Summer 2013 - Public Documents - NC AWWA-WEA

Committee SpotlightsSeminars & WorkshopsThe 25 members of the Seminars & WorkshopsCommittee have been very active.“We coordinate and/or support abouttwelve seminars a year,” says Betsy Drake,who is serving her second year of a twoyearterm as chair. “We try to include allfacets of water and wastewater, including,but not limited to, water treatment, wastewatertreatment, collection and distribution,automation, regulatory issues, financial issues,operations, and management. ” Thecommittee is composed of members fromall aspects of the water and wastewaterprofession including engineers, operators,regulators, suppliers and Association staff.Meetings, held approximately ninetimes a year, provide members with timeto plan and schedule the seminars. Forseminars developed by the committee,one or more volunteers are assigned to actas technical coordinators. The technicalcoordinators are responsible for developingand organizing the seminar programwhile Association staff handles the logisticsfor each seminar including site logistics,meals, and pre-registration. A registrationcoordinator is also assigned to each seminarto handle the on-site logistics duringthe seminar, such as room set-up, on-siteregistration, and monitoring attendance.The committee also works with andprovides support to other Associationcommittees that organize specialty seminars,and partners with other professionalorganizations to provide expanded trainingopportunities. “We are happy to be able toprovide continuing education credits andmore to operators and engineers,” saysDrake. “Personally, I enjoy the opportunityto help coordinate seminars on subjectsI would not work with on a day-to-daybasis. You never know where your career isgoing to take you. This opens up opportunitiesyou might not have considered.”For 2013, the Seminars & WorkshopsCommittee is looking forward to organizinga seminar on emerging contaminants inwater systems along with other workshopson topics such as advanced wastewatertreatment technologies, asset assessment,construction issues and advanced operations.Successful webinar trials in late 2012have led to the official rollout of a webinarseries for 2013. “We have also started offering‘U-Pick’ Seminars,” adds Drake. “If autility is interested in a particular subject, wecan bring the seminar to them, right on site.”It is shaping up to be a busy, exciting year.AutomationLaunched in 2005, the automation committeedevelops, recommends, supports,and conducts continuing assessments oftechnologies and techniques to promotethe overall understanding of the applicationof process instrumentation, control and automationequipment, Supervisory Controland Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems,telecommunications, information technologies,and the management of informationin the water and wastewater environment.“I found this committee was a perfect fit formy job, “ says Chair Greg Czerniejewski,who works as an automation engineer atCDM Smith. The committee meetings arescheduled to allow members to gatherabout a half hour prior to the start of themeeting for networking and socializing.Dan Edwards, who was chairing the committeewhen Mr. Czerniejewski came onboard, and Jeff Miller, who co-chaired thecommittee with Dan when they founded itin 2005, are still very active in the committee’sactivities.Parallel with the national AWWAAutomation Information Committee andWEF Instrumentation and Control Committee,the NC AWWA-WEA’s AutomationCommittee is very focused on meeting theautomation training needs of the Associationand its members. As such, the committeemembership encompasses equipmentvendors, engineers and consultants as wellas operators from utilities and municipalities.An operator training seminar planned forAugust will focus on SCADA and other automationtopics. Building on the success ofthe ‘Racing With Technology’ Forum, whichhad panel members from utilities, systemsintegrators, vendors and consultants, theAutomation Committee is planning anothersimilar event, this time in Webinar format.Along with helping to plan events andwebinars, several committee members alsoact in liaison with other committees suchas Plant Operations & Maintenance andRisk Management. Last year, a SecuritySub-committee was created to focus onCybersecurity standards and is in liaisonwith the Risk Management Committee. Thesubcommittee held a webinar in May entitled“Securing Critical Infrastructure in theWater Sector: Where Do We Begin?” whichwas presented by one of the committeemembers, Don Dickinson, who is currentlythe chair of the Security Sub-committee.The Automation Committee meets fourtimes a year plus one additional time at theAnnual Conference. Each meeting includesa technical presentation by leaders in theautomation industry. Former speakers haveincluded Bob Lowe, Executive Director atControl System Integrators Association(CSIA), Kevin Morley, Security & PreparednessProgram Manager at AWWA andGraham Nasby, International Society ofAutomation (ISA) Water/Wastewater DivisionDirector-elect.“Membership-wise, our main goal isto get more water and wastewater utilityfolks involved,” says Czerniejewski. “Theycan give us feedback on what they needus to be doing as a committee.” As forhis personal goal, it is to someday join the‘unofficial’ mountain bike sub-committee,whose members go cycling on a regularbasis after meetings.20 NC Currents Summer 2013Click Hereto return to Table of Contents