January State Meetings and CEU Crunch Time

amazing capabilities to help hone the test-taking and evaluation process. Glenn Whitcomb, Region 9 director, expressed his gratitude to Jim for bringing this program up through preliminary performance testing, and also to Shirley Reeves, FWPCOA training coordinator, for her work in the implementation process. This will be very helpful for the state short schools.

Board of Directors Meeting

he FWPCOA State Education Committee meeting and board of directors meeting were held in Region 9 in Deltona in January 2023. Thanks to Region 9 for hosting these events; there was good attendance and the venue was excellent.

Education Committee Meeting

The Education Committee meeting was held on Jan. 20, 2023, at the FWPCOA Training Center at 517 Deltona Blvd., Suite B, Deltona, Fla. 32725. It started at 3 p.m. and ran until 5:15 p.m.

The Deltona Training Center has been quite successful for us; approximately 500 students have received training at the center within the past year. The committee is presently seeking a larger venue with more-favorable parking arrangements, and FWPCOA is investigating additional training venues around the state.

Jim Parrish, Region 9 treasurer and pagemaster, gave a presentation on new examination grading software that will produce statistics to improve FWPCOA training and testing operations. Jim went over numerous aspects of the test analysis reports, and it has

Tom King, chair of the Education Committee, announced that he’s hosting an instructor meeting prior to the March 2023 short school to review training objectives and administrative guidelines for that school. He also reiterated, as at previous meetings, that we still need new instructors and have been very liberal by allowing the shadowing of current instructors during the state schools, while aiding with reimbursements for lodging, fuel, and food, once approved for participating in a particular class setting.

Jeff Elder, a longtime instructor at state and regional schools who is now on the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) State Exam Review Committee, gave a report on the committee and passed along the news of Ron McCulley being promoted; he’s now in charge of FDEP’s drinking water, injection wells, and operator certification program. Keith Davies replaces Ron as head of the FDEP operator certification section.

I’ve surely missing some details, but it was truly a good meeting; maybe not the longest one ever, but all the members of this committee are

The FWPCOA state board of directors meeting was held at The Center at Deltona, 1640 Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd., Deltona, Fla., 32725. Region 9 had a very-much-appreciated spread awaiting the attendees, and I was probably the most thankful after trying to choke down the complimentary breakfast from the hotel (not an omelet; it looked like an egg taco with only cheese and no shell, but not sure it was real eggs or real cheese!).

The chair of the Awards Committee, Renee Moticker, announced that she has only received four or five nominations for the 2023 Pat Robinson Scholarships, and that the application deadline for the Flanagan, Vogh, and Lee awards, to be presented at the 2023 Florida Water Resources Conference (FWRC), is April 14.

King also reported on the previous-day meeting, and additionally reported recent technical difficulties with the Online Institute, many of which have already been corrected. At the close of his report, vice president of FWPCOA, Athena Tipaldos, stated that she was most impressed with the examination data made available by the newly implemented grading software and expressed confidence that it will result in overall program improvements.

Mike Darrow, Legislative and Rules Committee chair, reported that there are three or four bills of interest under consideration by the Florida Legislature. House Bill (HB) 23 and its companion, Senate Bill (SB) 162, which authorize interstate reciprocity for Florida water treatment, wastewater treatment, and water distribution operator licenses, generated a lengthy discussion.

Mike noted that I had posted letters on the FWPCOA and Florida Water Resources Journal (FWRJ) websites and also sent them to legislators clearly defining FWPCOA’s opposition to any form of reciprocity that directs or authorizes FDEP to issue licenses to any individual who has not successfully completed a Florida operator exam. Mike closed by summarizing several other bills and rules currently under consideration.

Jonathan Torres, chair of the Publicity Committee, has been diligently attempting to obtain an Operator Month proclamation from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office. The problem is that the instructions for obtaining proclamations from the governor restrict organizations, associations, etc., as a single reference from acquiring such proclamation. I stated that it’s more important that we get an Operator Month proclamation than having FWPCOA in the verbiage as a sole source for the request or named therein; the members present agreed with this approach.

