President's Message

As I recommence into my 6th year as your association President, I (again) thank you for your support and look forward to representing all of you as the President of the Rhode Island Clean Water Association in 2025.

In reflecting back in 2024, we had another very successful year thanks to our members and sponsors for their continuous support, which is always greatly appreciated! Now, looking forward to 2025 and working with the returning and new Executive Board members, https://ricwa.org/board-of-directors/ to continue working hard to keep our mission going.

Our objectives include making sure that our members get the most out of our association to help them advance in their careers in this industry. Unfortunately, the clean water industry has been experiencing a shortage of up-and-coming workforce to fill vacant positions due to retirements. So a main focus this year is to provide more training with the help of our members, training committee and working with RIDEM’s Board of Certification.

During all our events, we emphasize that we want to hear from you about the training topics you are most interested in. Please let us know so that we can accommodate your needs to advance in your career by contacting Mike Digiovangiacomo at [email protected]. One way to advance your knowledge and networking is to join our Ops Challenge Team. If you have any questions regarding our Ops Challenge events and/or joining the Rising Sludge Team, please contact Dave Bruno at [email protected] or visit our website at https://ricwa.org/ops-challenge/.

We encourage all of you to visit our website at https://ricwa.org/events-2/ to get more information on the dates and times so that we can see at these great events. This year’s events will be the following: Clean Water Legislative Event, Awards Banquet, Golf Outing, NEWEA Spring Conference in Portland, ME, Clean Water Week & Open House at WWTF, NEWEA Congressional Briefing in Washington, DC, Earth Day Clean Up, Chowder Cook-Off, Operator Exchange Program, Annual Trade Show & Luncheon, WEFTEC in Chicago, and our end of the year Holiday Party / Elections. In between all these events include providing training and working with our Ops Challenge team as they prepare for another great year to compete and continue their winning ways!

The passion and commitment from our Executive Board, and the continuous support from our members, sponsors and others help us maintain the high level of standard that we set to make sure that you get something out of this association, and we THANK all of you!

If you wish to become a member of the RICWA, please click on this link: https://ricwa.org/membership/.

On behalf of the entire Board, we look forward to seeing all of you interacting during our events and training sessions throughout 2025.

Sincerely,

Peter J. Connell