Skip to main content
City of Madison
  • Accounts
    • All Accounts
    • My Account
    • ePayments
    • Water Customer Care
    • Employment
    • Licenses & Permits
  • Services
  • Jobs
  • Agencies
    • All Agencies
    • Assessor's Office
    • Attorney's Office
    • Building Inspection
    • Civil Rights
    • Clerk's Office
    • Common Council
    • Community Development
    • Development Services Center
    • Economic Development
    • Employee Assistance Program
    • Engineering
    • Finance
    • Fire
    • Fleet Service
    • Golf
    • Goodman Pool
    • Housing Authority
    • Human Resources
    • Information Technology
    • Madison City Channel
    • Madison Public Library
    • Madison Senior Center
    • Mayor's Office
    • Metro Transit
    • Monona Terrace
    • Municipal Court
    • Office of Business Resources
    • Office of Real Estate Services
    • Olbrich Botanical Gardens
    • Parking
    • Parks
    • Planning
    • Planning, Community & Economic Development
    • Police
    • Public Health Madison & Dane County
    • Public Works
    • Streets & Recycling
    • Traffic Engineering
    • Transportation
    • Treasurer's Office
    • Warner Park Community Recreation Center
    • Water Utility
  • Data
  • Contact
    • Mayor
    • City Council
    • City Staff & Agencies
Search form
Coronavirus (COVID-19)
  • City Services
  • Public Health
  • Vaccination
  • Testing
  • Español
City of Madison Engineering logo

Engineering

  • Home
  • Stormwater
  • Sanitary Sewer
  • Streets & Paths
  • Facilities
  • Developers & Contractors
  • Permits
  • Projects
  • About
  1. City of Madison
  2. Engineering
  3. Blog

Engineering Blog

Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 example where Engineering has been resilient and ready?

posted May 20, 2022

Public Works banner

 

The City of Madison Engineering Division is proud to take part in the City’s week long celebration of its work and its agencies during Infrastructure and Public Works weeks. Each day this week, we’re hosting a blog panel: focusing on one question, and answers from staff across our agency. We asked our staff, and here's what they said:

What is one example where we’ve been resilient and ready in public works that you can remember?

“Definitely the floods of August 2018. It was all hands-on-deck and impressive to see the entire department get things done so quickly and effectively.” -Chase O’Brien, Accountant, Engineering-Finance Section

“Transition to work from home in the early days of the pandemic. We had a lot of dedicated and creative staff in our group and in IT come up with new ways to do our work collaboratively. Across agencies, many were willing to reform processes to work remotely. Still working on alternate ways of doing our work to further enhance resiliency.” -John Sapp, CAD/BIM Manager, Engineering Technology

“Public Works is constantly adapting. From ramping up the number of public works contracts during the Great Recession (post 2008) to responding to the August 2018 flood to installing solar on City facilities, Public Works responds to challenges.” -Johanna Johnson/Lesley Parker/Heidi Fleegel, Program Assistants, Office Administration

“The floods of 2018. I feel Engineering was very proactive in predicting impacts and warning the public.” -Jeff Quamme, Land Information Manager, Land Information Official Map Section

“The flood of 2018 was a huge wake-up for me. I was working on the Green Power crew when this occurred, and it was all hands on deck. Watching the City come together in an emergency like that really changed my perspective. The amount of people volunteering to sand bag through all hours of the day was incredible. All of the departments really worked hard together to get us through it.” -Hattie Russell, Maintenance Technician, Facilities Maintenance Section

“Atwood Avenue near Olbrich Park is going to be reconstructed soon. Engineering checked the design with the watershed study computer models. This resulted in a slight modification to the design to help our stormwater system be more resilient.” -Caroline Burger, Engineer, Stormwater Section

“The Dairy Drive encampment. Tasked with a huge lift on a very difficult timeline. Whole City pulled together to make it happen for those that really needed the help. Really proud of that one.” -Stephen King, Facilities Services Coordinator, Facilities Services Section

“The obvious answer would be how well we’ve handled and adapted to working through the COVID pandemic. Having an empathetic leadership and team mates also made an incredible impact to me and the projects I worked on.” -Ike Okafor, Engineer, Streets and Paths Design Section

