Today, Aquasight Founder and CEO Mahesh Lunani is joined by Andy Gere, COO and President of San Jose Water. SJW is an Investor-Owned Utility serving one million residents, and it is part of SJW Group that is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Andy has over 28 years of experience in all things water and has both a PE as well as a California T4 operator license. Given the challenges of Water in California and the corporate structure at SJW group, the conversation with Andy provides very interesting insights on how water can be managed and operated in the US.
Andy provides us with a snapshot of the San Jose Water System. This includes the challenges he's experienced in his time there, rising from supervisor to president, over 25 years. We also discuss the differences of working for a publicly listed water corporation, as well as the unique challenges of working so close to Silicon Valley, it being a hotbed of innovation, and its very high GDP per capita.
California is at the center of the climate change discussion. Andy talks about water conservation and technological advances to help both the utility and its customers in this area- everything from leak detection to smartphone apps and other AI. We also look at master plans for investment and infrastructure. Finally Mahesh and Andy talk about legacy and how to best recruit the next generation workforce.
Additional Resources:
San Jose Water Website: https://www.sjwater.com/
Aquasight Website: https://aquasight.io/