18138_Authority_Feb

28 The Authority | February 2025 N ational E ngineers W eek C elebrating PMAA M ember E ngineers In celebration of National Engineers Week (February 16-22, 2025), this edition of The Authority recognizes some of PMAA’s member engineers, their expertise and devotion to authorities and their projects to protect public health and the environment. We invited our engineers to share insights about their backgrounds, motivations for entering the engineering field, and what aspects of their work they find most inspiring. Dave Stewart, P.E., Chief Technical Officer Capital Region Water, Harrisburg, PA. I’ve overseen the authority’s Engineering Department since April 2013. We serve the city of Harrisburg and portions of surrounding municipalities with drinking water and combined and separate wastewater/storm sewer service. It’s been an exciting, full-time effort to responsibly prioritize the rehabilitation of 100 plus year-old, broken infrastructure that experienced such a period of neglect while the city spiraled into financial distress. We’re also party to a USDOJ/EPA/ PADEP Consent Decree related to combined sewer-system activity. We’ve invested over $250 million in improvements since 2013 and have budgeted over $327 million to capital improvements over the coming decade. Prior to coming to CRW, I worked for CDM Smith in Lancaster, PA, serving municipal clients since returning to Pennsylvania in 1998. I was appointed to the Northwestern Lancaster County Authority’s board and served as chairman for a few terms. I also served as PMAA’s Region 4 Director for a few years during that period. I graduated with a BS in Civil Engineering from Penn State in 1991 and began my career as a wastewater process engineer for Aqua-Aerobic Systems, Inc. in Rockford, IL. After a couple years, my wife, Suzanne and I moved to the Pacific Northwest (Washington) in 1994, where I worked for a local civil/environmental firm focusing on water supply, wastewater treatment and reuse for the next four years. Can you describe a particularly challenging problem you solved and how you approached it? I take great pride in my role in the development of two CRW programs during my tenure: (1) Asset Management and (2) Business Diversity programs. 1. A particularly challenging problem is the never-ending effort to develop and refine responsible asset management plans that govern investment (by business case) in our infrastructure rehabilitation efforts. It took many years of interdepartmental collaboration to develop and refine the necessary tools, metrics and data. I feel very good about how well the processes we have created predict and serve our needs - that said, data integrity interrogation will always remain one of our highest priorities - to confirm the veracity of the story our data is telling us. 2. CRW’s board prioritized the development of a plan to encourage prime contractors to solicit proposals and commit to subcontract meaningful participation to Minority, Women and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises. I led the effort with the assistance of a specialty law firm, and we convened several listening sessions and public hearings that enabled us to receive feedback to craft and adopt CRW’s 2016 MWDBE Plan. Through Board and Staff commitment, we’ve been able to achieve impressive program success via construction bidding and professional services contracting.