"Our Engineering Operation Staff have done a remarkable job maintaining sanitary sewer service to the customers as a result of having a proactive approach of identifying problem in the sewer system and increasing preventive maintenance (cleaning) for the problem sewer. Some sewers require spot repairs or lining, full replacements while others just need to have increased frequency of cleaning. This maintenance strategy has had overwhelming success. The City has averages less than 25 backups per year since 2014 and Cities the size of Madison have 64 backups or 232 backups according to National Standards (Emmons Municipal Benchmark, and American Society of Civil Engineers). Citywide, we had sewer 12 backups in 2021 and 10 backups in 2020.” -Mark Moder, Principal Engineer, Sanitary Sewer Section

This content is free for use with credit to the City of Madison - Engineering and a link back to the original post.

Category: Blog Panel, Educational

Subscribe to Engineering Blog Updates

Confidentiality
By participating on this list the Wisconsin Public Records Laws may subject your email address to disclosure to third parties. By selecting "Yes" you are requesting that we treat your email address that you have provided to this list as confidential and you are also stating that you would not participate in this service if the City is obligated to release your email address to such third party requesters.

Recent Posts

  • Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 example where Engineering has been resilient and ready? posted May 20, 2022
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 program that Engineering has that is most helpful for residents? posted May 19, 2022
  • Public Works Week Panel: What does the future of Public Works hold for local municipalities? posted May 18, 2022
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is something that continues to surprise you about working in Public Works? posted May 17, 2022

Archive

2022
May
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 example where Engineering has been resilient and ready?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 program that Engineering has that is most helpful for residents?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What does the future of Public Works hold for local municipalities?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is something that continues to surprise you about working in Public Works?
  • Public Works Week Panel: Why is it important to work in Public Works?
  • Median Planting Bed Conversions - Frequently Asked Questions
  • City Engineer Robert Phillips to Retire After 33 Years of City Service

Category

Blog Panel

  • Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 example where Engineering has been resilient and ready?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 program that Engineering has that is most helpful for residents?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is something that continues to surprise you about working in Public Works?
  • Public Works Week Panel: Why is it important to work in Public Works?

Calling it a Career

  • City Engineer Robert Phillips to Retire After 33 Years of City Service

Educational

  • Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 example where Engineering has been resilient and ready?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 program that Engineering has that is most helpful for residents?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What does the future of Public Works hold for local municipalities?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is something that continues to surprise you about working in Public Works?
  • Public Works Week Panel: Why is it important to work in Public Works?
  • Median Planting Bed Conversions - Frequently Asked Questions

Environmental

  • Median Planting Bed Conversions - Frequently Asked Questions

Programs and Initiatives

  • Public Works Week Panel: What is 1 program that Engineering has that is most helpful for residents?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What does the future of Public Works hold for local municipalities?
  • Public Works Week Panel: What is something that continues to surprise you about working in Public Works?
  • Public Works Week Panel: Why is it important to work in Public Works?

Stormwater

  • Median Planting Bed Conversions - Frequently Asked Questions

Tags

  • Adopt A Median

Engineering

Engineering
210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Room 115
City County Building

Madison, WI 53703
Engineering Larry D. Nelson Operations Facility
1600 Emil St
Madison, WI 53713
  • engineering@cityofmadison.com
  • Phone: 608-266-4751
  • Fax: 608-264-9275
  • Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.
  • WI Relay Service

Report a Problem

  • Dead Animal Collection
  • Erosion Control
  • Potholes
  • Report Flooding
  • Sewer Access Covers
  • Sewer Backup
  • Sidewalks
  • Train Noise

Report a different problem »

Programs & Initiatives

  • Flooding
  • Projects
  • Rain Gardens
  • Watershed Studies
  • Adopt a Median
  • GreenPower
  • Winter Salt Certification

Contact Us

  • Contact Engineering
  • Staff Directory
City of Madison, Wisconsin logo, copyright City of Madison

Our Madison – Inclusive, Innovative, & Thriving

Copyright © 1995 - 2023 City of Madison, WI
  • Contact Webmaster
  • Accessibility
  • Web Policies
2021 Winner of the Digital Cities Survey by the Center for Digital Government What Works Cities Silver 2021