Under president’s new business, I read a published tribute for Joan E. Stokes, chair of the Job Placement Committee, who passed away on Dec. 18, 2022. She had been an FWPCOA member since 1966 and was the committee chair for more than 30 years. She was also an honorary life member of FWPCOA and a proud member of the Florida Select Society of Sanitary Sludge Shovelers. Rim Bishop, FWPCOA secretarytreasurer, held up a handwritten letter he had received from Stokes within a week of her passing, heartfeltly noting that, even then, she was diligently working to connect job seekers with available positions—at the age of 88! Her passing was not just a blow to FWPCOA professionally; it was a far greater loss personally, particularly to those who were fortunate enough to know and fully appreciate Joan.

In accordance with FWPCOA bylaws, the current membership doesn’t permit the declaration of an honorary life member vacancy. Honorary life member election of the nominations for the vacancy that was declared in August 2022 brought some great and difficult choices for the directors to vote on:

S Region 3 - Shirley Reaves, presented by Russ Carson

S Region 4 - Robert Case, presented by Ken Enlow

S Region 9 - Glenn Whitcomb, presented by Scott Ruland

S Region 10 - Chuck Nichols, presented by Mike Darrow

S Region 12 - David Pickard, presented by Steve Saffels

Balloting continued to the third ballot until one of the candidates was elected unanimously, and Glenn Whitcomb was elected the FWPCOA’s newest honorary life member.

I thanked all committee chairs for their work in 2022 and reappointed all of them to their current positions, but for the time being, the Job Placement Committee chair position will remain vacant. I announced that Scott Ruland (Region 9) will replace Ken Enlow, the outgoing FWRC/FWRJ board member and trustee, in both positions. Special thanks were given to Ken’s excellent work as an FWRC trustee and for Bishop’s continuing contributions, which consist of many endeavors that help the association that most of us don’t even realize. I also thanked all the FWPCOA instructors for the time and effort they invest.

Director Phil Donovan of Region 6 noted that a long-time officer of the region, Pat Lyles, is enduring an illness and asked the board for its thoughts and prayers for him.

The next meetings of the Education Committee and board of directors will be held on Saturday, March 11, 2023, at 3 p.m. and Sunday, March 12, 2023, at 9:30 a.m. respectively. Both meetings will be held at Indian River State College in Ft. Pierce, just prior to the start of the spring state short school.

The meeting ended at 10:56 a.m.

FWPCOA Spring State Short School and Top Ops

Advance your career by attending the FWPCOA Spring State Short School to be held March 13-17, 2023, at Indian River State College in Ft. Pierce. Courses are also available for operator continuing education units (CEUs), so if you put off getting those CEUs until the end of the cycle, which closes on April 30, this may be one of your best options to fulfill those requirements.

Unfortunately, this column will most likely arrive just one week before the start of the state short school, but for those of you who are actually reading it when it comes, this is something that might peak your interest in the short school, which is a fun event to break the grind of the grueling classroom activities and before studying through the night for the next day’s class.

The FSAWWA Top Ops competition was in a terrible dilemma due to the 2023 FWRC conference date changes to May 31-June 3. The Top Ops competition normally held at FWRC would be only one week earlier from when the winners would be going to the national competition at the 2023 AWWA Annual Conference at Exposition (ACE23) in Toronto in June. By FWPCOA providing a venue at the spring state short school, it will allow for the winners to be able to make arrangements for the competition in Toronto.

This would potentially provide an opportunity for the teams to have some of our FWPCOA students and instructors as their audience.

A team consists of three licensed water or distribution system operators (must be superintendent or below) and one captain (historically, superintendent or manager level) and all four can get their way paid to the national AWWA convention. The competition is basically like the “Jeopardy!” game show, but for water operators—you don’t, however, have to phrase the

Most of the questions come from the old Sacramento Training books or the monthly AWWA Opflow newsletter. Also, the new rules allow each team to answer by writing the responses on white boards, so they have eliminated the race to see who hits their buzzer first. The competition will be held during one of the lunch breaks, but the day has not been determined yet. Please keep your eyes open for this event, and let’s support this group, as this is improving the professionalism and knowledge of water operators and will provide them the skill set of competing in front of folks!

Thank you to all the hard-working people in our industry. Let’s keep that water clean and work safe!