A Tribute to Dave Luker
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Dave Luker by a DWA solar array.
The Benevolent Dictator
8 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | April 2021
It wasn’t long before Dave was made general manager and chief engineer of the agency, a position he held for 11 years. DWA continued to improve under Dave’s leadership. The operations center underwent a multimillion-dollar expansion, and he commissioned the largest solar field in the region to power it. He doubled the size of our recycled water facilities and later expanded the solar field to provide most of its power needs. Over the 25 years he was at the agency, he negotiated the increase of its imported water supply by a third and more than doubled our rights to local surface water sources, providing the water resources we would need in the years to come. He never stopped looking ahead and planning for the agency’s infrastructure needs by continuously adding wells, reservoirs, and transmission mains. The agency faced many challenges during Dave’s leadership. He loved nothing more than fighting to defend the agency against bureaucratic regulation or anything he deemed harmful. He had one of the best minds I have ever known and was a brilliant strategist; he did not often lose a fight. Dave was a born emergency responder. He was at his best in an emergency. You could count on Dave being the first one there and seeing it all the way through to its successful conclusion. He loved being a first responder. Quite simply, Dave was a man of action. Dave was my boss and the boss of many others, but he was also a mentor and friend. I never saw him turn away municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF DWA.
Mark Krause General Manager, Desert Water Agency (DWA) My friendship with Dave Luker started in 1986, when I hired on at Krieger & Stewart, a civil engineering firm in Riverside, California. I met Dave my first day. He assigned me a construction survey job for DWA in Palm Springs. Dave ran the survey crews and actually started the firm’s inhouse survey department. He loved construction and taking part in building things. Dave also loved working with people who loved their jobs and worked hard. Dave worked his way up to partner at the firm and was instrumental in opening that opportunity up to many others who followed him. In 1993, Dave left the firm to work for DWA. I followed him in 1995 to continue my on-the-job education under his tutelage. Dave went to work immediately, transforming the agency. Dave hated government waste, and he wanted the agency to be efficient and thrifty, like a private company, without all the normal bureaucracy and waste. He also valued exemplary customer service and made sure we had everything to get the job done right. We worked together to expand the engineering department to produce project designs, put contracts out to bid, and perform all the construction management. We hired more engineers and purchased more equipment, and soon we were producing all our own construction drawings and performing construction surveying, too.
