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The speaker will share how bringing new ideas to his department as a new Street Supervisor were initially met with resistance, making his transition difficult. However, as time went on, with some employees leaving and new ones being hired, he was able bring new strategies from the APWA North American Snow Conference to his division. By learning how to get total team buy-in and learning from his failures, the department is now seeing great success with snow removal efforts while minimizing salt use.
Read MoreTo successfully handle snow management and removal, public works professionals must look to current and future equipment capabilities to operate more safely and efficiently. This session will provide insight on the benefits and implementation of current and future connected technology for snow management and removal for public roads and private lots. Examples of possible functionality include route optimization, traffic signal prioritization, object detection, lane detection and real-time traffic reporting, and customer communication and transactions.
Read MoreHave you ever attended a meeting and walked away asking, “What did they just talk about?” We all dread a boring lecture and people reading off PowerPoint slides, right? Knowing your audience and how to engage with them when delivering a presentation is key when you want to get your message across. Learn from the Houston Public Works Public Engagement Team for Capital Projects on how to deliver the 4 Ps! A presentation should be powerful and persuasive for the information to be understood. This session will help participants identify their audience and create a presentation that is unforgettable.
Read MoreNew regulations require utilities to create and maintain service line inventories. Incomplete, inaccurate, and unreliable historical records make it challenging to use service line inventories to inform planning, support decisions, and communicate risk to the public. Best practices in statistics and data science can be used to develop more accurate inventories, create realistic budgets, inform capital planning, and manage lead service line (LSL) replacement programs. We partnered with the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA) to outline important considerations for state regulators and utility leadership when using statistical and predictive methods for LSL inventory and replacement. Water systems can use these principles to plan strategically, make data-driven decisions, set budgets and requests for funds, build capacity in some skill areas, communicate with the public and build trust, and, most importantly, continue to protect the health of all individuals in the system.
Read MoreOver the past several years, we have seen more utility paint marks zig-zagging across the developed landscape. What does it take to put those paint marks down and then get those marks on a map? In many cases, that paint indicates work in progress of an engineering design project. Subsurface utility engineering (SUE) experts designate the underground utilities with standard APWA colors, with surveyors coming behind them to locate and map the paint marks. The process typically involves a survey crew walking across the painted landscape and surveying each mark with a global positioning system (GPS) or total station equipment. This tedious process requires surveyors to work around congested areas or near roadway traffic. Through using high-resolution drone imagery, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) drone pilots document sites through orthomosaics and dense colorized point clouds generated from software such as Pix4D and Agisoft. These software solutions and resulting datasets provide accurate visualizations to create the digital twin of the paint mark designations.
Read MoreWe all have struggled with the recruitment and retention of quality employees over the past couple of years. Pre-pandemic, rumbles of baby boomer retirements and truck driver shortages were starting to make an impact. In 2021, many were caught in the “Great Resignation” wave. Losing long-term employees at a time when demand for reliable and qualified employees is at its highest brings workforce challenges. Doing more with less or waiting on Human Resources are no longer palatable options. We have a problem. It is not simply a human resources problem. It is our problem; as a community, we are the best qualified to find solutions. Join this session as we dare to ask the questions of who and how can we solve the workforce shortage problem today and into the future. This will be a very interactive session where we will build off the experience, ideas, and pilot programs of each other.
Read MoreWe all know leadership styles vary based on an individual’s background and personality. This session will consider how generational differences also impact leadership styles—all through a female lens. The panelists will explore how the female perspective has changed over the past four decades and how those perspectives are helping to shape the public works industry. They will share personal stories on the industry’s landscape when they entered the workforce, and the challenges and positive experiences they encountered that helped form their careers. The session will provide insight on the differences between an advocate, sponsor, and mentor—and the importance of each one. Attendees will be challenged to consider how they can become one and how they can find one. The session will challenge how participants think about diversity and how to attract a more diverse workforce. The panelists will also share strategies on how to create a more inclusive environment.
Read MoreIn 2020, the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, adopted a new Stormwater Pollution Control Ordinance which included, for the first time, a prohibition on the use of pavement products containing more than 0.1% polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) by weight. This ordinance change was adopted following several years of research, local monitoring, and correspondence with cities with similar prohibitions and outreach to local sealant manufacturers and other local stakeholders that this ordinance can potentially impact. The purpose of this prohibition is to reduce the amount of PAHs entering local streams from stormwater runoff with the goal to reduce in-stream PAH values below levels that are considered toxic to aquatic life. This presentation will summarize the research that led Charlotte-Mecklenburg to take this concern seriously, the results from local monitoring, and the stakeholder process used to adopt the new ordinance language.
Read MorePublic works departments can become siloed within a vertical organizational structure and culture. At the same time, their central responsibilities have great overlap in the goal to serve their constituents’ and community’s infrastructure needs. But how can we functionally create this space when the vertical hierarchies and individual department mentality are ingrained in our organizations? Instead of only a vertical leadership channel, increasing the horizontal flow of information may create greater opportunities for innovation and efficiency. Pima County implemented a horizontal collaboration space across many public works departments, starting with our chief operating officers—those deputy directors who work with everyday operations managing staff and still need to bridge gaps between department mission and vision. This session will help participants look within their organizations for opportunities to create partnerships to increase collaboration and innovation, drawing on real-life examples.
Read MorePublic works professionals from around the country continue to solve the age-old problem of replacing and rehabbing poor structures while also preserving good ones. Developing that annual work plan where resources are limited has proven to be a much more streamlined task using state-of-the-art decision-making and project selection tools, as demonstrated by Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina, and Berrien County, Michigan. As instructors of the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Bridge Management Systems workshop, The Kercher Group has categorized these delivery methods into three categories: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. A walk-through of Raleigh, Durham, and Berrien County case studies will help public works professionals develop an implementable strategy that aligns with agency goals and APWA’s Asset Management Roadmap.
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