Wise Water Words - Volume 51, Issue 1 (Spring 2014)
A Word from the Editor
By Brian Gongol [DJ Gongol & Associates]Things are starting to heat up for the mid-term Congressional and Senate elections, and the speculation about who will run for the White House in 2016 is certainly white-hot. On a more local basis, Nebraska voters will choose all kinds of officials in November, ranging from the governor on down the line through other state executives, state senators, regents, commissioners, and NRD directors, not to mention the many local and county officials who will stand for election as well.
Regardless of your affiliation -- Republican, Democratic, or neither of the above -- we can probably all agree that there is a shortage of one kind of politician, and that's the technician.
Take a look at Congress, where the latest report says that a majority of Senators are lawyers (and nearly a majority are career politicians), and that most Representatives are lawyers, career politicians, former teachers or professors, or businesspeople. In all of Congress, there are but six engineers -- who are outnumbered by both accountants and social workers. Based on the figures, there don't appear to be any water-treatment operators within shouting distance of Capitol Hill.
With efforts like the AWWA Washington Fly-In and our outreach to state and Federal legislators, we as an industry certainly try to make our voices heard. But the fact remains that we are almost totally absent from the ranks of lawmakers. And the same goes for many other technical fields -- there are a couple of pilots and former software-company executives in the House of Representatives, but when it comes to finding people who know about how to make real things work, the examples are few and far between.
It's been said that "If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got" (sidenote: I'd love to attribute the quote, but nobody seems to agree on the original). Thus it should not come as a surprise if we find that public works take a very low priority in the public debate if we keep sending people into office who don't have any first-hand knowledge of what our work involves. While I wouldn't dare argue that people with a technical background have any special claim to Truth, Justice, and the American Way, it's perfectly fair to note that working in a technical field like the public-works sector trains individuals to have a certain problem-solving mentality. And if there's one place many Americans agree that problem-solving skills are in demand, it's in the hallowed halls of our lawmaking bodies.
We already face a pretty significant worker shortage in this industry, so I don't expect anyone currently in the business to drop everything and start campaigning. But maybe there's room out there for a few retired water-sector professionals to take up a second career in politics. Food for thought, perhaps?
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This is our first official edition following a "digital-first" approach to publication. We are trying to adapt to a more timely manner of delivering you the news of the Nebraska Section while still keeping up our 51-year-old tradition of a printed publication. The content is the same, but we are trying to do more to give you an appropriately 21st-Century periodical, and that means we have to think about pixels as well as print. We hope you like it, and your feedback (positive or otherwise) is welcome (brian@gongol.net).
This first edition of 2014 includes an important invitation to recognize your fellow professionals for their efforts to work safely, great news about our membership efforts, and important news about regulations affecting our industry. Kearney's Kirk Stocker was kind enough to offer some thoughts on water conservation, and Mike Wentink wants you to think about operator knowledge as an asset. As always, we invite our section chair and director to share their thoughts as well. Please dig deeply through this edition and consider sharing your own thoughts in the upcoming summer edition.
