WEF Directors' Report

Recent activities for your CSWEA Directors (Delegates) have included attendance and participation in the recent CSWEA CSX meeting in July at the Wisconsin Dells. That was a very productive and thought provoking meeting that is summarized elsewhere in this issue of Central States Water.

Going forward, your Delegates are looking forward to their next House of Delegates (HOD) meeting to be held at WEFTEC in New Orleans in late September/early October. That meeting will include the following activities, among others:

• Reviewing the efforts and deliverables of the current HOD Work Groups which include:
  • Best Management Practices for Partnering—Dave Raby has been participating on this Work Group since WEFTEC 2011 and a draft manual of best management practices for collaboration partnerships has been developed by the group. It is currently being reviewed and should be finalized for submittal/approval by the HOD at the meeting.
  • HOD Strategic Planning—Rusty Schroedel has been participating on this Work Group since WEFTEC 2011 and the group has worked closely with the WEF Strategic Planning committee to coordinate their efforts. A final memorandum with recommendations, including a recommended Vision and Mission statement has been completed.
  • Member Association (MA) to MA Relationships—This Work Group is working on ideas to nurture and strengthen relationships among MAs; particularly those in adjoining geographies who may have mutually beneficial opportunities to work together.
  • Operator Outreach—This Work Group is identifying ways to provide more benefits for WEF membership to operators by considering how WEF can better meet the needs of operators.
  • Delegates-at-Large—This Work Group is developing guidelines to help Delegates-at-Large (those Delegates who don’t represent a specific MA) understand how they can better represent their constituents in the HOD.
  • Removal of Non-Dispersible Materials from Wastewater—This Work Group was formed to focus specifically on best ways to remove non-dispersible materials (rags) from wastewater. This unique workgroup is developing a potential campaign to have non-dispersible products labeled to indicate they should not be flushed but handled as solid waste.
• There likely will be recommendations for new Work Groups to be formed for the 2012 – 2013 timeframe and Delegates will be given opportunities to participate on those Work Groups.
• Voting on the slated of WEF Officers and Delegates at Large recommended by this year’s WEF Nominating Committee. That slate was developed to maintain a commitment of having WEF leadership be reflective of the diverse WEF membership and includes the following nominees:
  • WEF Vice President—Ed McCormick/Manager of Wastewater Engineering at the East Bay Municipal District in Oakland, CA. Many CSWEA members may remember Ed from our 2010 Annual Conference in MN. Ed attended and represented WEF at that conference. As has been the custom, Ed was initiated into the CSWEA 7S group at that conference and since that time, he has worn his 7S shovel proudly at various WEF sponsored events around the country.
  • WEF Treasurer—Rick Warner/Senior Engineer for the Washoe County Department of Water Resources in Reno, NV.
  • WEF Board of Trustees—
    • George Martin/General Manager of the Greenwood Metro District in Greenwood, SC
    • Ralph Exton/Chief Marketing Officer for GE Water & Process Technologies in Horsham, PA
  • Delegates-at-Large—
    • Heather Cheslek/Engineering Manager for Black & Veatch in Indianapolis, IN
    • Jamie Eichenberger/WEF Committee Volunteer and Consultant in Golden, CO
    • Thomas Johnson/Senior Water/Wastewater Technologist for CH2M HILL in Charlotte, NC
    • Malcolm Nason/MHN Consulting in North Pole, AK

As usual, WEF has been busy recently with several key initiatives. A couple of the more visible ones include:

• WEFCOM—This is a new connected community for WEF members that will be rolled out later this year. It will provide members an opportunity to share and comment on documents in an online workspace. Additionally, members will be able to create profiles and network between conferences and other events. WEF has provided a couple of training sessions recently for HOD Members and others and Rusty Schroedel provided a brief overview of WEFCOM to attendees at the recent CSWEA CSX.
• Water Industry Collaboration—In an on-going effort to encourage more collaboration among leaders in the water industry, WEF and AWWA recently signed an agreement to explore opportunities for closer collaboration and partnership. Both organizations are driven by a desire to deliver better service and value to our members as both organizations respond to significant changes in the water industry and among their members. The agreement establishes an Exploratory Committee comprised of leaders from both organizations that will examine potential models for enhanced collaboration and partnership ranging from efficiencies in some combined business practices and member services to full integration of the two organizations.

As leaders in the water industry, all of you know that these are exciting times for us. Your CSWEA leadership is striving to represent you in WEF as well as we can. Your Delegates are intended to be your conduit for input to the WEF HOD and Board of Trustees. To help us do a better job, we welcome input from every member of CSWEA. We hope you feel free to contact either of us at any time with your ideas and/or concerns about our MA or WEF.