Kyra Cassidy

I've been in the wastewater engineering field for about 11 years now, and what I do is help municipalities plan, design, and construct upgrades to their sanitary service facilities. My focus is primarily at the treatment facility - what we call inside the fence - and I work a lot with really small, rural municipalities in Wisconsin. When we're looking at projects nowadays, we're talking about 10 to 15 million dollar upgrades, and when you're dealing with a little rural, small Wisconsin town with a population of 500, there aren't many people to split that bill with. A lot of the importance of what we do is in the planning period - figuring out what needs to be done and laying that out for 20-year projection periods for these communities. We're looking at helping communities understand whether they're facing a $20 or $30 sewer bill increase versus an $80 or $90 increase. One thing I'm most proud of is that I'm really good with my clients, which isn't always a trait engineers come by naturally. Those relationships make the work a lot more enjoyable - getting a bunch of like-minded people together to solve problems that are gonna affect the masses. It's motivating work. I recently put in my notice with MSA, the company I've been with for 10 years, and I'm currently in the process of finding my next position.