Smooth Operators
20 Apr 2017
The Water Directorate congratulates four NSW operators who won awards at the 2017 WIOA NSW Water Industry Operations Conference and Exhibitions held in Canberra in late March.
Shane Kimber of Shoalhaven Water (pictured) won the Operator of the Year Award, proudly sponsored for the eleventh year by the Water Directorate. Shane is an operator at Callala STP and his award sees him joining the WIOA tour group to attend the WIOG New Zealand Conference in Queenstown on 3-5 May 2017. His supervisor commended Shane’s pride in his work, strong work ethic, knowledge, fastidiousness and mentoring ability.
Other winners are Brock Stone of Gunnedah Shire Council who won the Iwaki Award for Best Paper overall as well as the Nalco Award for Best Paper by an Operator. WIOA Award for Best Operator Poster went to Gary Perrin from Singleton Council.
The winner of the 2017 PASS Award was Marcus Boyd of Toowoomba Regional Council. Marcus worked with a team of fitters at Toowoomba to develop a tool to allow replacement of the mixer baseplates in the BNR bioreactor, avoiding the need to take the plant offline. The resulting tool is estimated to have saved the Council around $120,000. Marcus will join Shane on the NZ tour courtesy of award sponsor Aqualift Project Delivery.