Terry King, KSU Engineering Dean:

"We can take, for example, road pavement and test it under a variety of conditions to determine how long it will last. Now there's two ways of doing that: you can put it on the road somewhere and let the trucks and cars drive over it until it fails or you can do it in a laboratory in an accelerated way much, much less expensively."

Robert Peterman, KSU Structural Engineering Professor:

"Behind me is the civil infrastructures laboratory here at Kansas State University. In this laboratory, we actually look at full scale structures, asphalt pavements and concrete pavements. The intent is to really develop new, stronger systems and systems that provide greater longevity."

Terry King, KSU Engineering Dean:

"The research universities in Kansas have an enormous amount of scientific and engineering expertise that's available. And the value of this to the state comes on several levels. First of all, it's really an investment to the state in the sense that we can do things in research and determine if things are going to work out there on the road or bridges or whatever we're doing and implement that in a way that the state does not have to make huge investments to to do the tests in real time."

Stefan Romanoschi, KSU Transportation Engineering Professor:

"The money that you are investing here in conducting this type of research you get more than 100 times the money back by saving in the construction costs and also saving in the maintenance costs of those pavements."

Robert Peterman, KSU Structural Engineering Professor:

"Our capabilities here are equal to, if not superior to, most schools in the nation."