C FACTOR
A New Year, New Officers, and More Training Kenneth Enlow
President, FWPCOA
G
reetings everyone. I hope you all are doing well. Welcome to the new year. I’m looking forward to 2022 and am excited to see another successful year for the FWPCOA. This is the last C Factor column I will be writing as president of the FWPCOA. I am turning the reins over to Patrick Murphy, the incoming president of the association for 2022. I would like to thank everyone for the support I have received from the officers, directors, and committee chairs during my tenure. Without them I would not have had the successful two years I experienced as president.
Ken’s 2002 Harley-Davidson Road King Classic.
Ken working virtually in his home office.
My two years have been exciting and unique. I believe I am the first president to lead the association during a pandemic. Many of the normal ways of doing business had to be altered as a result of this, but as utility professionals we demonstrated our resilience through our ability to adapt, and for the first time in FWPCOA history, we went virtual for our business and committee meetings. Our Online Training Institute successfully provided training opportunities for our members and utility professionals to allow these individuals to continue the progression of their careers when we could not provide classroom training because of COVID-19 restrictions. In 2021 we were able to go back to the classroom, holding two successful short schools in cooperation with the Indian River State College. Although certain COVID protocols had to be implemented, the short schools went off without any significant issues.
Looking Forward to 2022 The FWPCOA is already planning its next short school. The Short School Committee and our training office are planning to present the spring short school at Indian River State College on March 14-18, 2022. The Education Committee, with the Support of Darin Bishop, the FWPCOA administrator, will be continuing its efforts to produce FWPCOA training manuals. This initiative has proven to be very successful to date, with the manuals that are already produced being utilized in the classroom. I want to thank Tom King, the Education Committee chair, and Darin for coordinating this effort, and also all of those committee chairs and members for providing the materials (and the editing required) to make this program successful. This is an ongoing effort as we continue to produce additional manuals that are in production now and will be in the future. The FWPCOA has secured a three-year contract for a training center in Deltona. This center will be available for scheduling training classes by the state training office and regions. For information, and to schedule classes, contact Shirley Reeves in the training office at training@fwpcoa.org. The Florida Water Resources Conference is scheduled to be held April 24-27, 2022, at the Volusia County Ocean Center in Daytona. The FWPCOA will be hosting the Operator
32 January 2022 • Florida Water Resources Journal
Showcase being held Sunday afternoon at the conference from 2 to 5 p.m. We will have an open forum to discuss direct and indirect potable reuse and other regulator changes that will impact our industry. Refreshments will be served. We hope to see you there. Go to www.fwrc.org to register for the conference. Also, don’t forget to visit us at Booth 405 in the exhibit hall during your visit to FWRC.
New Officers for 2022 Once again, I want to introduce you to the new officers for 2022: Patrick (Murf) Murphy – President Athena Tipaldos – Vice-President Rim Bishop – Secretary-Treasurer Kevin Shropshire – Secretary-Treasurer Elect I want to thank you in advance for your support of their leadership. I know that all the regions and members, along with your new leadership, will make 2022 and the future successful for our organization and our industry.
FWPCOA Training Update The training office is in need of proctors for online courses in all regions. If you are available to be a proctor, please contact the training office at 321-383-9690. In the meantime, and as always, our Online Training Institute is up and running. You can access our online training by going to the FWPCOA website at www.fwpcoa.org and selecting the “Online Institute” button at the upper right-hand area of the home page to open the login page. You then scroll down to the bottom of this screen and click on “View Catalog” to open the catalog of the many training programs offered. Select your preferred training program and register online to take the course. For more information, contact the Online Institute program manager at OnlineTraining@ fwpcoa.org or the FWPCOA training office at training@fwpcoa.org. Once again, I want to thank each and every one of you for your support over the last two years; I would not have been able to do this without you. That’s all I have for my last C Factor. Everyone take care and, as usual, keep up the good work! S
