AUSTIN, TX — Beaumont resident Kal Kincaid took over as President of the AGC of Texas, an association of highway construction contractors responsible for building and maintaining the state’s network of roads and bridges.

Kincaid, President of Gulf Coast Construction Company, will serve a one-year term as head of the association that has more than 700 member companies, including those that provide equipment, materials, and services for the industry. Kincaid is the first Beaumont resident to serve as President of the 97-year-old association. He is a graduate of Lamar University.

“The AGC membership is made up of all different size contracting and supplier companies that collectively build and maintain the infrastructure of our great state,” Kincaid said. “The viability of our highway system is critical to support the population and economic growth that Texas has been enjoying, and will need to keep pace with growing demands into the future.”

AGC of Texas advocates on the behalf of the highway and municipal utility contracting industry on such issues as regulatory, safety, and funding, involving the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the Texas Legislature, and local governments.

The COVID-19 global pandemic brought challenges to most businesses, including the highway construction industry, which earned distinction as an essential business. Highway construction continued in 2020, although at reduced levels.

“There is a strong desire to ‘get back to normal,’ and I look forward to facilitating that as much as we can safely do,” Kincaid said. “Additionally, with this being a legislative session year, I am excited to work with our members and our great AGC staff to ensure that funding of highway work is prioritized — as the will of the voters indicated it should be in their overwhelming passage of Propositions 1 and 7.”

Texas voters approved major highway funding measures in the 2014 and 2015 elections — with 79.9 percent and 83.2 percent support respectively.

“I work in the business, so I view our highways differently than people that just drive on them to get home from Point A to Point B every day, and don’t think about how they got there,” Kincaid said. “They have to function at a certain level to support growth and support our surging economy. A highway project, especially a new location project, prompts new development that would not have happened were it for that new section of roadway.”

More than 540 million miles are driven on Texas roads and highways each day, according to TxDOT. Safety remains the top priority of both TxDOT and the highway construction industry. The state experiences 25,000 work zone collisions each year. And Texas has not had a road-fatality free day in more than 20 years. Kincaid urges motorists to pay attention in those work zones and to avoid driving while distracted. Distracted drivers expose road construction workers to danger beyond their normal hazardous work duties.

Kincaid joined Gulf Coast, a CRH company, in 1991 after a five-year career at TxDOT following his college graduation. The business started in 1945 as Trotti & Thompson and operates in the Greater Beaumont/Houston market. Kincaid became company President in 2005. Most of Gulf Coast’s projects consist of grading, asphalt and concrete paving, and bridge building. The company employees 250 people in its Beaumont, Jasper, and Houston operations.