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Liquids 101 told us why we might use liquids, Liquids 201 showed us how we could use them. In Liquids 301 we will help you to develop a detailed case expounding the benefits of using liquids in your winter maintenance operations. There are three main areas of benefits that agencies have found when they have made the use of liquids a central approach in their winter operations. First, they have found that their total use of materials, and in particular their use of salt, has been significantly reduced. This can be particularly beneficial when environmental concerns are high in a community. Second, using liquids provides significant cost savings, and we will detail those savings and show how they are achieved. In most cases the payback time (how long it takes for the savings to total more than the costs of implementing the new liquid usage) is less than two winter seasons. Third, experience has shown that use of liquids provides better safety and improved levels of service than more traditional approaches, of significant benefit to the communities that we serve.
Read MoreGPS/AVL is no longer considered “nice to have.” Whether government agencies are looking to mitigate liability, reduce costs, or increase accountability and transparency; GPS/AVL systems are slowly becoming a staple in Public Works This presentation will take real world lessons from agencies who have successfully implemented a telematics solution, describe challenges and obstacles they faced, and how they reached their goals. The presentation will focus around three key business practices: aligning your solution with your agency’s key service level indicators, ensuring you obtain buy-in from all affected groups, and preparing your agency and resources to manage the changes that come with implementing new technology. Ensure the solution your stakeholders select is adopted and provides a good return on investment.
Read MoreIn 2020 the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services launched a project to measure and reduce the carbon emissions and air pollution emissions of a large and diverse fleet of more than 1200 vehicles, representing an annual fuel burn of 1.25M gallons of fossil fuels. The presentation will take you on an innovation journey that begins with using industry-standard modeling tools, continues with piloting operational changes, and concludes with a long term fleet producurement strategy.
Read MoreMany business owners started their businesses because they love engineering, architecture, or construction. Technical staff juggle proposal writing with billable work, and marketers spin plates keeping multiple deadliness on track. Everyone tends to hit the panic button when a Solicitation or Request for Proposal lands in their inbox. Some principals and technical staff have never liked writing, and a proposal is complicated. Marketers just want great content before the last minute. There’s a lot at stake to develop a winning proposal. The deadline is fast approaching, and what are you supposed to explain in the Understanding and Approach? Proposal writing makes business owners and staff feel overwhelmed and the task seems unbelievably daunting. Yet, all agree that winning work and working with agency and department clients is a dream come true. Barbara Shuck gets it, having spent a career developing proposals that stand out from the competition. Imagine submitting a proposal with a clear client-focused story about how your firm is the right fit for a project. Think about the ideal resume paragraph that goes beyond “has 25 years of experience in multiple project types.” And dream of an Approach that shows off “why us” and “why not them” with powerful “so what?” content and images. Effective proposals are easy to read, well-organized, and more than anything, very persuasive. In this program, attendees can gain practical and relevant skills needed to produce strong content that is well-written and stands out from the crowd. Presenters will evaluate six persuasive writing strategies that will undoubtedly help small business marketing and technical professionals. They will inspect examples, uncover writing formulas, and see how a one-liner statement captures the reader’s attention and sparks memorability. With new-found insights, your next proposal is bound to bring home the bacon.
Read MoreIn the spring of 2019, like many midwestern communities along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, Jefferson City, Missouri, prepared to face flooding. What they didn’t expect was to also be faced with the aftermath of an EF-3 Tornado. A few minutes before midnight on May 22, 2019, Cole County and Jefferson City, Missouri, began a joint recovery operation dealing with power failures, debris removal, and sheltering of citizens displaced by the storm. This effort was hampered by also dealing with the river flooding which left limited access to the State Capitol Building and other essential statewide offices. This session focuses on the engineer’s role in response and working jointly with other public and private agencies handling security, emergency response, recovery, volunteers, and donation management.
Read MoreCompacted concrete pavement is an improved version of roller compacted pavement, allowing for drastically expedited project completion time. Hear about advantages and lessons learned from the first project completed in Missouri with this pavement type.
