Iwama gets BeetleCrete gift at UNBC

Dr. George Iwama hadn’t even been installed as the new president of the University of Northern B.C. when the gifts started coming in.
The UNBC BeetleCrete Marketing Team presented Iwama with a planter and bonsai tree on Oct. 15, the day before he was officially installed.
The UNBC BeetleCrete Marketing Team has won several funding grants to research market potential for Eco-Friendly BeetleCrete, a UNBC invention. Eco-Friendly Beetlecrete is possibly the first green building product of Northern British Columbia that uniquely offers a solution to the problem of recovering economic value in mountain pine beetle destroyed timber. BeetleCrete has great potential as a building product because it combines the best properties of wood and concrete; for example, it can hold nails and is waterproof. This team has developed new applications of Eco-Friendly Beetlecrete such as tiles, benches and a countertop installed at Municipal House, the Union of BC Municipalities building in Victoria, the first environmental LEED certified government building.
The team was honoured to present to Iwama a planter, a new application of Eco-Friendly BeetleCrete. Together with the bonsai plant in honor of George’s Japanese heritage, this planter stands for encouragement for leadership to realize UNBC’s vision of a Green University.
The UNBC BeetleCrete Marketing Team was also pleased to donate a Eco-Friendly BeetleCrete Bench to the UNBC campus. This bench was made possible with the help of a local business owner, Bob Phillips who sees great potential with this material. There will be one or two more benches that the BeetleCrete Marketing Team will donate to UNBC campus, such as the botanical garden.