AMWA Chief Policy and Strategic Officer Erica Brown on Women In Water's C-Suite

One of the best Government Relations and Regulatory Affairs experts in the Water Space is Erica Brown, currently Chief Policy and Strategy Office of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA - AMWA.org). AMWA is a small but mighty organization that consists of the largest of the public water agencies in the US, providing government relations services as well as utility management support for the "C-Suite" executives within these organizations (i.e. the Chief Executive Officers or "CEOs", Chief Financial Officers or "CFOs", the Chief Marketing Officers or "CMOs" etc). (See WaterCitizen's guide to the 2023 Fly-In schedule for more info: https://www.watercitizen.org/schedule2023/#amwa)

In this Extraordinary Conversation with Erica, we talked about the rapid increase in the numbers of Women On Top in the largest water agencies. DrCat shared how, when she first launched WaterCitizen Media in 2012, one of her first research pieces came from an interview with then-President of AMWA Pat Mulroy from Las Vegas, likely the first woman to lead a large water agency. At the time, Pat could only come up with about 4-5 names of other Women Water Agency Heads. WaterCitizen connected with women at the American Water Works Association who helped us come up with a "measles map" of nearly 100 women current and former water utility leaders - mostly from small and mid-sized utilities. (See http://watercitizennews.com/where-are-the-women-leaders-part-1/)

At the 2023 AMWA Water Policy Conference - which ended on International Women's Day (March 8th) shortly before this interview was recorded - AMWA posted a photo of the attendees showing a significant increase in the number of Women Water Utility Heads - including roughly 1/3 of AMWA's current members!

The women who are currently in leadership positions in water are those who were lucky enough to have the support of visionary men who served not just as their mentors but also as their sponsors, their champions and, in some cases, their protectors. Erica talked about the benefit of having the mentorship of Diane Van Der Hei, who led AMWA for 37 of the 40 years the organization's existence. We talked about how important it has been for women to "get a thick skin" and to find a supportive work environment and stay away from people who are not supportive - although that's not always possible, especially in the political arena where we "may have to work with people who are not so pleasant."

Erica shares her experience as the mother of a teenage daughter, and the awareness this generation has of "mysogeny and patriarchy" which were not discussed when Erica was in High School. We also discuss the role of social media in providing spaces for women and girls to educate each other on issues that are not discussed in school or at work.

In the latter half of the conversation, we talked about the Changes in Water Leadership - including the disciplines represented among Water Agency Leadership - that not only are there more Women Engineers, but that there are also more non-Engineers leading water agencies (as had been predicted by Water & Public Management Expert Professor Manny Teodoro), and more skill sets required of Water Leaders regardless of their academic background.

21:05 “You need a lot more skill sets, too, now, as a water utility manager than you did. Because you have to think about these issues of DEI more than you did 30 years ago, and these issues of affordability. Water utilities are becoming more adept at speaking to the public and engaging the public in their decision making.”

Erica also noted the importance of Water Leaders' building teams within their C-Suite, stating that Water Leaders are "people who can put a good team around them, even if they’re not an engineer, you need a good CFO, you need a good PR person, you need good scientists, you need someone who thinks about strategy, you need someone who thinks about DEI, and one person can’t do all those things well, right? A good leader is someone who gets those smart people in the room with them to help them do the things that they do." (21:34)

We discussed that diversity in your teams includes different disciplines as well as different ways of thinking, and that people with neurodiverse traits including non-linear "systems thinking" as well as high levels of empathy are often beneficial to have among Water CEOs or on Leadership Teams.

Our conversation then turned to the links between DEI and Water Equity, particularly in cases of Public Water Agency Leaders from larger cities often represent cities with large percentages of People of Color (mostly Black and Latinx), but must answer to Boards from mostly White Suburbs - as occurred in cities like Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi - both sites of water crises that impacted mostly Black residents in cases where decisions had been made by mostly Whites.

Erica also shared the feedback she had received from her mostly-female colleagues at AMWA about the benefits of having Women Water Leaders who often have innate or developed skills in "holding space" and taking a more "systems" approach, as well as providing ways for Water Agency Leaders to connect their Communities with local Watersheds through Art and better outreach.

Erica talked about UN Water and women in other cultures and countries where "Women are the WaterBearers," statin that "Water Brings Life and I think that's part of what it means to be a woman, for those of us who are mothers. It just makes sense to me, in a way, why women like environmental engineering."

Having majored in Civil Engineering at UVA (which didn't offer Environmental Engineering at the time), she talked about how much easier it is for Women College Students to major in engineering fields where there are more women, such as Civil and Environmental Engineering, versus fields like Electrical Engineering. DrCat noted that her experiences in a combined Statics-Dynamics course with mostly Electrical Engineers (and only 10 women in a class of 100) was a factor in her decision to join the Alpha Omega Epsilon Engineering Sorority (which now accepts all technical majors). Our conversation then turned to the many organizations and organically developed initiatives - mostly online since the start of COVID - of Women Water Professionals supporting other Women Water Professionals.

We ended with a quick introduction of the STEM Career Re-Entry Task Force led by the Society of Women Engineers and iRelaunch (who also participated in this Summit, along with CDM Smith's Reboot Re-entry Program - the only Career Re-Entry program in the Water and Environmental Consulting Industry in the US - and Untapped Potential), and the legislation now being considered to introduce such programs in the Public Sector.