Jeff Tucker, Vallejo Flood and Wastewater District CWEA President
I am both humbled and excited to serve as the new President of CWEA. When I first joined the wastewater profession 13 years ago as an agency finance manager, I didn’t think I would be a member of CWEA, let alone be leading it. I am here because someone invited me to join, invited me to give a presentation at a conference, and eventually invited me to volunteer. I think my path to volunteering is similar to others, where we are asked to volunteer and find that when we do, we receive back so much more than we give.
CWEA is member-focused and volunteer lead. Volunteers are the heart of CWEA, for very little could be done without the members who agree to plan, produce and support dinner meetings, events, trainings, tours, and certification exam writing.
With volunteer engagement critical to CWEA’s success, it is important that CWEA ensures a culture of inclusion and equity. All members should feel like CWEA is a safe and inviting place to engage with colleagues, learn, and grow in their careers, and CWEA resources should be accessible to all members. To support this, the Board of Directors has begun a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion project designed to evaluate the current state of inclusion and accessibility for our members and to identify strategic actions we can take to promote this goal. As this work progresses, you can find more information at dei.cwea.org.
Feeling included and welcome in CWEA is just the beginning, but it is a first-order requirement for members to get the most out of their CWEA membership. What is the value of membership? That may be different for each member, but it’s things that keep bringing us back to CWEA training, programs, and events over and over again. It may be the quality of the training provided by professionals in our field doing the work daily. It may be a chance to network with others discussing how to solve a difficult problem. Or it may be spending social time with other members who take pride in the work we do to protect public health and California’s water environment.
We have received feedback from members, agencies, and partners, and we have responded! We continue to update our certification exams to represent the most recent advances in regulations, technology, and best practices. The Collection System Maintenance, Mechanical Technologist, and Electrical and Instrumentation Technologist exams are now up to date. The Laboratory Analyst exams are currently being updated to reflect changes in TNI standards.
Even before the pandemic, CWEA was developing an online learning management tool to deliver educational content to members whom either couldn’t attend in-person events or preferred to learn online. The pandemic caused us to focus our efforts and deliver on OWEN, the Online Wastewater Education Network. OWEN provides valuable learning content through over 200 courses, with new courses added monthly, designed to help members maintain their certifications and perform better in their jobs. Our latest release is Collection System Maintenance certification training videos.
In-person programming is back, and this year will see more offerings than ever! Safety Day events are now being presented in both the North and the South. Ten special workshops are being planned throughout the state. The P3S conference will be in Monterey from Jan. 30 to Feb. 1, and the Annual Conference will be from April 18 to 21 at the newly renovated Town and Country in San Diego. I hope to see you there!
CWEA is made up of 17 local sections, each with its own Board of Directors. For most members, their local section is their main source of connection to CWEA programming. Local section leaders and volunteers produce training, curate tours, and coordinate social events. It’s a lot of work, and their efforts should be supported. CWEA staff are dedicated to helping local sections by removing some of the administrative burdens necessary to put on these programs, including providing accounting support to local section treasurers, helping local sections with registrations, taking payments and other logistics, and advertising their programs through the development of flyers and email marketing.
CWEA is an association of members, led by members, with educational and professional networking programs produced by member volunteers for the benefit of all members. And with new programs being led by our Student and Young Professionals committee, we will soon be mentoring each other. CWEA is what we make of it, so let’s focus on making CWEA an organization that includes and welcomes everyone in its mission to empower, educate and connect water professionals to protect public health and the environment.
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