Education
BS, Civil Engineering, Iowa State University, 1971
MS, Environmental Engineering, University of Missouri, 1978
Professional Registration
Kansas, Michigan, Ohio
Total Years Experience
39
Joined Black & Veatch
1971
Len C. Rodman has been Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Black & Veatch Holding Company since January 1, 2000. Rodman has overall responsibility for initiatives to maximize value of the company and drive value creation for each of our stakeholders – clients, professionals, shareholders and business partners. He also is responsible for the company’s engineering, consulting, construction and related infrastructure businesses in the energy, water, telecommunications, federal, management consulting and environmental markets worldwide. With gross revenues of $2.5 billion, Black & Veatch is consistently ranked in the top five categories for power generation, power delivery, water infrastructure development and telecommunications in Engineering News-Record magazine and is ranked in the Top 200 of the Forbes list of Largest Private Companies.
Rodman joined Black & Veatch in 1971 and progressed through various project management roles within the Civil-Environmental Division. In 1992, he was named head of the North American Division within the Infrastructure Business, where he was responsible for water, wastewater, and industrial wastewater projects, including studies, design, contract administration, and operational assistance.
Rodman was named President and CEO of Black & Veatch in August 1998 and was elected to the additional position of Chairman of the Board in January 2000. During his tenure as Chairman, President and CEO, he has led several major initiatives. The first was the conversion from an 85-year-old partnership to a privately held C Corp with an un-leveraged ESOP. This transition significantly increased the equity in the company and set in motion a process for total employee ownership. Parallel with this transition, Rodman led the formation of a corporate transformation that included a complete change in the company’s governance model. Black & Veatch now has a Board of Directors – chaired by Rodman – that has seven non-executive, independent directors and four executive directors. The non-executive, independent directors come from a variety of industrial sectors. Governance is based on the best practices from publically traded. A cultural change was also deployed to further instill a business-like focus for the engineering, consulting and construction company through the utilization of value based management principles. The most recent element of this change was the implementation of a company-wide process to align strategic initiatives with the company’s professional employees’ daily tasks.
Rodman often participates in industry forums as presenter and speaker. Topics range from best practices on employee engagement and diversity to trends in the engineering and construction market. He has been interviewed by international television and newsprint media on several occasions regarding issues in energy and water markets. He currently serves on the Industry Advisory Panel for the Government of Singapore, providing recommendations on investment strategies for the water industry.
Rodman currently serves on the Board of Allete, Inc. in Duluth, Minnesota, a publicly held company which provides regulated energy services in Minnesota and Wisconsin. He is an active supporter of educational initiatives in the Kansas City area, having served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, as well as the Board of Advisors of the University of Kansas – Edwards Campus. Rodman currently serves as on the Board of Directors as Secretary for the Iowa State University Foundation. He has served on both the Iowa State Engineering College Industrial Advisory Consul (ECIAC) and the University of Kansas Dean of Engineering Advisory Board. He also has served on the Board of INROADS, a minority-based organization that helps to transition high school students through college and into productive business careers. Rodman promotes community service; he has served on the Board of the United Way of Greater Kansas City.
Education
BS, Civil Engineering, Iowa State University, 1975
MS, Civil Engineering, University of Kansas, 1982
Professional Registration
AWWA, WEF, WateReuse Association
Total Years Experience
35
Joined Black & Veatch
1976
Dan McCarthy is President and CEO of Black & Veatch’s global water business and also a member of the Black & Veatch Board of Directors. He is responsible for the management and leadership of a US$1 billion global business that includes nearly 4,000 professionals based in the U.S., Europe and the Asia Pacific region.
In 2005 McCarthy was given the responsibility of building Black & Veatch’s global water business from a number of different local offices and companies that had been purchased previously. He formulated a global team to create and provide leadership to an integrated business and created a consistent brand for what has become one of the leading water engineering companies in the world.
Under McCarthy’s leadership Black & Veatch introduced the concept of the Integrated Global Workforce, a business model that put efficient internal mechanisms into place so that the business could deploy the right resources to the right projects at the right time. It ensured a more effective and collaborative approach for a global engineering business that had been built from a number of local businesses around the world. In 2006 Black & Veatch was named as Global Water Company of the year, recognised for the introduction of the Integrated Global Workforce and for successfully building a global water business and brand.
McCarthy was at the helm when Black & Veatch purchased the construction arm of M.J. Gleeson’s UK water business in late 2006, which doubled the size of Black & Veatch’s water business overnight and made Black & Veatch the only water engineering company in the UK to be able to provide services that spanned the entire range of the value chain.
In 2006 McCarthy led Black & Veatch’s re-entry into the Australian water market. The team there started work on the Bundamba Advanced Water Treatment Plant, which formed an integral part of the AUS$2.5 billion Western Corridor Recycled Water Project, the largest recycled water scheme in the Southern Hemisphere. The project relied heavily on the Integrated Global Workforce and received wide global and regional acclaim.
McCarthy is an adviser for the Singapore International Water Week and chair of the Water Environment Federation’s Global Water Strategies Council. He also serves as a board member of the WateReuse Association, Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and past board member of the American Water Works Association.
McCarthy has presented at many global, regional and local conferences for the water/wastewater industry, as well as at a wide range of business, civic and political forums. He was invited to take part in two recent Clean Water America Alliance National Dialogues on “What’s Water Worth” and on “Urban Water Sustainability.”
