3 minute read
Technical Committee News
Jim Nichols, P.E., ICMA-CM
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Assistant City Manager City of Midland, Texas Chair, APWA Engineering and Technology Committee
his month’s APWA Reporter is being “sponsored” by the Engineering and Technology Committee. We have provided you with articles that I hope you’ll find informative, educational and entertaining. In addition to our work in facilitating this month’s issue, the committee has also been on a selfinitiated journey to better define and refine our mission and role in serving our members. The committee is comprised of Sherri McIntyre, Venu Gupta, Laura Cabiness, Andrew Lemer, Dennis Randolph and me. Our group, in concert with our AtLarge Director Patty Hilderbrand and APWA staffer, Carol Estes, has been working diligently over the past two years to reinvent ourselves. We recognized that our title, “Engineering and Technology,” is rather broad and leaves lots of room for interpretation regarding our areas of responsibility. In addition, the generic nature of the terms “engineering” and “technology” creates the opportunity for potential areas of interest to cross over into other Technical Committees. For example, can the use of LEDs for streetlights and traffic signals be considered a topic covered by the Transportation Committee or should it be addressed by E&T as an emerging technology? Is trenchless pipe repair a subject best handled by our Utility and Public Right-of-Way Committee or E&T? These are the types of questions that the committee has routinely faced since our inception and so the current members decided that it was time to get a better handle on our role in APWA. Ultimately, we want to bring optimal value to our members and ensure that we are not duplicating other efforts or conflicting with other agendas.
The committee’s first efforts at reviewing our mission started last year with the update of our business plan. Each year, all of the APWA committees establish a new business plan for the upcoming year to designate new projects, goals and tasks. Typically, these plans are based on the version from the previous year, with modifications that reflect new issues, areas of interest or priorities that have come to light since the last update. When the E&T Committee looked at last year’s business plan, we decided to really break it down and ensure we were aligned with the current APWA initiatives. We established several key strategies that support APWA’s key strategic initiatives. We then populated these strategies with specific tasks that would ensure the strategies were achieved. We have since monitored this business plan so as to remain on point and on schedule for the strategies we established. The committee members also recognize that this plan is a living document and a work in progress so we continue to update and refine it on a regular basis.
Recently, the Engineering and Technology Committee met with the Region VII Delegates who represent the Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas Chapters. This joint meeting was intended to allow the committee to better connect with representatives of some of the chapters we serve. It’s worth noting that maintaining and enhancing contact with the chapters is one of the strategies established by the committee in our business plan update last year. In addition to serving as a forum to discuss chapter needs and expectations, the attendees also talked about the niches that the E&T Committee could fill as well as the role that delegates could potentially play in serving as a conduit between their chapters and the committee. This was a very collaborative and cooperative discussion between these groups with some great ideas coming out as a result.
The committee took the feedback received from the Region VII Delegates as well as our updated business plan and resumed our previous efforts to refine our role and mission. After considerable debate and discussion, we decided that we could best serve our members by acting as a clearing house and facilitator for new processes and technologies in the public works industry. And we want to expand our reach beyond just public works agencies. The committee wants to harness research and information available at various colleges and universities as well as through private vendors. Though the concept is still being formulated, the general idea is that we want our committee to be the ultimate resource for our members who have questions about new technologies or new practices in the public works field. In addition, agencies that have conducted studies, pilot projects, or evaluations, will know to supply this data to the E&T Committee so that the information can be made readily available for other members as needed. The committee will develop a plan to establish a network with learning institutions, research agencies, and the like to
