DVL East Dam Renamed
for Former GM Boronkay
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“We know that dad would be so happy and humbled to receive this honor,” risk management unit manager
Drew Boronkay
told a crowd last week at a ceremony to rename the East Dam at Diamond Valley Lake in honor of his father – and Metropolitan’s former General Manager – Carl Boronkay. “He would be the first to acknowledge the many great people who worked so hard to turn ideas like Diamond Valley Lake into realities.”
In addition to the Boronkay family, many of those ‘great people’ were at the event including former Board Chairman Phil Pace, former General Manager Ron Gastelum, former Assistant General Managers Tim Quinn and Duane Georgeson, DVL project manger Dennis Majors, and Bob Will, Met's former Washington DC lobbyist.
Watch event highlights
here
.
About 75 other community leaders and water agency officials also attended the event overlooking Southern California’s largest reservoir. “Carl was transformative and changed the way we look at water,”
GM Kightlinger
told the crowd, a sentiment that was echoed by others who also talked about Boronkay’s drive to forge innovative paths for water management.
Boronkay served as general counsel from 1980-1984 before becoming general manager. He retired in 1993 and passed away in 2017.
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The Birth of the District's
SCADA System
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Enjoying the shade of his Sierra Madre home of 60-plus years, former Metropolitan Control System employee Grant Myers flashed a grin. He’d been up early and was happy to be interviewed and videotaped for Metropolitan’s oral history program.
Recently, the spry octogenarian donated 250 photographs, video, and records to Metropolitan's Historical Collection, where they will be preserved. Such generosity fills a void about the role of instrumentation and controls technicians in automating the infrastructure control systems.
Grant started working for Metropolitan in 1964. He maintained telemetry systems and helped with changes that led to the creation of SCADA. He first maintained control equipment and instrumentation, and worked on the meter crew before the Control Systems Group was formed.
Then in 1965, he helped install the first SCADA (Dresser) system, which was hard-wired at the Diemer Plant. Over the next 20 years, Grant worked at Sunset and Weymouth on the computer-controlled Madsen system and several other systems.
Now, staff are putting the finishing touches on Grant's oral history which will be preserved along with many early control system photos
.
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MWD's Version of Planes,
Trains and Automobiles
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If you think caring for a couple of cars and maybe a boat or motorcycle is a lot of work, just imagine what
Eric Brown
’s job entails.
Eric
is the unit manager for Fleet Services. Based in La Verne, his team of 40 talented and customer-focused employees manage 1,400 pieces of equipment including vehicles, generators, construction equipment, watercraft, portable blowers, and aircraft.
“If you can drive it, float it, fly it, start it, or crawl it, we manage it,”
Eric
says. “And by manage, I mean soup-to-nuts - determining what needs to be replaced, writing specifications, procurement and maintaining the asset throughout its life cycle.”
Eric’s
team is spread across the service area from Gene Camp to San Fernando at 13 fleet shop facilities.
Eric
began working for Metropolitan 16 years ago. He started his career in the Illinois Army National Guard as a 2nd Lieutenant specializing in Transportation and Logistics and later worked for Ryder Transportation Services
.
He holds a BS degree from Southern Illinois University and a Master’s degree from the University of Phoenix.
Outside of his busy job,
Eric
enjoys spending time with his wife of 33 years and stays on the move by riding his Harley, golfing, shooting, hunting, camping and diving.
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