Paul Reynolds, Rural Water Manager of the Year

Paul Reynolds, Manager of Rural Water District No. 1 in Brown County, is the 2009 recipient of the “Manager of the Year” Award.

Reynolds began work as an inspector when the water district was first in construction 38 years ago. Following installation of the pipeline system, he assumed the position of operator for the district. He has been manager for the past 32 years.  For more than 20 years before the district constructed its new office and shop in Fairview, the district’s books were also maintained in the Reynolds’ home.
 
Monitoring the threat of ground water contamination of the district’s wells has been among his greatest concerns. In response, Reynolds led a search for new water supply wells, and he successfully negotiated a contract with Hiawatha to purchase a supplemental supply.  In addition to moving the district from a self-read system to the district reading the customer meters, Reynolds has also worked to make a variety of system improvements from rehabilitating the district’s water storage tanks to plans of installing additional pipeline to ensure customers receive better service. But most of all, Reynolds has endured the locating and repair of pipeline breaks in all sorts of conditions with a minimum of outages to the nearly 400 customers.