Read MoreThis session will highlight key strategies for evaluating, constructing, and preserving an agency’s pavement assets. Maintenance workers, supervisors, directors, engineers, and elected officials will benefit from a common sense approach to understanding the “fatal 4 of pavements.” This session will give attendees the tools needed to write effective contractor project bids. Supervisors will gain helpful tips in overseeing pavement preservation projects while maintenance staff will learn about various resources to better perform their job.
Read MorePotholes aggravate drivers, interfere with traffic flow, damage vehicles, cause collisions, and are a hazard to cyclists and pedestrians. They generate more complaints than other roadway problems and get a lot of media attention. Repairing potholes is a major activity for local, state and federal lands road maintenance crews throughout the year but primarily during the winter and early spring due to the prevalence of freeze-thaw cycles. Though materials, methods, and machinery for pothole repairs has not changed much in the last 20 years, there is a growing need for better training of the road crews, supervisors, and managers in understanding the causes of pothole formation, the proper repair type and techniques, and the identification of other pavement distresses that will eventually become potholes. More importantly, understanding how to prevent potholes by proper selection and application of various surface treatments, correction of underlying deficiencies and improving roadside drainage is vital to extending the service life of aging and obsolete roadways. This presentation outlines asphalt pavement construction, explains pothole formation, describes other pavement distresses that are precursors to potholes, compares the typical pothole repair materials and methods, examines pavement preservation methods, and explains ways to establish a proactive, systematic reporting and tracking of pothole complaints and repairs. The information to be presented is based on the upcoming APWA Pothole Prevention and Patching Practices Guidebook developed by the speakers.
Read MoreA finance department is primarily composed of budget and accounting areas, with other functions such as investments, debt issuance, rate and fee setting, revenue, billing, and purchasing. Most finance directors come from an accounting background, especially for smaller to mid-sized organizations. Their training is not in quantifying risk, and in-fact they are not rewarded for taking risks. However, the principles of life cycle asset management is to manage an asset at its lowest life cycle cost while still meeting a target service level. This directly ties into managing cashflow (current revenues used to pay for operations and maintenance) which in term impacts various financial metrics such as operating cash on hand and the debt coverage ratio. Separate, but connected is the capital plan which can be a combination of both debt and an allocation of reserves. The justification of funding asset management practices involves benchmarking costs and demonstrating how and when assets deteriorate that the maintenance costs increase, the repair costs increase, and if the right investment intervention is not made, the asset could fail prematurely and catastrophically costing a great deal more. This session walks through the various financial/asset management concepts to convince finance to support asset management and condition assessment activities.
Read MoreWe live in The Instant Information Age. Thanks to social media, customers receive the news they want without having to ask for it. Utilities must meet these rising expectations, especially during emergencies. The presentation shows attendees how to successfully communicate with the press, the public, and elected officials. Say the words “social media” and you get a variety of reactions, especially from water professionals. Some will speak of the medium’s value in allowing utilities to push out important, positive news about their work directly to their customers. Others will lament about the power and attention social media gives to a disproportionate number of their customers who always seem to be angry at the utility, either because of an issue with their account or because they’ve been told by WATER KILLS! posts that their drinking water is unsafe. As many of us know from our personal use of social media, both of these points-of-view are correct, and nothing confirms each side’s opinion more than to watch social media react when a crisis occurs. When an emergency hits, social media works as both hero and villain. This presentation shows water professionals how to make it more of a hero by demonstrating how utilities have far more to gain by taking part in social media than they may believe. It also shows how proper planning, as if social media communications were another operation within the utility, puts utilities in a position to succeed. The presentation shows how to create a successful crisis communications plan, based on tried-and-true methods and messages, that covers ALL significant water and wastewater emergencies. It shows how to use mass media, social media, the experiences of your employees, and yes, comments from your customers, to create a successful response throughout an entire crisis, whether it involves the failure of a major main or pump station or the impacts of a significant weather event.
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