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Message from the 2023 Conference Chair

The Friday morning before leaving for Colorado I hopped in my truck and drove two hours to pick up my 15-year-old son at summer camp. I stood at the back of the outdoor chapel with the other parents and watched these kids, who have spent the past five days doing everything together, hug each other and cry. Even when he acknowledged that it was time to go, I could see the sadness in his eyes.

As I walked up the stairs to the Imperial Ballroom at Beaver Run to close out our 14th NHWC Biennial Training Conference & Exposition, I could relate. I could feel the lump in my throat growing. It was as if my own summer camp was coming to an end. In many ways, it was.

Summer camp for most children is an opportunity to discover their true selves. For a brief period, they are taken out of their structured lives and allowed a greater level of independence, to act like adults and make their own decisions. They are separated from their schoolmates and given a social environment to make new friends and develop their communications skills. They are given new information and involved in new activities that expand both their minds and bodies. Despite the sadness of leaving, they come home as better, happier people, with lasting memories.

For five days in June, we all left our routine lives and joined together in Breckenridge for the 2023 conference. Through the social activities and networking events we made new friends and reconnected with old friends. Whether it was playing golf at high altitude, hiking in the mountains, or rolling dice at the craps table, we stepped outside our comfort zones and tried new activities. We expanded our minds, gathering new knowledge from our speakers and new connections that can be taken back home to benefit our organizations and lives. Despite the sadness of leaving, I, for one, came home as a better, happier person, with lasting memories.

As most of you know, our 14th Biennial Conference was originally supposed to be held in June 2021. Throughout 2020 we watched as travel restrictions, lockdowns, mask mandates, quarantines, and working from home became commonplace. Although we thought for sure that it would all be cleared up by 2021, and it even seemed like it was for bit, once we saw a resurgence in early 2021, we had to make the tough decision to postpone the conference to 2023. By the time our committee reconvened in late 2022, we faced another challenge. The social and economic landscape in 2022 was not the same as it was in 2019. Beaver Run was operating on a skeleton staff. All but one of the local drayage companies, the company that constructs our exhibit hall, went out of business. The cost of everything had increased.
Our committee pressed on, and we were able to have a successful event in 2023. There are numerous things to highlight, such as the delicious food we were served all week, the exciting casino night, and the top-notch technical program. As with any conference, there were many lessons learned that will be considered in the planning of our 2025 event. We appreciate all the feedback we received on the conference so far and take everything into consideration. If you haven’t yet, please make sure to fill out our feedback form at https://forms.gle/ZteWboKLaRB7Tj139. You will be rewarded with access to the CEC certificate.

I would be remiss if I did not recognize the conference planning committee. They should really be called the planning and execution committee because without their work in the months and days leading up to the conference, as well as throughout the event, we would not have had the successful week that we did.

Ben Pratt, Susquehanna River Basin Commission – Ben was the conference co-chair this year and will be taking on the role as chair for 2025. Although Ben spent most of his time learning the ins and outs of being a chair, he also was directly responsible for the free t-shirts and water bottles you received at registration. I’m also pretty sure that casino night was originally Ben’s idea.

Catherine Lane, TriLynx – Catherine planned and managed all on-site activities for the week. This included locking in Colorado Casino Nights way back in 2019 as our Tuesday kickoff activity. She maximized an overly tight food & beverage budget and worked with Beaver Run staff to make sure that all our meals were great. She got Markus Ritsch to purchase all the beverages and snacks for the hospitality suite (thanks to Xylem for sponsoring), loaded it all in her car, and physically carted all of it up to the suite. She organized a team of TriLynx and Water & Earth Technologies staff to help ensure that the suite was stocked and maintained all week long.

April Krieg, Conference Planner & Sharliss Arnold, WSP – The first faces you saw as you arrived at our conference, they held down the registration desk all week long. Of course, that wasn’t all they did. April had her hand in the planning everything. She set up and managed the registration website, helped with the conference app, gathered exhibitor raffle items, and did what she could to keep me from going off the deep end for the past four years. Those gift baskets given away as prizes for casino night, that was Sharliss. She custom-assembled those baskets from items purchased all over Breckenridge, provided the door prizes for the awards banquet, and assisted Catherine with food & beverage selections.

Matt Friedberg, Dona Ana County Flood Commission & Mark Moore, Distinctive AFWS Designs – These two were responsible for helping to market and bring in sponsors and exhibitors, which are so vital to the financial success of the conference. Mark covered sponsors and Matt covered exhibitors.

Ryan Spies, Lynker & Julie Dauer, OTT Hydromet – These two were responsible for speaker services. All week long you saw them running around with laptops and thumb drives, gather presentations and bios, making sure presentations were on the laptop in the appropriate room, making sure moderators had their instructions and speakers knew which room they were in, and even filling in for the hotel’s audio-visual department at times.

Fritz Law, AEM – Fritz managed the golf scramble. I didn’t even have to think about it. He coordinated with the Keystone River Course to get us the best deal available given the rising prices in the area and managed transportation to and from the event.

Bruce Rindahl, MHFD – Bruce provided a similar level of support for the tour of Dillon Dam. He worked with Denver Water to facilitate a fabulous tour and coordinated transportation to and from the dam. Bruce also handled the biannual awards ceremony, coordinating and purchasing the awards.

Dave Curtis, WEST & Rob Hartman, RKH Consulting – Last but certainly not least, Dave & Rob coordinated the technical program. They brought in great keynote speakers from the highest levels of USGS, NWS, and USACE for our plenary sessions. Rob even stepped up to fill a gap during lunch with his own presentation on the reemergence of Tulare Lake in California. As an organization with a primary mission of education & training, the technical program at our conference must be tight. Dave & Rob did a spectacular job of that.

My last big thank you goes to you. Whether you were a sponsor, exhibitor, regular attendee, or student, your participation in our 14th Biennial NHWC Training Conference & Exhibition was critical to its success. It is my genuine hope that you all went home as better, happier people, with lasting memories.

Sincerely,

Bradley Heilwagen
2023 Conference Chair

Many Thanks to our 2023 Conference Sponsors

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Message from the 2023 Conference Chair

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