Hyatt Regency Tulsa, Promenade Ballroom A Tulsa, OK
1:00 PM, Sunday, October 12, 2014
Chair Robert Carr, Presiding
1. Call meeting to order and recognize guests – Robert Carr, Chair a. Welcome to Steve Shoaf, AWWA Vice President b. Welcome to Board member nominees Kennedy, Leblanc and Schwab – Kenneth Schwab and
John LeBlanc were recognized when they entered the meeting. c. Welcome to guests
2. Comments – Steve Shoaf, AWWA Vice President
One of the big initiatives from AWWA is One AWWA, which promotes the unity between AWWA as the association, and Sections. One specific initiative is the branding effort, and many sections are moving through that. Another major initiative is the Strategic Planning effort, which seeks to have Sections align their own Strategic Plan with that of the Association.
AWWA was successful in having fire hydrants excluded from the Lead in Drinking Water Act revision/s.
Legislation was proposed after the large chemical spill in Ch arleston, WV. Tom Curtis from AWWA’s
Washington, DC office met with elected officials and urged them to move carefully in crafting sensible legislation.
AWWA has revised its website to provide for a search function that works well, and reorganized other section for functionality.
AWWA has also started a philanthropic to attract and retain top talent to our industry and particularly for
Young Professionals.
Steve also mentioned the AWWA’s Total Water Initiative.
3. Call for motion to approve minutes of the Mid-Year Board Meeting
Motion by Dan Dawson; seconded by Ben Bridges. Motion carried unanimously.
4. Southwest Section Director’s Report – Clayton Edwards, Director
Clayton provided a copy of his written report as well as a copy of the AWWA 2020: A Path to One
AWWA Report and discussed the five major strategic themes: Communication, Branding, Membership,
Education, and Finance. The initiative arose out of the Special Presidential Panel (SP2) created under
Charlie Anderson’s term as AWWA President.
AWWA is setting up an office in India as part of its international outreach.
Community Engineering Corps, which is a partnership between AWWA, the American Society of Civil
Engineers and Engineers without Borders to assist underserved communities in the US in meeting their infrastructure needs and improves the communities’ quality of life. CEC is seeking volunteers to assist with this effort.
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USEPA has awarded AWWA a grant to assist small water systems. The Southwest Section will be participating in this education effort through the Education Committee. AWWA is developing the training materials and the Section will provide the facility and the trainer. AWWA will pay $3,700 to the
Section for each qualifying training session is each state, limited to one in each state.
The 2014 State of the Water Industry Report identified the top five water industry issues as:

State of water and wastewater infrastructure;

Long-term water supply availability;

Financing for capital improvements;

