CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Researchers at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Construction Engineering Laboratory (CERL) recently welcomed the Defense Coalition of Champaign County (DC3) for a meeting at CERL’s facilities in Champaign, Ill.
During the meeting, CERL Director Dr. Andrew Nelson provided an overview of the laboratory’s mission. DC3 members also toured CERL’s Paint Technology Center and Triaxial Earthquake and Shock Simulator and watched demonstrations of 3D printing and robotics for engineer operations. The meeting, held in February, was part of a larger networking event hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where CERL is co-located.
“We were happy to meet with members of DC3 and give them a tour of some of our world-class facilities here at UIUC,” said Nelson. “We look forward to continuing to grow our relationship with DC3 and working together to find innovative solutions for challenges facing the Warfighter.”
DC3 is a network of companies and organizations based in the Urbana-Champaign area that pursue federal funding for the defense industry. Since 2020, the network has met to better understand local entities involved in the defense industry and to address challenges and opportunities of mutual interest.
CERL is a premier federal facility developing technologies that provide high-quality facilities and realistic training lands to the Department of Defense (DoD). Its highly interdisciplinary workforce includes approximately 220 federal employees and 80 contract personnel and has an annual operating budget exceeding $80 million. CERL’s research areas include sustainable installations, military ranges and lands, resilient facilities and infrastructure, smart sustainable materials, installation decision support, and urban and stability operations.