On Friday, October 22, 1999, Lori Williams of Sierra Pacific Power Company came to the University of Nevada Reno to discuss her experiences with chemical engineering and her experiences with Sierra Pacific Power Company.

She began her presentation with a wide variety of opportunities that are available to chemical engineers both in the company that she works for and similar opportunities in industry. She stressed the opportunities of management and computer modeling within the company. Lori went into more detail about the opportunities by describing some of the activities that are involved. She described her boss’s job of management saying that it was a job that required much decision-making, making it an extremely stressful yet involved job. She then described the involvement of computer modeling within the company. Her description of computer modeling made the job sound interesting as it involves much computer simulation for water flow and designs for new structures. She implied that all of the jobs relating to chemical engineering were that incorporating extensive teamwork and hands on work. Next, she went into a brief presentation of how chemical engineering can be applied to other jobs and duties throughout industry, especially within water companies.

Ms. Williams then began to explain the breakdown of engineers within the company. She described that there were a lot of engineers of all kinds currently employed in the company but that there was only a small number of chemical engineers. She then went into a more detailed description of there specific duties. One of the engineer’s responsibilities was dedicated to energy efficiency. Another engineer’s responsibility was to supervise the chemical processes of water treatment. She went on describing that a third engineer was in command of the quality control aspect of the water. She did not give a description of there exact job duties. Lori then described proposed upgrades for both of the water treatment plants of Sierra Power Company, Chalk Bluff and Glendale. She went into further detail about the upgrades and noted that the upgrades concerned a natural byproduct of Arsenic. This byproduct, as she describes it, was extremely toxic and was very hard to treat. She went into further detail about the upgrades and concluded that they were due directly by a new federal government mandate.  The statistics that she gave were that the government is requiring that no more than 10 parts per billion for arsenic should be found in water and that the new treatment would cost he company about ninety million dollars.

After her discussion of the upgrades to treat arsenic levels she immediately went into another discussion concerning the Sparks Marina. She began by stating that the total dissolved solids and nitrates that were dumped into the river could no longer be done. Her argument about a solution to this problem was that of building a denitrification plant or membrane plant to rid the water of excess nitrates and dissolved solids. After noting that money was an object in the matter and that a membrane plant to filter out all of the unwanted particles she believed that the Sierra Pacific Power company will most likely opt for the cheaper denitrification plant. This decision came from the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency will not give a grant for the building of a membrane plant.

Our speaker ended her presentation with an insight to her career, its path, and her personal life. She described that she did not have any plans for college and that she basically came upon her job in a whim. She described her career path in that she got promoted to a Director of Water Operations on the business behalf of the Sierra Power Company. Her immediate boss is the Vice-president of the company. She hen described that her interest included politics and policy of water because it makes everything interesting. She then made a touch of her personal life. She had two kids that are both boys. Her final part of the presentation was that concerning internships within Sierra Power Company and that February was the time to turn in applications.
 

Submitted by:

Craig Pribila
Class of 2003