This acknowledgment is really a special acknowledgment to two people who played a key role in getting this whole project started. First, Dave Crane and I had cofacilitated a three-day project management course for Boston University Corporate Education Center clients. Dave and I honed the course materials over a three-year period and then decided to turn it into a book. At that time, Bob Beck, who was recently retired after 25 years with IBM, was my business partner and volunteered to create the CD-ROM that would house the O’Neill & Preigh Church Equipment Manufacturers case study. Dave and Bob devoted most of their efforts to the case study. | Effective Utility Management A Primer for Water and Wastewater Utilities June 2008 SõũĨMặ- WATER AGENCIES AẸỌẠ. ểV NACWA NAWC American Water Works Association .WaterEnvironment k Feder anon Foreword Effective Utility Management Foreword Water and wastewater utilities across the country are facing many common challenges including rising costs aging infrastructure increasingly stringent regulatory requirements population changes and a rapidly changing workforce. Effective utility management can help utilities respond to both current and future challenges and support utilities in their common mission of being successful 21st century service providers. Based on these challenges EPA and six national water and wastewater associations signed an historic agreement in 2007 to jointly promote effective utility management based on the Ten Attributes of Effectively Managed Water Sector Utilities and five Keys to Management Success. This Primer is an outgrowth of that agreement and distills the experience of a group of leaders in water and wastewater utility management into a framework intended to help utility managers identify and address their most pressing needs through a customized incremental approach that is relevant to the day-to-day challenges utilities face. In the future the Collaborating Organizations will continue to work collectively and individually to implement a range of short-term and long-term actions designed to promote and recognize excellence in utility management based on the principles and practices described in the Primer throughout the water sector. We the Utility Advisors and Collaborating Organization representatives who participated in this ground-breaking effort believe that this Primer will be helpful to both individual utilities and the water utility sector on the whole. Based on our own experience as well as the experience of others across the country it is clear that effective utility management is critical to helping utilities address .
