Section History

The California Section of the American Water Works Association has been in existence for over 80 years. The original California Section was organized by a group of Water Works officials at a meeting in the boardroom of the Spring Valley Water Company of San Francisco on April 17, 1920. A constitution was adopted and George A. Elliott, Chief Engineer of the Spring Valley Water Company, was elected Section Chair and served as Chair for three consecutive years. (Mr. Elliott's untiring service to our Section throughout his lifetime was the basis for creation of the George A. Elliott Award, the highest award presented to a member for outstanding service to the Section.) In 1920, the Section had 52 members. By 1938, the Section had grown to 440 members winning the Old Oaken Bucket Award given annually by AWWA National to the Section with the most members. Today, the Section, with a current membership of over 8,000...over two and half times the size of the second largest Section...has become the permanent home of the "bucket."

Prior to the establishment of the Hawaiian Section in 1976, Hawaii participated with the California Section. George Yuen of Honolulu served as Section Chair in 1969 and the annual Fall Conference was hosted by the Hawaiians in 1974. Western Nevada also participated in the activities of the Section during this time. In 1977, the entire State of Nevada was officially brought in to form what is now the present day California/Nevada Section. Nevada hosted its first Section Conference at Reno in 1984. Joseph Monscvitz of Boulder City, Nevada, served as Section Chair in 1993.

Committees have always been the heart of the Section's activities. The dominant early working group was the Water Purification Division. They were the first Section working group to initiate conference parallel sessions and meetings apart from the Fall Conference. Today, the Section has over 50 standing committees and convenes both a Spring and Fall Conference annually. See Conference History.

The CA/NV Section has been a leader in developing water industry guidelines, standards, procedures, training and newsletters. Much of this work has been adopted and utilized by National AWWA. Dwayne Georgeson recently served a term as President of the AWWA Research Foundation, and six CA/NV Section members have served as President of National AWWA:

• George Pracy – 1932
• William W. Hurlbut – 1936
• Samuel B. Morris – 1943
• Lauren W. Grayson – 1959
• Christopher Medbery – 1968
• Jerome Gilbert – 1980

The Section history was provided by Frank Page