This month, read about a groundbreaking new partnership between CH2M HILL and one of the nation’s top public administration programs.
Take a trip with us to Seattle, where company leaders came together for a community service project and honored a client. Learn about how CH2M HILL and Fayetteville, Ark., captured one of this year’s coveted public-private partnership awards. And meet Harley the pig, the peanut-loving,
Facebook-posting pet of our DeFuniak Springs, Fla., project manager.
Our company
CH2M HILL, University of Kansas transforming education of local government leaders
 CH2M HILL is partnering with the University of Kansas’ top-ranked School of Public Affairs and Administration in a partnership aimed at transforming the education of government leaders, including a focus on effective outsourcing of local government services
or securing outside expertise to provide cost-effective solutions through public-private partnerships. CH2M HILL will fund competitive grants for faculty research projects, an educational workshop, an internship in city and county leadership for a student in the KU master’s of public administration program and webinars for current KU students as well as the university’s extensive alumni network. Read more.
Our partners
Partnership Award goes to Seattle Public Utilities
 CH2M HILL’s Operations & Maintenance Business Group recently presented its annual Partnership Award to Seattle Public Utilities. In 2001, SPU selected CH2M HILL to design, build and operate its 180-million-gallon-per-day Cedar River water treatment plant. This state-of-the-art facility supplies 70 percent of the drinking water to Seattle and suburban water utilities. At the time it was built, it featured the world’s largest ultraviolet disinfection system.
In presenting the award, President Elisa M. Speranza noted that this year marks the 10th anniversary of this “exemplary partnership” and expressed gratitude for SPU’s “support for our team and the work that we do.” In accepting the award, SPU Director Ray Hoffman said that in a partnership, “success is defined by how you deal with things that are unanticipated. We’ve had our set of things that came up at Cedar that weren’t anticipated, and both sides came to the table and worked through them in a way where we respected other people’s opinions, aired our differences and figured out a way to get to ‘go.’ That’s a great thing to be able to do in a partnership.”
Sustainability focus leads Arkansas project to national honors
 The National Council for Public-Private Partnerships has recognized the City of Fayetteville, Ark., and CH2M HILL with one of its coveted 2011 Public-Private Partnership Awards. The application, “Creating a Sustainable Partnership Program,” focused on how the city and CH2M HILL have worked together to increase sustainability at the wastewater treatment plants and throughout the city. The company has partnered with Fayetteville on community outreach programs, supported green education conferences, and taken a lead in showing how to implement sustainable practices. This is the seventh
public-private partnership award shared by CH2M HILL and its clients
since 2002. Read more.
Our communities
CH2M HILL leaders take time to give back at Seattle greenspace
 When a group of CH2M HILL leaders gathered in Seattle last month, they set down their Blackberrys® in order to remove blackberries – and other invasive plant species – during a community service project. Approximately 50 CH2M HILL team members in town for a professional development meeting volunteered on behalf of the Cascade Land Conservancy for a project at the Cheasty Greenspace . They spent about three hours – a total of 150 volunteer hours – removing invasive plant species such as Himalayan Blackberry and continued trail construction and maintenance work on the 43-acre urban greenspace and wildlife habitat. Read more and check out the great photos taken by our friends at Green Seattle Partnership, who wrote, “Thanks to the amazing volunteers from CH2M HILL…You sure made a big impact at Cheasty Greenspace Mountainview!"
Our industry
Private, public sectors join together for Water Summit
Water industry professionals, municipal leaders and elected officials from across the county will gather Oct. 2-5 in La Jolla, Calif., for the National Association of Water Companies 2011 Water Summit, “ Public Service & Private Enterprise: A Powerful Combination for Moving Water Forward.” Discussions will focus on trends and policies affecting the industry, including private enterprise’s role in utility service. Attendees will share innovations regarding water quality, customer service, communication, stewardship and sustainability. One particular highlight is the author’s panel tentatively slated to include Steve Maxwell, who wrote “The Future of Water,” and Robert Glennon, author of “Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It.” This year for the first time, NAWC is extending a complimentary Summit registration for all elected officials.
