Surge Manager Rebecca Peters Featured as ‘Industry Person of the Week’

Rebecca shared expertise from her surge modeling specialty within our Transmission and Utilities team in Southeast Texas. She also offered perspectives on the value of civil engineering work. 

Some excerpts:

Empowering Pumps & Equipment: What do you love the most about your job? What are you most proud of?

Rebecca: The thing I love the most about my job is the ability to challenge my brain on a daily basis with some of the most talented people in the industry and mentor young engineers. There is a great satisfaction seeing young engineers grow throughout their career to become technical experts and successful project managers.

I am most proud of my ability to share my passion for civil engineering, most specifically surge, with non-engineers through describing how an individual experiences a very minor surge event when they are doing common tasks such as turning on and off the water faucet or pumping gas into their vehicle. … 

What advice would you give to someone considering this line of work or new to the field?

For someone considering the civil engineering field, the work can be hard and challenging at times, but it is incredibly rewarding. I am able to make a difference in someone’s everyday life by making sure they get water to their homes and businesses in a safe manner. …

Can you talk about a project you recently worked on?

… A recent project had me analyzing an existing system that incurred a line break. Information was gathered for the system at the time of the break and then implemented into a surge model to determine what caused the break. I was able to successfully determine a probable cause of the break and recommend ways to prevent future line breaks. The project experience was incredibly rewarding because I was able to help give a client a solution to a serious problem that was occurring in their system.

Anything else you would like to add?

… Work for a company and manager that believes in you and supports you. As a working mom with two young kids, it has not always been easy juggling personal life and a professional career, but with a strong team at home and work I have been able to prove that you can be successful at both.

Read the full Q&A here. 

To learn more about our surge modeling services, please contact Rebecca at rebecca.peters@freese.com or your Freese and Nichols client representative.