| Managing Kelly
A. Simpson is an engineering manager at Illinois-American Water "The
engineering work on a hundred-year-old water system involves projects and people
and continual planning," she notes  | | Kelly
Simpson: more projects, more decisions, more responsibility |
An
engineering manager at Illinois-American Water Co (Belleville, IL) has more to
do than just overseeing the design and construction of water mains, transmission
mains, pump stations, water treatment plants and other infrastructure in the state
of Illinois. "I'm a project and people manager," says Kelly A. Simpson.
"I need to know my own projects and theirs, too." The
engineering manager position was created in a company reorganization several years
ago. Simpson is the second engineer to hold the job, and since she took on the
role in 2001, she's found the responsibilities challenging. "From the other
side of the fence, management doesn't look too hard," she says. "But
it is."
To improve her skills, she's started MBA classes at Lindenwood
University (St. Charles, MO). Plenty
of projects
Illinois-American, which employs approximately 500 people,
is one of twenty-three subsidiaries of American Water, which has twenty million
customers in twenty-seven states, four Canadian provinces and South America. Illinois-American
provides water and wastewater service to a million people in 124 communities in
Illinois. Its three engineering offices, in Chicago, Champaign and Belleville,
IL, ensure that operating districts of Illinois-American get the engineering services
they need. Simpson
manages the Belleville engineering office, which handles projects in the southern
part of the state. At any given time she may be involved with seven or eight major
capital improvement projects and several small ones. Illinois-American
has six surface water treatment facilities on the Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio
and Vermilion Rivers, and most of them are close to a hundred years old. Not surprising
that water treatment is often Simpson's major concern. Many of her projects involve
facility renovation, which requires keeping the water treatment facility in service
during construction. Project
delivery
Arranging the details to keep water flowing "takes time,
effort and coordination," Simpson says. "The planning for a project
happens years ahead of the construction." Most
projects are bid out to private contractors. Simpson prepares the invitation to
bid, pre-qualifies contractors, and awards the contract, subject to the approval
of her supervisor, the VP of engineering for the state. A
civil engineer
When entering engineering school at Southern Illinois University,
Simpson thought she would like EE because her father is an electrician. But, "It
just wasn't clicking," she says. "Civil engineering clicked." The
variety of CE projects - roads and bridges, airports, skyscrapers and, of course,
water and wastewater treatment and distribution - appealed to her. An internship
with the Illinois Department of Transportation (Collinsville, IL) put her to work
surveying and testing materials for a bridge construction project. She
went on to intern twice with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (St. Louis, MO).
She calculated quantities for concrete and soil, did AutoCAD drafting and helped
prepare specs for concrete channel construction. Her
supervisor at the Corps was a woman, one of the few she met along the way. "She
really taught me how to deal with men in a superior role and a subordinate role,"
she says. "She treated everyone with respect and everybody respected her
in turn." Starting
out
Simpson completed her BSCE in 1993 and went to work for engineering
consultants Horner & Shifrin, Inc (St. Louis, MO), gaining experience in transportation
projects. "It was good experience, but not the area I wanted for my career,"
she says. After
two years she moved to Illinois-American as an engineer, rising to operations
engineer when she passed the PE exam in 1998. As operations engineer, she managed
larger projects and made more decisions. And, of course, engineering manager means
even more projects, more decisions, more responsibility.  | | Simpson
puts on her black leather jacket and relaxes with her bike. |
Work/life
Simpson
remarried two years ago, so her family now includes her daughter, who is eight,
a son, six and a stepson, five. Her
new husband introduced her to motorcycling, and she now has her own bike and participates
with him in fundraisers for charitable causes. The bikes give them an opportunity
to relax together. "We put on our black leather jackets and act single on
the weekends," she says with a smile. Simpson
is also involved with the Water for People committee, sponsored by the American
Water Works Association, and chaired its Illinois section for three years. The
Illinois section sends all the money it raises to help out with clean water in
Guatemala, and Simpson hopes to visit the projects there some day. Chances
are she'll get there all right, and likely make a suggestion or two about how
the projects can be made even better. D/C
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Kate Colborn & Christine Willard | 
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