Our people
Florida manager ‘hog wild’ about serving client
 Like many people, when DeFuniak Springs, Fla., project manager Jayne Swift returns home from a hard day at work, she enjoys an enthusiastic welcome from the family pet. Only instead of a bark or meow, Jayne gets a hearty grunt from her pot-bellied pig, Harley. She got the pig when it was 6 weeks old as a present for her partner, who rides a Harley Davidson motorcycle, often referred to as a “hog” – hence the name. Jayne says Harley is very social, enjoys hanging out with friends around the fire pit, and lolling about in her personal “mud spa” (although she gets annoyed when the chickens try to join her). Harley has many talents, including the ability to shell peanuts and eat only the nut. She even has her own Facebook page.
Back at work, Jayne and her four-person team cover a lot of ground in DeFuniak Springs, where CH2M HILL has been providing operations and maintenance services for the city’s wastewater treatment plant, water wells and lift stations since 2003. They recently were the first recipients of the Northwest Florida League of Cities Partnership Award, nominated by the DeFuniak City Council. At the city’s request, last year Jayne and CH2M HILL provided quality training to the entire city staff – 100 employees in all. “Our relationship with the city staff is excellent and we work on projects together, ultimately saving the client money,” Jayne says.
Headquartered near Denver, Colorado, USA, employee-owned CH2M HILL is a global leader in consulting, program management, design, construction, and operations for government, civil, industrial and energy clients. With US$6.3 billion in revenue and more than 23,500 employees, CH2M HILL is an industry-leading program management, construction management and design firm, as ranked by Engineering News-Record (2009). The firm’s work is concentrated in the areas of energy, water, transportation, environmental, nuclear and industrial facilities. The firm has long been recognized as a most-admired company and leading employer.
CH2M HILL partners with communities and companies to deliver a complete range of custom-tailored operations and maintenance solutions. Our sustainable O&M solutions include water and wastewater system optimization; contract O&M of water, wastewater and other utilities; facilities management; and complete municipal operations, including administration, public works and community development.
|
|
|
|
|
|
President’s perspective
We recently got together for our annual Leadership Summit, a few days of pretty intensive training, networking and fellowship. Our theme for the week was "our time is now" – time to find new ways of sharing best practices and innovations to help our clients through these difficult economic times.
We also made time to give back to our host city of Seattle with a community service day, hauling rocks and clearing brush to help rehabilitate an urban park with the Cascade Land Conservancy. You can read more about it in this issue (and see some great pictures as well).
As we worked, learned and played together, I was pretty humbled to hear many stories about how our folks live our company values every day through delivery excellence and respect. And as an employee-owned company, we take special pride in the partnerships we have with our clients. One such partnership is with Seattle Public Utilities, where we are now in our 10th year together working on their Cedar River water treatment plant. SPU was named our Partnership Award winner this year, and Director Ray Hoffman was most gracious in complimenting our work there. He pointed out that in any relationship of this duration, things don’t always go smoothly.
“A partnership is best defined by how it deals with adversity,” noted Ray, who was joined by colleagues Elizabeth Kelly, David Hilmoe and J. Paul Blake for an excellent panel discussion. “We’ve had some of that in our relationship, and both sides dealt with it very well.”
We also recognized a number of our projects and teams with our Teamwork Awards. Ten winners were recognized in the categories of respect, employee control and delivery excellence. Five others were recognized for compliance and reporting. But I am perhaps most gratified by the number of our teams that qualified for our Safety Achievement Awards – 119 in all. We always talk about the importance of safety; these awards demonstrate just how committed our employees are to that principle.
To those of you impacted by this summer's natural disasters – earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and drought – we wish you all the best in the recovery and as always stand ready to help in any way we can.
Stay safe out there.
Respectfully,
Elisa M. Speranza
President
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
