Sheryl Houlihan
Water Plant Operator III
Sheryl is the only female Water Plant Operator at TMWA and she is proud of it. On an operations team of 15 men, she is not afraid to put in the hard work it takes to keep high-quality water flowing to faucets all over the Truckee Meadows.
Like many TMWA employees, Sheryl got her start at the Sierra Pacific Power Company (SPPC). Just after moving to Reno from the Los Angeles area, she read meters at SPPC before going through an apprenticeship in Water Operations where she has worked for the past ten years.
Sheryl's work schedule is a bit different from most professionals because she works only every other week.
"It's like getting a vacation every other week," she said of her down time. However, she puts in seven 12-hour days in a row. She also starts her work day when many people are getting ready to go home. She mans the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system at the Glendale and Chalk Bluff water treatment plants from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. She even finds herself working many holidays, including Christmas.
"Well, you want to take a shower, don't you?" Sheryl said about working holidays. The average TMWA customer doesn't always realize what goes into bringing water to the tap, but for Sheryl it is at the top of her mind every day (or at least every other week). As she puts it, she and her team are "the eyes and ears" of TMWA. They work around the clock to deliver some of the highest quality drinking water in the nation.
"We bring water into our first-rate treatment facilities from the river, treat it and put it into the system," she said. "We monitor everything and if we see anything that doesn't look right or seems unusual, we'll call upon a SCADA technician, a mechanic, a water quality staff member, or a member of our field crews to check on it." Ultimately, the operations team members work closely with various TMWA departments to keep the water safe.
Between her 12-hour days at the treatment plants, somehow Sheryl is able to make time for golf, marathon training and college courses. She is taking online classes at Truckee Meadows Community College and also planning to run 26.2 miles four months from now. She currently runs six to seven miles a day and increases the mileage weekly.
After work, sports training and classes, she still takes time each year to talk to high school and college girls about working in a male-dominated field. Her inspiring story helps show young girls that they can be anything they want to be.
A lot of Sheryl's inspiration comes from within. "I have high expectations of myself and high standards and it's important to me that I maintain those standards," she said. There is no doubt that Sheryl has equally high expectations of her team because they are the self-proclaimed best part of her job.
"It's like family," she said of her operations team. "This is where I want to be. We all work together and care about each other. We're more of a team than we've ever been and I love being a part of that."
