NCPPP - Water Institute

The below presentations are available to MEMBERS only. You may purchase the program materials, see cost below.

Keynote Address: Mayor David Wallace (City of Sugar Land, TX and Co-Chairman, U.S. Conference of Mayors' Urban Water Council)
Fundamentals of PPPs: Richard Norment (National Council for Public-Private Partnerships)
How to Make PPPs Happen:
- Tom Pankratz (Vice President, CH2M HILL), paper and presentation
- Jeff Taylor (Deputy Director, Public Utilities Division, City of Houston, TX)
Case Studies:
- Greg Boettcher (Water & Wastewater Director, City of Fayetteville, AR)
- Maurice Gallarda (Vice President, New Business Development, Southwest Water Company)
- Jim Good (Vice President, Municipal Business Development, Veolia Water North America)
- Eugene Schiller (Deputy Executive Director, Southwest Florida Water Management District), paper and presentation
The Legal Environment in Texas: Tim Matheny (Partner, Ford White & Nassen P.C.)
The Role of Risk Allocation: Patrick Cairo (Executive Vice President, United Water)
Fundamentals of Financing Water Infrastructure: Steve Howard (Senior Vice President, Lehman Brothers)

Member: $30.00
Non-Member: $50.00
Shipping & Handling: $15.00
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The NCPPP Water Institute held another in its series of Water Asset Management seminars on July 29 in Tampa, FL. What made this event unique was the tremendous level of support for the seminar provided by the Southwest Florida Water Management District (commonly known as "Swiftmud").

Gene Schiller, Deputy Executive Director and Susan Kessel, Community Relations Representatives (both of Swiftmud) provided substantial assistance in the development of the program, promotion and on-site management. As a direct result of this partnership between Swiftmud and NCPPP, attendance at the meeting reached over 120 people. Most impressive was the quality of the attendees - the overwhelming majority were commissioners, directors of public works or elected officials. Swiftmud has also become a member of the NCPPP.

The conference was opened by Florida State Secretary of Community Affairs, Steve Seibert, who stressed that a key to public-private partnerships is building trust on both sides of the negotiating table and with the general public. He noted that the current demands of budgets and aging infrastructure make partnerships an imperative. "The challenge is to partner more eagerly and more effectively than we every have before" he said.

NCPPP Chairman David Seader led a session on Improving System Efficiency. Kevin McHugh (American Appraisal Associates) and John Rogers (CH2MHill) guided the audience through an interchange of ideas on how GASB 34 relates to effective asset managements. One comment was that this process can lower operating and maintenance costs by as much as 40 percent.

In another session, Dan Elias (Elias Group) moderated a panel that discussed how to develop a public-private partnership. This session covered concepts of how to identify potential partners, contract elements, communicating with employees, and "putting the deal together." Other panelists included Buddy Reneau (OMI), Jeffery Hines (American Water), John Wilcox (Salem Saxon) and David Fischer, former mayor of St. Petersburg, FL.

Other sessions covered System Financing (led by Larry Scully of Scully Capital Services) and System Security (led by Dan Ryan of Veolia). NCPPP Executive Director Rick Norment provided an up-to-date on the current legislative prospects for federal support of infrastructure replacement and for removal of the cap on Private Activity Bonds.

Special presentations were also done on the development of several of Tampa Bay Water's partnerships, as well as an agribusiness partnership that significantly reduced the use of ground water (an important issue in Florida). Note: The presentations made at this meeting are now on www.ncppp.org, in the "members only" section.

A unique feature of the meeting was the luncheon, sponsored by USFilter. Instead of a luncheon speaker, tables were arranged by key topics of interest to the conference attendees. Participants' reactions were very positive to this opportunity to sit with people with similar concerns - many commented on the "lively" discussions that took place on the seminar's topics.

The meeting began with a reception held at the Florida Aquarium, hosted by Poseidon Resources. Additional support for the meeting was provided by OMI and US Water.