President’s Message, Spring 2004

Kenneth Skibinski, President, New York Water Environment Association, Inc.

It is with eager anticipation that I enter my year as president of New York’s preeminent water quality association, one that I have been involved with for many years and have come to know and appreciate as I have matured in my career. I know that the upcoming year will be a busy one, as the past couple of years have been as well. This past fall, between personal business and New York Water Environment Association business, I was away from home for 26 of 49 days. However, it also provided me the opportunity of having my feet in both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean within a two-week period! Along with the work and travel comes the fun part of renewing old friendships, making new ones, and hopefully adding something back to the association that has given me so much.

I would like to congratulate Kirk on his year as president of the New York Water Environment Association and its board of directors as well. Kirk has truly been a dynamo and will be a tough act to follow. Fortunately, with him now becoming past president, I can still tap into his abilities. John Cameron, about to become a past, past president, also had great accomplishments. Little did I know that I would succeed John as president of this organization when we first met over 20 years ago. He was just starting his company, Cameron Engineering, when he visited a newly constructed treatment plant to inquire about the usefulness of the operations and maintenance manual that had been provided. I was operating that plant and still do today. After his work was done, our paths didn’t cross for many years until I began attending NYWEA state meetings. This is one of the tremendous benefits of this association: the creation of friendships that are long lasting.

This past year was truly a year of accomplishments. Numbering among the many of particular note were the governance changes and the strategic plan. I have high hopes that both of these will lead to a betterment of the association. I welcome the new board members from the committees, as well as the first-ever vice president–elect, and look forward to working with each of you in the upcoming year. The strategic plan has been adopted by the board of directors and has laid the foundation for the creation of the business plan, where we will put the strategic plan into action through funding and creation of new initiatives. I am actually excited about this, despite the fact that I have previously stated to Patricia that my primary initiative as president was going to be “no new initiatives!” As in life, in order to keep going, we must adapt and grow. So it is with the New York Water Environment Association: we must continue to grow in knowledge, grow in members, grow in new avenues that previously were not even thought of by employing “out of the box” thinking, which is a common expression these days.

An aspect of the strategic plan is to offer more training. As a wastewater treatment plant operator and one of the first groups to have ongoing education as a mandatory part of the certification process, I have long appreciated the programs conducted by NYWEA chapters, as well as the state association. I have also thought that we can and should be doing more. During the past year, the board of directors approved of the creation of the Operator Training Task Force. The goal of that task force is to look at providing more training from the state association on a chapter level, working cooperatively with the chapters for scheduling and locations. This work is ongoing and I expect to make headway this year. And this from a president who wanted no new initiatives!

John Cameron summed things up accurately when he stated that our greatest strength is the fact that we’re composed of volunteers, and our greatest weakness is that we’re volunteers. We all know this, as this association moves with the actions of our volunteers. While we may encounter some disappointments, they pale in comparison to our accomplishments. We are an association of people. It is through our people—our volunteers—that the association accomplishes things. I would like to thank the people who are involved with the chapters, committee chairs, and committee members. Without your hard work and dedication, we could not accomplish anything. This is a fact that I can’t stress enough.

We are an association of people with a purpose. That purpose is to provide education to ensure the well being of New York State’s waters. The state has made much progress over past decades in improving and safeguarding New York’s waters, but the job is not done. We now welcome the participation of a DEC representative on the board of directors. We thank Sandi Allen for her involvement and welcome the partnership and the benefits it presents to both organizations. Additionally, we have the participation of the Environmental Protection Agency and thank Paul Molinari for his support and involvement. The joining of these agencies with us can only add strength to our mission.

We are an association of people with a purpose who have a passion for protecting the environment, a passion for doing what we know how to do well. Many of us have attended board meetings in the past and have been witness to the passion in the form of animated discussions. This would not happen if not for the dedication of our volunteers and their deep-felt commitment to the association.

We are an association of people with a purpose who have passion and principle. Principle is defined in the dictionary as “a rule of conduct; especially right conduct; integrity.” We go about our daily lives at our “real jobs” following rules—rules that are set by employers, rules that are set by regulatory agencies, rules that are set by our conscience because it’s the right thing to do. We function in a realm of self-monitoring for designing properly, monitoring properly, reporting properly, not because of the legal consequences, but because it’s the right thing to do. We are principled. We are an association of people, purpose, passion, and principle. In many instances, there is overlap between personal and professional lives. An example of this came about recently. While hiking in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, a fellow NYWEA member and I were thirsty. After seeking out an appropriate source of water, we set to work with our portable water filters. We readied our containers as we each watched the range cattle lounging in the stream a bit of a distance upstream and discussed the marvels of technology that we were using at the moment to safeguard our health, to say nothing of the taste of the water, despite the fact that they were not made by U.S. Filter. He then remarked, “Do we ever get away from cleaning water?” And the answer is no; we don’t get away from it. This is only one small example of why we are a people with purpose, passion, and principle.

In closing, I look forward to a wonderful and eventful year. I would like to thank the board of directors for expressing their faith in me to lead this great association for the next year.

—K. Skibinski