Thank You, Wendy!
The entire CalDesal family extends its gratitude to Wendy Ridderbusch, who served as the CalDesal Executive Director for two years. Wendy was instrumental in helping to establish a strong organizational foundation and infrastructure on which CalDesal can continue to grow and thrive. Her leadership, professionalism, integrity, advocacy and communication skills, and water industry experience helped strengthen CalDesal and set the stage for the association’s future. Thank you, Wendy – you will be missed!
New Executive Director Team
Speaking of transitions…. the CalDesal family welcomes its new Executive Director, Glenn Farrel, to the association. Glenn began the new role on December 1 and has hit the ground running on a variety of important CalDesal priorities. Glenn comes to CalDesal with nearly 30 years of experience in California water issues, including more than 25 years as an in-house government relations professional and lobbyist for several water agencies. Glenn is joined in the Executive Director role by Steve Cruz and Audrey Ratajczak with Cruz Strategies. The Cruz Strategies firm is one of the premier legislative advocacy firms in Sacramento and will assist in the advancement of CalDesal’s policy and regulatory priorities.

The Mixer Was Back!
After two years of pandemic limitations, the CalDesal Mixer was back in rotation at the ACWA Conference! The Mixer was extremely well-attended, and definitely a big hit for ACWA conference attendees!  Thank you to our generous Mixer sponsors:  Mesa Water District, UA Local 250 – Pipe Fitters, San Diego County Water Authority, GHD, Inframark, and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Thank you! 
CalDesal Virtual Annual Conference
Modeled after last year’s successful remote program, Chair Joe Monaco (Dudek) and the Annual Conference Planning Committee are organizing an interesting and informative two half-days conference set for the afternoon of Wednesday, February 9th and the morning of Thursday, February 10th, 2022. Registration is now open with an agenda and a link at www.CalDesal.org Please register and support our CalDesal Annual Conference!
Call For Volunteers!
As we begin to kick-off 2022 and cycle back into a regular schedule of CalDesal association committee meetings, we invite you to volunteer, participate, and get engaged on a number of exciting policy, regulatory, and communications issues. CalDesal’s strength and success is directly attributable to our members’ involvement and engagement. Please consider volunteering to participate in one of these fantastic committees and perhaps even consider a leadership role to really make a difference in advancing CalDesal’s priorities! The CalDesal committees looking for your participation include:  

  • Regulatory Committee: Meets Once Per Month
  • Communications Committee: Meets Once Every Two Months
  • Legislative Committee: Meets Once Per Month During Legislative Session
  
Please reach out to Glenn Farrel at glennf@caldesal.org to get on a committee’s email distribution and calendar list!