Episode 2: water utility resiliency during covid-19 and beyond with George hawkins
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Guest host Charles Fishman welcomes Moonshot Missions CEO & Founder George Hawkins to discuss the monumental change in day-to-day operations for water utilities managing COVID-19, the state of the industry for public water institutions and his vision for building a more resilient model that can save costs and improve efficiencies despite infrastructure and funding challenges.
About George hawkins
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George Hawkins is the former CEO of DC Water. When he arrived in October 2009 at DCWASA, as it was called then (DC Water and Sewer Authority), the water utility for the nation’s capital was distrusted by the public and saddled with antiquated systems and a poor public image. Over the course of the next 8 years, DC Water adopted strategies that reduced the cost and time of its routine operations, while re-building its relationship with its customers and the city.
Today, George is trying to bring those same water management and re-invention strategies to under-served communities and smaller water utilities, through a 501(c)3 nonprofit called Moonshot Missions. He and the staff of Moonshot Missions try to show hard-pressed US water utilities how to use techniques of efficiency and smarter financial management George used at DC Water to make their own utilities both more effective, and more financially secure.
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ABout Charles fishman
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Over the last five years, Charles Fishman has become one of the most forceful, challenging and inspiring voices on water issues in the US. He is the author of “The Big Thirst: The Secret Life & Turbulent Future of Water,” which is the bestselling book about water in the last generation. Fishman has been helping to host the Water Leaders Summit, for The Water Council, since 2016. He has spoken about water at MIT, the United Nations, the headquarters of Hershey chocolate and Unilever, at the US State Department and at the Hague. He has spent his career as a reporter, editor and author. He started as a staff writer for The Washington Post, and has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, and Fast Company magazine, his professional home for the last 20 years.
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For further reading
Send-off article highlighting George’s accomplishments during his DC Water tenure:
AFTER EIGHT YEARS AT HELM OF D.C. WATER, HAWKINS STEPS DOWN
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