Patrick Murphy Reelected as FWPCOA President for 2023

Patrick “Murf” Murphy was reelected president of FWPCOA for 2023 at the association’s October 2022 board of directors meeting.

Murphy has been an active member of FWPCOA since 1985, serving first in Region X under the mentorship of Katie Kinloch, a past president. She got him involved with the association as a secondary instructor for the C wastewater residence course at Polk Community College for seven years and as a consultant for the pre- and post-exam review committee for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) for five years. He covered Katie’s longstanding role as secretarytreasurer for Region X during her presidency and state-level involvement.

After becoming employed with Plant City in 2003, his membership was changed to Region XII, and Murphy served as chair in 2013 and 2014, vice chair in 2015, and then chair again in 2016 and 2017, attending numerous state board meetings as Region XII’s director substitute.

He is very proud of his membership in FWPCOA, which has been a key factor in his professional development. “The dedication of so many operators within the association’s membership has been an amazing thing for me to witness,” says Murphy. “Membership provides fantastic networking opportunities and advances the professional status of the water and wastewater industry’s operators and their disciplines.”

Murphy is currently the chief plant operator for the City of Plant City, where he operates

(mgd) water reclamation facility and four water plants. Prior to Plant City, he was the chief plant operator for the City of Lakeland supervising 10 licensed employees and operating a 13.7-mgd wastewater treatment facility for 14 years, with a total of 16 years at Lakeland. Before that, he worked at the City of Winter Haven for two years at its wastewater plants 2 and

As president of FWCPOA, an important issue to Murphy is that utility workers aren’t now considered first responders. They act like first responders when an emergency occurs, but they aren’t recognized as essential personnel compared to the other groups that are categorized as such. “The water industry must get more of its newer members to become active within the association, with the same dedication as some of the older members who don’t almost faint at the mention of volunteering for extracurricular activities,” says Murphy. “We need to get utility managers to see that FWPCOA membership, training, and involvement are beneficial to their employees, their company, and the industry.”

Murphy continues to have high hopes for the association’s growth. “There has been so much recent work done by so many of the current members, such as the library of training courses being established, a new promotional video for FWPCOA that was released in 2022, and some succession planning that seems to be working well.”

He notes that newer local and federal regulations are going to be tougher to implement. New skill sets (and old ones that might need dusting off), new technologies, and a new generation of operators will be bringing essential skills and enthusiasm to the table.

Murphy says that there are roughly 15,000 licensed drinking water, wastewater, and distribution system operators in Florida, and the FWPCOA membership includes other “one water” disciplines, to help advance the excellence of the industry. “Our jobs in this industry are not going to get easier, but no one should be licensed to operate a water plant, wastewater plant, or water distribution facility in Florida without having demonstrated training and experience acceptable to FDEP and having passed a Florida operator licensing exam.” S