Three Questions With: Technical Director Ryan Fleming
Q: As a Technical Director in the Water Business Line, what are your favorite aspects of what you do?
It’s exciting that everything we do has the highest impact on our ability to preserve and protect life. Without clean water, and without the ability to move our waste away from our population centers and treat it, we wouldn’t have the society that we have today.
In our consulting work, there are many different regulations that we have to follow. I see such a diverse array of water quality types and distribution types. There’s a lot of variation in what we do, and I find that really inspiring.
Q: How do you collaborate with other professionals, such as clients, other design professionals, contractors, or government officials, to achieve your goals?
I’ve taken steps throughout my career to get involved on committees, and I started doing that in a lot of ways by just going to the meetings and listening. That has since evolved, and now I’m contributing and leading some of those committees.
Going to national and regional conferences has also really helped me. The conferences I attend are usually ones where I have submitted a paper or poster. It challenges me and gives me the opportunity to present on a topic that’s interesting to me.
Q: How do you ensure that your work is sustainable and environmentally responsible?
In my view, when people have a high-quality drinking water system, that’s already a win for sustainability. We’ve got this tremendous resource right at our fingertips every day, and we use the principles of engineering to bring it there in the most efficient way possible.
We’re providing something that comes out of the tap that would otherwise require many gallons of diesel fuel to ship and bottle and haul, because water is extremely heavy. When people have clean tap water, it also reduces the need for plastic, single-use water bottles.