Scotts Valley Water District’s General Manager, Piret Harmon, isn’t afraid of change, professionally or personally. She has led a very interesting life and has been a change agent on the job for the past three years.
Piret was born in Estonia when it was still a part of the U.S.S.R. Her undergraduate degree is in civil engineering with an emphasis on Water and Wastewater from Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia. In addition to her native language, she learned Russian and English during her school years.
She came to the United States in 1993 with her husband whom she had gotten to know through a pen-pal friendship and who lived in Watsonville.
Always eager to learn, in 2002 Piret completed an International MBA program through Concordia International University in Tallinn in association with Lakeland College in Wisconsin. Beginning her life in the U.S., Piret worked at various jobs, starting out as a dry cleaner attendant, receptionist, accountant, and kept working her way up. In 2005, the City of Santa Cruz Water Department hired here as Principal Administrative Manager overseeing strategic planning, rate design analysis, operations and capital improvement program budgets, and succession planning efforts.
Since July 2013, Piret has been the General Manager of Scotts Valley Water District. She has enjoyed both promoting change and being the instrument of change and loves these challenges and views them as opportunities for improvement.
Piret believes in the inverted triangle style of leadership and encourages her staff to come up with ideas to do things differently and better. She says they have come through for her and she has been surprised at their ingenuity. “When you make people accountable and give them tools to structure the work, they always rise to the occasion.”
Her vision is to lead a high-performing organization that will change the stigma about public agency ineffectiveness and inefficiency. She would like Scotts Valley Water District to be the trusted source of information for people in the community on all water topics.
The District wants to support the community’s growing community interest in water as a valuable resource, including supply, efficient use, value and price. For the District, this has meant leading sustainable water management practices in response to the effects of population growth and climate change. The District also embraces innovation and is focused on attracting and retaining a savvy and dedicated 21st century workforce.
In the summer of 2015, Scotts Valley Water District opened up the first recycled water fill station in the tri-county area for customers to pick up free recycled water for their gardens, washing driveways, and other uses. The District gave away 75,000 gallons of recycled water in 2015 during the four months it was open. On May 18, 2016, the recycled water station opened once again.
Recently, the District reached another important milestone by partnering with the City of Scotts Valley in supplying irrigation water to Pasatiempo Golf Course. This is a project that had been in the works for many years and has now finally come to fruition.
While selling recycled water to commercial and homeowner associations for irrigation uses, Piret is also spearheading the District’s goal to utilize excess recycled water for replenishing the depleted aquifers. Even with the total pumping by Scotts Valley District being reduced by about 40% since the year 2000 due to the District’s water use efficiency measures and adding recycled water to the supply portfolio, the groundwater basin needs help in refilling the void caused by over-pumping and the current drought.
Even further, one day advanced treated and purified water will be available for drinking. “We have to remember,” says Piret, “there is no new water in the world. All water at our disposal now has been used before. The astronauts have been drinking recycled water since the very first mission into space.”
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Scotts Valley Water District is located at 2 Civic Center Drive, Scotts Valley, CA 95066. Telephone 831.438.2363 — Website: www.svwd.org