In the past, he has moderated several high-level roundtable events of government officials and water utility directors in the UK and United States. Most recently, McCarthy has led a series of roundtable discussions in which utility leaders from around the world have been brought together to consider ways to overcome barriers to water reuse as a component of water supply portfolios.
McCarthy has appeared as an expert guest on Bloomberg TV’s Asia Confidential, CNBC Europe’s Squawk Box and CNBC Strictly Money and CNBC Asia Pacific Squawk Box.
McCarthy earned his Civil Engineering degree from Iowa State University in 1975 and his Masters degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Kansas in 1982. Since joining Black & Veatch in 1976, he has served in roles with progressive leadership responsibilities and became a board member in 2006.
Education
BS, Civil Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia 1978
MS, Civil Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, 1984
Masters of Real Estate, Development University of Southern California, 1993
Professional Registration
Civil, CA C-040350
Structural, CA S-03120
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Total Years Experience
32
Joined Black & Veatch
1978
Ralph Eberts is currently serving as the Executive Managing Director of Client Accounts for Black & Veatch’s global water business. His main responsibilities include management and sales of the company’s core water business in the Americas, United Kingdom and Asia Pacific. Eberts and his team develop and maintain client relationships, manage the portfolio of projects that Black & Veatch executes for key clients, and lead client-facing activities.
Prior to assuming this role, Eberts was the Managing Director for Black & Veatch’s Asia-Pacific water business where he was responsible for overseeing a business that spanned 12 offices in six countries. During his tenure he successfully managed Black & Veatch’s re-entry into the Australia water market. The Australia water business became pivotal in returning the regional water business to profitability and also saw Black & Veatch expand into providing EPC services. He played a significant role in ensuring the successful execution of the Bundamba Advanced Water Treatment Plant. The plant was an integral part of the $ 2.2 billion Western Corridor Recycled Water Project in SE Queensland, Australia which received numerous accolades and awards from the global and regional engineering community, including, in November 2009, being named as one of the Top Ten Engineering Wonders in Queensland.
Through his long association with Black & Veatch Eberts has held a number of important leadership positions that include Director of Project Services and Deputy Director of Client Services for Black & Veatch’s water business in the Western United States. His project management experiences includes an important role on the full secondary expansion of the City of Los Angeles Hyperion Treatment Plant, a 15-year, $1.1 billion wastewater treatment and reclamation project, which was named one of the ten most outstanding public works projects of the 20th century by the American Public Works Association.
Through these experiences Eberts has been able to provide important insight into the global and Asia Pacific water industry and has been interviewed by international and local media to provide comment about developments and trends in the industry. Recent media contributions include commentary on Channel NewsAsia in July 2010 and authoring an article, “Food for Thought,” for the May/June edition of Government Engineering. Over the last two years, he also has led “Water Dialogue” roundtable discussions with industry leaders on the topics of Water Reuse and Economic Pressures.
Eberts has been an active member of the Water Environment Federation, American Water Works Association, American Public Works Association, Structural Engineering Association of California and an officer of the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering – College of Fellows.
He is a regular guest speaker at major water events, delivering the keynote speech at the 2nd Annual Water Innovations Alliance Conference in Chicago in September 2010 and the President’s Dinner speech at Ozwater in Brisbane, Australia, in March 2010.
Education
M.S., Environmental Health Engineering, University of Kansas, 1990
B.S., Civil Engineering, Kansas State University, 1985
Professional Registration
PE – 1991, Kansas, 12114
Total Years Experience
25
Joined Black & Veatch
1986
Cindy Wallis-Lage has been responsible for many aspects of environmental engineering, including process evaluation and selection and wastewater facility design.
Her experience with process design and wastewater-engineering projects has allowed her to coordinate and direct technical specialists in both fields. Ms. Wallis-Lage has been involved in both industrial and municipal projects in which her responsibilities have included assessment of treatment deficiencies, development and selection of process alternatives, pilot plant design and operation, data interpretation, and report preparation and presentation. Ms Wallis-Lage has experience with nitrogen removal and many types of phosphorus control technologies ranging from chemical to biological removal. To facilitate reuse projects, she has been involved in the evaluation of various types of filters including deep bed filters, disk filters and the fuzzy filter. Ms. Wallis-Lage has worked on several disinfection evaluations comparing various types of UV equipment with chlorination/dechlorination alternatives to meet site-specific requirements.
Cindy has authored over 50 papers, 20 technical articles and 10 textbook chapters. She also serves on several committees for WEF and IWA. Specifically, she served as a co-author for a new chapter on Sidestream Treatment for the upcoming fifth edition WEF/ASCE Design of Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants MOP-8, and served as a reviewer for the WEF/ASCE Design of Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants MOP-8, Fourth edition. She also served as a reviewer for the WEF Membrane Systems for Wastewater Treatment Manual, paper author in the AWWA Membrane Best Papers Book, a reviewer for the WEF book titled Using Reclaimed Water to Augment Potable Water Resources, a co-editor/reviewer for several chapters in the WEF Operation of Biological Nutrient Removal Wastewater Treatment Plants Manual, and a reviewer of the chapter on Anaerobic Digestion in the new WEF MOP-11. She also serves on the Technical Practice Update committee for the WEF Membrane Community of Practice.
Recently Cindy served as editor for the update for the Handbook of Chlorination and Alternative Disinfectants book. The book was an 18 month effort to completely edit and revise the previous 4th Edition book.
