Happy New Year!

I am excited about the many events we have planned in 2023, all to support our mission to be the premier association in the northwest dedicated to educating and connecting members to promote a healthy water environment in our region. Be sure to keep an eye on our digests for upcoming events!

June 6 - 9, 2023 @ Hyatt Regency in Portland, OR

As we reach the end of 2022, I am grateful for our tri-state association returning to in-person activities where members reconnected. Committee participation has significantly increased, more than 900 attended the annual conference in Spokane, and region and section workshops were once again full. I am hopeful we will continue this strong engagement in 2023.

I recently attended the Oregon Operators Conference at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Roseburg, Oregon. The event, in partnership with the PNCWA Oregon Region, Umpqua Basin Operators Section (UBOS), American Water Works Association Pacific Northwest Section, and Umpqua Community College, provides operators the opportunity to earn CEUs through technical presentations, facility tours, workshops, and a tradeshow. Seeing so many water and wastewater professionals gathered to network, engage, and exchange ideas was inspiring. I particularly enjoyed the hands-on demonstrations of products and services in our field.

Autumn in the Pacific Northwest is a gorgeous season where leaves turn golden, the rain returns, and the weather cools. It’s also the time of year when the PNCWA board starts budget planning for 2023. We like to start the new calendar year with an approved budget that provides a roadmap of the activities for the coming year and the celebration of our annual conference in September.

We have begun reaching out to our committee chairs to finalize their goals, objectives, and work plans for 2023, including budget requests due by mid-November. The PNCWA board will review these requests, ensure they align with the Association’s strategic plan, and use them to create our budget framework. If you have any questions, please contact Marie Schmidt, our new Managing Director, at [email protected]. We appreciate the extra effort to keep our budget timeline on track and set our committees up for success in the coming year.

It’s with great honor, gratitude, and excitement that I write my first message to you as president of PNCWA’s board of directors. As I accept this torch from Rob Lee, I’m reminded of the values and objectives that drew me to this community and the gratifying time I’ve spent in its service, all of which underscore the significance of my new responsibilities to you.

I joined PNCWA fifteen years ago. My time with the association has been marked by learning experiences and meaningful relationships formed through various committees and special initiatives, and, in 2018, I joined the board as secretary. Throughout these years, I’ve also served as a senior project manager in the Seattle area for Carollo Engineers, a role that has put me face-to-face with the challenges and opportunities PNCWA explores through collaboration, innovation, and exchange as well as the influence of our contributions toward providing clean water and securing healthy watersheds.

As I write this, we’re less than a month away from our conference. We have around 500 people registered, including many folks who weren’t able to attend last year and a number of new attendees. It’s going to be awesome!

But I also write this with some sadness, as this marks the last official President’s message before my term ends. I’m grateful to our membership who entrusted me with the incredible honor and tremendous responsibility of serving as Board President. I’m so incredibly proud of our Association, our board, our committee chairs and volunteers, our regions and sections. There is so much great work going on, more than any single person could possibly fathom.

Hello! I am thrilled and honored to join PNCWA as Managing Director. I will be taking on day-to-day operations of the organization with the support of Association Management Inc. (AMI), so that PNCWA leadership can focus on strategic priorities.

Water has always been a fascination of mine, as I’m sure it’s been for you. I have a bachelor's degree in environmental science and a master's degree in water resources, both from University of Idaho. Over the last decade, I worked for the University of Idaho in the Coeur d’Alene Community Water Resource Center providing water outreach throughout north Idaho. I am excited to shift my attention to a broader audience throughout Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. I bring extensive experience in community education, collaborative partnerships, and project management to this position, and I am eager to work with all of you in PNCWA’s commitment to sustain healthy watersheds for future generations.

Our mission is to be the premier association in the Pacific Northwest dedicated to educating and connecting members. As we head into our next annual conference in September in Spokane, I’m excited to report that PNCWA is in great shape to accomplish that mission.

As a volunteer-led organization, we’ve had to make some difficult decisions over the last few years (huge shout-out again to Adam McClymont and Haley Falconer for your leadership!). Those decisions have led us to where we are today. PNCWA is currently in one of the strongest financial positions of its existence, and that has enabled us to bring on staff to help manage the day-to-day operations of the organization. We believe PNCWA will be better able to fulfill its mission by shifting operational responsibilities away from volunteer leaders and enabling volunteers to focus on strategic leadership and thinking. It’s a huge step for the organization and for all who are involved in PNCWA. See more below for an introduction to Marie and AMI.

The Board of Directors conducted a thorough search, and we are pleased to welcome Association Management Inc (AMI) and specifically Marie Schmidt as PNCWA’s new managing director.

