The winner for 2021 is the Reticulation Supervisors Team from Tweed Shire Council. The team includes Chris O’Dwyer, John Anderson, Anthony Pearse, Jeff Holt, Dale Hickey, Gary Cain and Peter Bruggy.
The team is responsible for the delivery of operations and maintenance of the water and wastewater networks through their 50 field staff that serve 80,000+ customers. The team has an enormous amount of experience with a cumulative total of 215 years at Council’s disposal and an average service of over 30 years each.
The team is responsible for dealing with more than 230 customer requests each month; along with the routine tasks associated with water & wastewater operations, such as:
- meter reads
- new services installations and meter replacement programs
- manhole inspections and repairs
- pipe breaks
- blockages and overflows
- junction repair and installations
- hydrant testing and inspections
The group has always had the customer-first approach and they receive regular customer praise for their staff performance. This group also participates in after-hours work as the first responder to an average of 70 after-hours calls per month. The water industry has come a long way since many of the team members were first employed. There have been massive changes in safety and managing how the job is done. Add to this the introduction of digital technology, computers, iPads, phones, GIS and the like has required all the team members to be able to learn, adapt and keep pace with the changing times and technology.
