Focus on the Field—Engineers Week Spotlight
We have a robust $19.4 BILLION capital budget and undertake some of the largest and most complex water and wastewater infrastructure projects in the world. To manage that portfolio, we employ nearly 1,000 engineers who oversee projects spanning our entire water supply and wastewater treatment systems, including distribution infrastructure such as sewers, water mains, regulators and pump stations.
Natalia Perez is a member of our talented engineering staff and currently serves as a project manager for our Engineering and Design Capital Program. For Perez, engineering runs in the family. Her father is a systems engineer and instilled in her a love of problem solving. A native of Colombia, Perez received an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida and a graduate degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
During her studies, Perez grew very interested in the inner workings of cities, particularly those related to water infrastructure, because, as she says, these mostly underground engineering feats often go unnoticed.
“I started to become very aware of all the components of a city, like its roadways, catch basins and sewers,” she said. “It’s the stuff people usually take for granted.”
Perez joined our ranks in 2012 following an internship with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation where she worked on a wastewater treatment plant in the NYC watershed. As a former in-house designer and now a project manager, she is putting that experience to use, as she regularly interacts with regulators, attends countless public meetings, coordinates with our legal department, and works closely with the communities that her projects will impact.
Currently, Perez is working on delivering the design for two large combined sewer overflow (CSO) storage tanks along the banks of the Gowanus Canal. The tanks will capture MILLIONs of gallons of CSOs that would otherwise enter the canal. The project is an enormous undertaking and must take into consideration drainage plans, community concerns, public open space, Uniform Land Use Review Procedure Requirements, and project alternatives. Throughout this project, her work has led her to coordinate with a number of stakeholders including National Grid, and the New York City Departments of Transportation, City Planning, and Parks.
“This project has really given me a better sense of the size and scale of our capital program. I’ve learned a lot about the various groups that have to come together, like scheduling, cost estimation, and sustainability to see a project through to completion,” she said.
