Hero Award Spotlight: Darin Kamradt

WaterOne is an independent, public water utility serving over 455,000 people in the suburban Kansas City area. Darin’s leadership during this pandemic was critical to ensure the safety of the organization’s essential workers and the reliability of water service to the public by:

• Organizing an emergency procurement team that planned for and procured food supplies and appliances such as washers and dryers in preparation to meet the needs of core staff on site for an extended period of time should an escalated shelter in place requirement deem necessary.
• Enlisting the help of in-house water quality laboratory staff in creating a homemade supply of hand sanitizer with disinfectant materials that were not as impacted by supply chain shortages.
• Supporting Customer Relations and Distribution colleagues by quickly facilitating the authorization of an unanticipated expenditure for a remote call center solution allowing the customer service call center to be operated remotely.
• Leading a virtual team of staff and consultants to advance refund outstanding bonds in order to take advantage of the market conditions created primarily by the pandemic. The refunding saved ratepayers $4.5M over the next twelve years.