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DWA’s Supervisor Training and Succession Planning Programs
DWA staff attend a safety presentation by Philip Ball of the Situational Awareness Institute.
D
esert Water Agency (DWA) has about 23,000 domestic water connections that serve approximately 89,000 people (including seasonal residents) in the vicinity of Palm Springs, California. Like all municipal water agencies, it has numerous specialized and highly qualified staff members with the institutional knowledge that comes from many years of service. This means that succession planning is a must: When it comes time to replace longtime supervisors or other highlevel employees, the agency must find an equally highly qualified replacement, preferably from its own ranks. In this interview, DWA Human Resources (HR) Director Kris Hopping tells Municipal Water Leader about the agency’s supervisor training and succession planning activities, as well as its response to the COVID‑19 pandemic.
Kris Hopping: I’ve been in HR for about 23 years. The vast
24 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | June 2020
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about DWA. Kris Hopping: DWA was founded as a groundwater management agency in the western Coachella Valley in 1961, and started providing water service to customers in Palm Springs and Cathedral City in 1968. DWA is one of only 29 state water contractors in California. This gives our agency the ability to import water, which is used to recharge our groundwater basin, the main source of water in our desert. DWA is a special government district. It provides groundwater management, drinking water, recycled water, and conservation resources, and in parts of Cathedral City it provides sewer service. We have 85 employees and 5 board members. municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF DWA.
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
majority of my experience has been in the water industry. I was at Coachella Valley Water District for 19 years, and I’ve been in this position at DWA now for just over 2 years. I have a degree in human resources management from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.
