapelli of Edison, who plans to work for his dad's construction company, Alfredo Minacapelli General Contractors, Edison, after he graduates in May.

      On a bus tour of the quarry, students - many of whom had never seen one before - looked wide-eyed at the massive equipment needed to wrest stone from the earth and turn it into crushed rock aggregate and eventually asphalt or blacktop. Among these was a huge power shovel with a scoop large enough to hold an entire class of college students.

      They got a close up look at the giant haul trucks with driver's cabs 25 feet above the road that are used to transport newly dug stone for processing. "Take my picture," urged NJIT student Daniel Sondej, 20, as he stood next to the hub well of a huge truck wheel.

      Also impressed was John Wachter, a 30-year-old student from Woodbridge who is managing to carry 19 credits this semester while fitting in his job as an assistant project manager for Garlatti Construction in Highland Park. John worked for several years as a computer-aided design draftsman for a construction company before going to college.

      As Wachter and other students viewed the quarry plant from the tour bus, Panarisi described the different procedures for crushing, screening and separating stone into different aggregate sizes and consistencies for various uses - larger sizes for such jobs as road sub-bases and erosion control, and smaller for road surfaces.

      Listening intently to Panarisi was Dutch-born 22-year-old Student Jan Van Pijkeren, who plans to head back to his hometown, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, after he graduates in June.

      Van Pijkeren came to NJIT at the urging of his father, an industrial engineer with Phillips Electronics. After looking around, he decided that NJIT had the best program in the region.

      "All this is really interesting," said Jan. "It's one of the reasons I want to do project management -- one day you may be building a road and the next, a bridge."

      Or even an island. One exciting project in which Van Pijkeren hopes to participate, he says, is aimed at building a manmade island-airport in the North Sea. "The (Netherlands) government hasn't decided to go ahead yet, but if they do, maybe I'll be able to use some of what I learned here today."

      NJIT is a public research university enrolling nearly 8,200 bachelor's, master's and doctoral students in 83 degree programs through its five colleges: Newark College of Engineering, School of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, the School of Management and the Albert Dorman Honors College. Research initiatives include manufacturing, microelectronics, multimedia, transportation, computer science, solar astrophysics, environmental engineering and science, and architecture and building science.

     Yahoo! Internet Life magazine has ranked NJIT as America's "most wired" public university for two consecutive years, U.S. News and World Report's 1999 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT among the nation's top universities, and Money magazine's most recent issue of Best College Buys rated NJIT as the sixth best value among U.S. science and technology schools and among the top 100 overall. In September 1999, Mademoiselle ranked NJIT as the second most Internet-connected university in the nation.