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How Burns & McDonnell Is Helping Homewood, Illinois, Transition Its Water Source
The path of the proposed transmission line.
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he Village of Homewood, Illinois, recently decided to move forward with the biggest public works project it has undertaken since its founding in 1893. A 2½-mile stretch of 30‑inch transmission main and a booster pump station will allow it to change its water source from the Village of Harvey, Illinois, to the City of Chicago Heights, Illinois, allowing it to continue providing clean and reliable water service to its inhabitants at a lower and more reliable cost. The design-build firm Burns & McDonnell was selected to design and build the new tie-in. In this interview, Stephen Boden and Stephen Crede, respectively a senior project manager and a design and construction engineering department manager at Burns & McDonnell, tell Municipal Water Leader about how they are helping Homewood transition its water source on a tight timeline. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about yourselves and how you came to be in your current positions.
Stephen Boden: I’ve been in the industry for 19 years, but I’ve only been with Burns & McDonnell for the last
28 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | March 2021
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about Burns & McDonnell as a company. Stephen Crede: Burns & McDonnell was founded in 1898. It has been a 100 percent employee-owned company since 1986, and that characteristic really drives the culture here. We are headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. We have more than 55 offices worldwide, including offices in Canada, India, Mexico, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom in addition to the United States. The company has over 7,600 employees and 9 different global practices—for instance, Stephen and I are focused on our water global practice, which includes any project that has a storm water, wastewater, or drinking water component. Burns & McDonnell has been in Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Places municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF BURNS & MCDONNELL.
Stephen Crede: This is my 22nd year in the industry. I was hired by Burns & McDonnell back at the beginning of 2007. I became a section manager in our water global practice, based in Chicago, in 2019, and I was promoted to department manager at the beginning of 2021.
20 months or so. I was with CDM Smith for the first 17 years of my career, traveling around the United States and doing projects in California, the Northeast, and the Midwest. I moved to Illinois about 8 years ago with my family. I support Burns & McDonnell’s water global practice, but I actually work on the firm’s construction design-build global practice in Chicago. My background is in construction, engineering, and installation. I take our plans on paper, go through value engineering, and then support construction and installation on site.