Public understanding of the value of water resources; and

Public understanding of the value of water systems and services.
AWWA’s Partnership for Safe Water Committee is looking at starting a program for wastewater utilities tentatively called the Partnership for Clean Water. The wastewater Partnership is expected to be more difficult to identify measures for success in wastewater treatment plant and collection system operations due to the complexity of those systems.
5. Financial Report – Dan Dawson, Treasurer
Income & Expenditures To Date Report – Don generated a report in QuickBooks Pro which does not reflect all income. Dan indicated that the money is there but is just not included in the
Don’s report. Dan compiled a report in Excel that shows the transfer of $46,200 from the
PayPal account. Dan mentioned that he did not know if some of the conference expenses have already been paid and Don indicated that the Section fronted $19.100 from the Section’s operating account to the Local Host Committee for ACE14 events. Don suggested that he needs additional training for managing the Section’s finances in QuickBooks Pro.
6. Annual Conference Arrangements – Eric Lee, Local Host Chair
Eric provided a spreadsheet of projected income and expenses with a bottom line projection of about
$7,500. However, registrations are higher than projected and more sponsorships were received than budgeted. On the expense side, some expenses like meals for spouses are expected to be lower than budgeted. He indicated that they made estimates for attendance at events based on history of registration numbers versus actual attendance. For instance, the number of potential attendees for the
Meet and Greet was just under 300, and they estimated 225 for budget purposes.
The Committee added a trolley to bring attendees to the Meet and Greet due to weather concerns.
Charlie Soap will be the guest speaker at the Opening General Session.
Tuesday is the Broken Arrow WTP Tour. Blake brought up that inclement weather may attract more people to the Lunch with Exhibitors on Tuesday. Eric will take that into account to make sure sufficient lunches are available.
7. Accept resignation of Dan Dawson as Southwest Section Treasurer, to become effective when Pre-
Conference Board meeting is adjourned.
Motion by Bill HagenBurger; seconded by Ben Bridges. Motion carried unanimously.
8. Nominations and vote for new Treasurer appointment.
Blake moved that Robert Carr be appointed as Treasurer; seconded by Bill HagenBurger. After a brief discussion, the Chair called for the vote. Motion carried unanimously.
9. Nominations for 2014-2015 Board of Trustees – Blake Weindorf, Nominations Committee Chair
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Chair
Chair-Elect
Vice Chair
Past Chair
Ben Bridges
Bill HagenBurger
Candy Staring
Blake Weindorf
Arkansas Trustee
Arkansas Deputy Trustee
Tim Shaw
Dan Dawson
Louisiana Trustee John LeBlanc
Louisiana Deputy Trustee James Kennedy
Oklahoma Trustee Steve Nelms
Oklahoma Deputy Trustee Kenneth Schwab
Downsville, LA
Lowell, AR
Oklahoma City, OK
Little Rock, AR
Greers Ferry, AR
Searcy, AR
Lafayette, LA
Shreveport, LA
Shawnee, OK
Broken Arrow, OK
10. Southwest Section Future Conferences - Don Broussard, Executive Director
2015 Louisiana
2016 Arkansas
2017 Oklahoma
2018 Louisiana
Shreveport, LA
Rogers, AR
Oklahoma City, OK
New Orleans, LA (?)
11. Awards Presentations
Names in bold will be present a. President’s Luncheon Awards (11:15 AM Monday, October 13, 2014) i. Membership Recruitment – Don Broussard, Presenter
Updated figures from AWWA database – Awarded to the state with the highest net gain
Membership – September 1, 2013 through August 31, 2014 -
State
Arkansas
Louisiana
Oklahoma
New
50
27
57
Dropped Net change
39 +11
46
46
-19
+11 ii. Recognition of Scholarship Winner – Don Broussard, Presenter
Lauren Cheevers - Arkansas
Note: There were 7 applicants. Scholarships are generally funded from interest generated from investments only. The Southwest Section awarded one scholarship this year, as that was all that interest funds would cover. Note that revenues from Southwest Section Golf Tournament also go toward funding scholarships, but there was no golf last year, nor is there this year. iii. Membership Awards – Steve Shoaf, AWWA President, Presenter
1. Silver Water Drop: a. John Mosley, AR b. Jay Christello, AR c. Srini Sundaramoorthy, OK d. Marsha Slaughter, OK e. Phil Nelson, LA f. Harold Fontenot, LA g. David Kincannon, OK h. Ronald Rodi, LA i. David Naomi, LA
2. Life Member a. John Summers, AR (passed away August 23, 2014) b. Ronnie Graves, OK
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3. Silver and Life a. Frank Sunseri, LA b. Eugene Owen, LA c. Kelly McHugh, LA d. Philip Shupe, AR iv. Miller Award (To be announced) – Steve Shoaf, AWWA Vice President, Presenter v. Glen T. Kellogg Award (To be announced) – Steve Shoaf, AWWA Vice President, Presenter vi. Fuller Award (To be announced) – Steve Shoaf, AWWA Vice President, Presenter vii. Heroism Award – Robert Carr, Presenter b. Exchange of Gavel & Presentation of Plaque –Robert Carr/Ben Bridges
11. Other Business: i. Old Business: i. Report of Ad Hoc Committee on Conference Planning – Candy Staring, Chair
The charge of the Committee is looking at how other Sections do their conference, rotation of conference, evaluation of other organizations in our three states with whom we could join to do joint conference/s; and continue to rotate our conferences between and within states. We collected lots of information from these sections: Rocky Mountain, Texas (not a multi-state section but large in its geography), Western Canada, Atlantic Canada, Alabama-Mississippi,
Kentucky-Tennessee, New England, California-Nevada, Pacific Northwest, Intermountain and
Chesapeake. Spring conferences are normally held in April/May; fall conferences in
September/October. All Sections other than Chesapeake rotate the host city of their conferences. All sections negotiate with host facilities so are not married to a single facility.
Fluctuations in conference attendance are affected by site selection and local economy.
California-Nevada and Intermountain Sections are not aligned with their counterpart WEF affiliates, similar to the Southwest Section
– all other Sections work with either their WEF affiliate and/or another similar organization for the annual conference or other short school.
Range of memberships in other Sections surveyed is from around 250 up to 5,200 and conference registrations range from 275 - 2,800. Registration fees for full conference registration range from $230-520
– we charge $175. The question about what keeps exhibitors coming back elicited a wide range of responses: good booth pricing at over $1,200; good attendance; meetings of joint associations; dedicated time with exhibitors including games like scavenger hunt. No Section has any restrictions against having a Section conference outside of its boundaries nor any restrictions against having a Local Host that is not an AWWA utility member. Most Sections do not pay keynote speakers but some Sections do pay $5-10,000 for a good keynote speaker. Conference attendance is higher for those Sections that partner with other associations. Calculation of $/PDH for the Southwest Section is about $25; comparable
Sections that work independent of WEF are 2-3 times more per PDH.
Further questions and discussion items for the Board:

Do we want to change the way we are selecting conference sites?

