Linda Bridwell, Kentucky American Water's director of water quality and environmental compliance, received the 2010 Robert M. Gillim Professional Recognition Award presented by the Kentucky Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which recognizes Bridwell for her service to civil engineering in Kentucky. She is the first female to receive the honor, which has been awarded annually since 1966.
Bridwell, a native of Lexington and graduate of Lafayette High School, holds bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering from the University of Kentucky, a master's degree in business administration from Xavier University and is a licensed professional engineer in Kentucky.
She joined Kentucky American Water's engineering team in 1989 and soon was working on plans to address Central Kentucky's water supply deficit. She was promoted to lead the company's engineering department in 1995 and became widely recognized within the company and the state as an expert on the region's water supply issue.
Her efforts to resolve that increasingly worsening issue continued for more than 20 years as selecting a solution became more and more complex. During that time, Bridwell served as the company's water supply representative on numerous local, regional and state committees. In recent years, she led the project team that designed and constructed the solution approved by the Kentucky Public Service Commission in 2008: a new 20 million-gal-per-day water treatment plant in Owen County, Ky., connected to Kentucky American Water's existing Central Kentucky distribution system by a 31-mile, 42-in.-diameter underground pipeline from Owen County through Franklin and Scott counties to Fayette County.
Bridwell is a past president of the Kentucky Society of the ASCE, director of the Bluegrass Chapter of the Kentucky Society of Professional Engineers, served as an adjunct professor in the civil engineering department of the University of Kentucky, is a member of the American Water Works Association and is a member of the Industrial Advisory Committee for the civil engineering department at the University of Kentucky. Since 2004 she has served as a board member of the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority, which was created in 1988 to provide the mechanism for funding the construction of local public works projects in the state.
Source: MarketWatch