Marie earned a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and a master’s degree in Water Resources, both from the University of Idaho. She previously worked as the Outreach Specialist for the Community Water Resource Center at the University of Idaho in Coeur d'Alene for 10 years. Marie has extensive experience organizing community outreach programs, developing K-12 watershed curricula, facilitating lake management stakeholder meetings, managing volunteer water quality monitoring, fostering collaborative partnerships, and instructing stormwater and erosion control workshops. Marie lives in Spokane, WA with her husband, two children and golden retriever, and she’s happiest with her feet in a river. Please join us in welcoming Marie and AMI to our PNCWA family, and feel free to drop them a line at [email protected].

Pacific Northwest, summer is upon us! After one of the wettest springs on record, I’m excited for what summer brings — time off with family and loved ones, baseball games, barbecues, and longer days. Summer also brings one of the busiest times in our industry, with construction projects humming along and the consistent need for planning and design improvements and upgrades to our vital infrastructure.

PNCWA is an organization founded on volunteers from within — folks who live and breathe the issues facing our wastewater industry on a daily basis. Each and every board member, committee chair, section leader, and volunteer represents not only us, but you and all of our membership. And that ensures that the education, programming, networking, and advocacy coming from PNCWA meets those challenges we all face head-on.

I’m writing this as I look out of my office window at the relentless rain we’re experiencing this spring (at least west of the Cascades). Yet I cannot help but marvel at what spring brings us: a reminder of new life. Flowers start to bud, trees bloom, birds return and sing to us in the mornings. And those relentless rains? They’re a reminder of the essential industry that we’re all in — protecting the critical waterways that are the backbone of our lives here in the Pacific Northwest.

I’m giddy with excitement for this new season. Our board met in person this past month as a mid-year check-in about the health and direction of PNCWA, and I’d love to share a few things with you all:

One of the greatest measures of an organization’s relevance is the answer to the question, “What would happen if we didn’t exist?” I’ve asked this of myself and of our board several times this past year — yet we keep coming back to the same answer. With the changes of the past couple of years, our industry here in the Pacific Northwest still has a critical need for collaboration, information sharing, networking, and continuing growth and education. And the inspiration and community that develops from such endeavors are always so important.

To that end, we’re excited about the progress we’re making in implementing the strategic initiatives we identified last year. I’m pleased to report these:

I recently came across a quote “Everyone has the gift of time, but few utilize.” Incredibly, we’re already a quarter of the way through 2022. Time truly flies by! Yet when I pause and look around the Association, I am amazed by the countless people giving the gift of their time to help our industry grow and our communities overcome their water challenges.

The Board of Directors includes the following positions: President, President-Elect, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, Past President, Association Young Professional Representative, two WEF Directors, and four Regional Directors. The PNCWA Nominating Committee is accepting nominations for the positions of Vice President, PNCWA WEF Director, Secretary, and YP Representative.

새해 복 많이 받으세요! In Korean, this phrase means, “Please receive many new year’s blessings.”

Whether you celebrate the start of the new year (per the lunar calendar) or cannot believe we’re already in the second month of the solar calendar, my hope is that each and every person reading this heads into 2022 with many blessings to come.

Happy New Year! When the calendar changes from December 31 to January 1, the earth rotates 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds, just like every other day. But, for many of us, the new year is a sign of new beginnings.

The water industry is facing such tremendous challenges. COVID variants, climate change, worker shortages, supply chain issues, silver tsunami of retirees, increasing rural-urban divides, racial injustice, lack of equal access to sanitation and clean water, and the list goes on. Yet, in the midst of these challenges, there is a spark of hope. This spark is each and every one of you who raise your hand, refusing to be simply carried along by the challenges, but who instead plant your feet and take those challenges head on. You all are the spark that spurs on others, creating a chance for change.

Christmas. Hanukkah. Kwanzaa. Rohatsu. All of these holidays celebrate the strength of the human spirit in the midst of trials and tribulations. They remind us of the hope that is possible for the future and that, by joining with others, there can be something greater than our own individual lives. This is the time of year to pause, reflect, and celebrate.

For those of us in the water industry here in the Pacific Northwest, there are plenty of reasons to celebrate. We have made tremendous progress in creating awareness of the importance and interconnectivity of our water resources, more funding is headed our way to inject much-needed investment into our aging infrastructure, and the past year has brought a greater understanding of the impact that infrastructure has on social justice and equity.

During this time of year, I’m reminded of the importance of being thankful — or “aware and appreciative of a benefit,” as it’s defined.