We might consider the creation of a Conference Planning Committee that will have the benefit of experience of planning prior conferences and take a lot of the burden off of the host city to plan and execute a conference.

Resolve potential schedule conflicts if we decided to work with other associations, along with reconciling the cultures and traditions of other associations.

Space limitations of facilities if we partner with other associations and grow conference attendance.
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
Possibility of adding a spring conference if we wanted to work with another association whose conference is already traditionally held in the spring.
Chair Carr indicated that the Committee’s work should continue and try to resolve some of the issues raised. Blake asked if the Ad Hoc Committee will also work with developing a
Conference Planning Manual, and Candy indicated that it was not within the charge of the
Committee, but would be willing to work with Eric Lee and the Tulsa Local Host Committee to assist in its development. ii. Report of Ad Hoc Strategic Planning Committee – Bill HagenBurger, Chair
Bill handed out the mission and vision statements we worked on at the MYBM in Tulsa in April,
2014 and some additional supporting documentation. His target is to have a draft Section
Strategic Plan by the MYBM in Shreveport next year.
One of the first tasks to be completed is to conduct a member survey, and he passed out the draft survey questions and asked for comments or additional questions for considerations by
October 31, 2014. Many of the draft survey questions were taken from a similar survey conducted by the Michigan Section a few years ago. Don will prepare the member survey in
Survey Monkey and send to all Section members, leaving the survey open for 2-3 weeks with a reminder a week before the survey closes. The estimated time for completion is about 10-15 minutes. Bill anticipates that analysis of the survey responses will be done in Microsoft Excel. ii. New Business
Appointments a. Appointments by Chair – Ben Bridges, Chair
Water Utility Council (LA) TBD
Water Utility Council (AR)
Don will send a listing of all AWWA utility members in Louisiana to Ben for his use in making a qualified appointment to the Section Water Utility Council. b. Other Appointments Needed i. Appointments to be made by Louisiana Officer – Ben Bridges, Chair
Appointments Not Filled –Louisiana positions on:
Committee/Board Nominee
Education Committee
Communications Committee
TBD
TBD
Manufacturers and Associates Council TBD ii. Appointments to be made by Arkansas Officer – Bill HagenBurger Chair-Elect
Appointments Not Filled –Arkansas positions on:
Committee/Board Nominee
Manufacturers / Associates Council Brad Hammond iii. Appointments to be made by Oklahoma Officer – Candy Staring, Vice Chair
Appointments Expired –Oklahoma positions on:
Committee/Board Nominee
Auditing Committee
Awards Committee
Srini Sundaramoothy
Donna Skidmore
Communications Committee Rebecca Poole
Education Committee Steve Armstrong
Manufacturers / Associates Council Wes Ivory
Program Committee Joan Arthur
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Committee/Board
Scholarship Committee
Water for People Committee
Young Professionals Committee
Nominee
Hua Jiang
Geri Wellborn
Rachel Watts iii. i. Discussion of Southwest Section Human Resources and Financial Policies – Don Broussard,
Executive Director
Copies of suggested policies were m ade available to the Board. AWWA’s Section Services suggested that we adopt or amend a number of policies including Code of Conduct;
Whistleblower; Conflict of Interest; Financial Records Retention; Reserve Fund; and Fraudulent
Conduct. Most of the recom mended policies arose from a review/survey of AWWA’’s master insurance coverage. Chair suggested that the ED make the policies personal to the Southwest
Section and take up that item at the MYBM in Shreveport. Chair Carr requested that the draft policies be provided prior to the MYBM to allow Board a chance to review prior to the MYBM. ii. Discussion of Southwest Section logo, letterhead and website revisions. – Don Broussard,
Executive Director
At the Board’s request at the MYBM in Tulsa, ED Broussard submitted a request to AWWA to create a new Southwest Section logo which contained the three states with shaded blue. The word back was that we had to choose between the two logos submitted for consistency between
AWWA Sections. After a brief discussion, the Board requested that ED Broussard request that we ask AWWA to modify the two logos with the state outlines of the mockups prepared by
AWWA with the same typeface that AWWA uses in its logo along with a Navy blue line, and bold the “Southwest Section”.
12. Announcements a. Meet and Greet begins at 6:00 PM at the Dilly Deli. Registration will be available for late arrivals to Tulsa (with thanks to the Local Host Committee). b. c.
Business Meeting begins at 8AM tomorrow.
ED Broussard requested that e-mails be sent to the ExecDir@swawwa.org
address. The old don@swawwa.org
is now inactive.
13. Adjourn – Motion to adjourn by Blake Weindorf; seconded by many and approved by all.
UPDATE:
These awardees were not announced during the meeting, but were awarded during the President’s
Luncheon:

Miller Award went to Donna Skidmore

Kellogg Award went to Rebecca Poole

Fuller Award went to Robert Carr.
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