UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — J. Thomas Hill, chairman of the board, president and CEO of Vulcan Materials Company, will give the 2016 G. Albert Shoemaker Lecture in Mineral Engineering at Penn State. Hill will give the lecture "Aggregate Mining — You Can't Live Without Us" at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 8, in 22 Deike Building on the University Park campus. A reception will be held from 4-4:30 p.m. in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ Museum and Art Gallery. The event is free and open to the public.
Hill has been with Vulcan for more than 25 years, serving in a variety of operations and general management assignments of increasing responsibility since first joining the company in 1979. He was elected chairman of the board for Vulcan Materials Company in December 2015, and president and chief executive officer in July 2014. Hill worked for Redlands Stone Products from 1990 to 1996 in sales and operations management, before rejoining Vulcan as vice president and general manager of the company’s Southwest Division.
Hill serves on the boards of directors for the National Stone Sand and Gravel Association, United Way of Central Alabama, Birmingham Business Alliance, and the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and the Wharton School of Business, Executive Management Program.
Vulcan Materials Company, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, is the nation’s largest producer of construction aggregates — primarily crushed stone, sand and gravel — and a major producer of aggregates-based construction materials including asphalt and ready-mixed concrete.
The G. Albert Shoemaker Lecture Series in Mineral Engineering was established in 1992 by Mercedes G. Shoemaker to honor the memory of her husband, a Pittsburgh civic and industrial leader who was dedicated to supporting higher education. G. Albert Shoemaker, a Penn State Distinguished Alumnus, had an eminent career in the mineral industries. He was for many years a leader of the coal industry, serving as president of the Pittsburgh Coal Division of Babcock & Wilcox and later as president of Consolidation Coal Co. from 1960 to 1966. Among many civic and philanthropic activities, he served as a member of the Penn State Board of Trustees from 1957 to 1978 and as board chairman from 1970 to 1972.
For more information about the Shoemaker Lecture, visit http://www.eme.psu.edu/content/2016-g-albert-shoemaker-lecture-mineral-engineering.