1962: Graduation of David N. Kennedy, California's long-time "Water Czar"
by David Pescovitz
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David
N. Kennedy, California's "water czar," will deliver
the keynote address at the "Celebrating Engineering
Excellence" symposium on September 13, 2003.
Peg Skorpinski photo
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For 15 years,
David N. Kennedy (CE BS' 59, MS '62) was known to some as California's
"water czar." Beginning in 1983, Kennedy directed the
State of California's Department of Water Resources (DWR), the organization
that oversees the water needs of more than 30 million people. During
the longest tenure as Director in DWR's history, Kennedy rode the
ebbs, flows, and tsunamis of California's delicate water issues.
He will return to his alma mater September 13 to deliver the keynote
address at the College of Engineering's "Celebrating
Engineering Excellence" symposium and Distinguished Engineering
Alumni Awards luncheon. Kennedy himself was a recipient of the award
in 1997.
Kennedy's immersion in water began in earnest after graduate school
when he took an engineering position in the DWR's statewide planning
office, helping plan water development facilities throughout the
State. From there, Kennedy relocated to the southern part of the
state where he was involved in the planning, hydrology, and operations
work of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
In 1974, he was promoted to the position of assistant general manager.
In 1983, Governor George Deukmejian brought Kennedy back to Sacramento,
appointing him Director of the DWR. When Governor Pete Wilson took
office in 1991, he announced that Kennedy would be one of the few
hold-overs from the previous administration. Under Wilson's governorship,
Kennedy managed a $900 million annual budget with 2,500 employees.
"Early in my career I realized that I enjoyed public service
and being involved in public works," Kennedy says. "However,
I never had a career plan as such. Each of the career changes happened
in unforeseen ways and I never looked much beyond the particular
job I was in."
As director of the DWR, Kennedy battled the impact of the 1987-1991
drought by organizing the state emergency drought water bank program,
the first of its kind in the country. As the drought ended, Kennedy
drafted Governor Pete Wilson's long-term plan for the State's water
resources, a 10-point policy to ensure that California's water needs
would be met in the future. He also completed SWP's Intake Pumping
Plant and oversaw the construction of a Coastal Aqueduct to bring
water to the parched San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.
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David
Kennedy, 3rd from left, receiving the Distinguished
Alumni Award in 1997. Peg Skorpinski photo
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Surprisingly, it was not the drought Kennedy found most challenging
but the three major floods during his years as director of the DWR.
"Decisions about reservoir releases and levee repairs have
to be made in real-time with incomplete information and many different
things going on at once," Kennedy says. "Those were pretty
hectic times."
In 1994, Kennedy was involved in negotiating the Monterey Agreement,
a drastic modification to the SWP's contracts with long-term water
contractors to enable the contractors to increase their water supply
reliability. That same year, he helped devise the Delta Accord,
designed to improve environmental protection for the area's wildlife
while also tackling water supply problems.
When he was elected in 1998 to the prestigious National Academy
of Engineering, Kennedy was lauded "for his ability to nurture
consensus on challenging water issues, working cooperatively with
legislators, water users, regulatory agencies, environmental and
business groups to formulate and put into action sound water resource
policies, programs and projects."
Kennedy retired in 1998 but remains professionally active on the
board of the California Water Service Company, which provides through
its subsidiaries water utility services to 1.7 million people in
99 California communities. Kennedy and his wife Barbara reside in
Sacramento and have three children, one of whom continued the family's
Berkeley lineage by earning his BS and MS degrees mechanical engineering
at the College.
The College of Engineering hopes you'll join us in welcoming our
esteemed alumnus back to campus.
Lab Notes is
published online by the Public Affairs Office of the UC Berkeley
College of Engineering. The Lab Notes mission is to illuminate groundbreaking
research underway today at the College of Engineering that will
dramatically change our lives tomorrow.
Media contact: Teresa
Moore, Lab Notes editor, Director of Public Affairs
Writer, Researcher: David
Pescovitz
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© 2003 UC Regents.
Updated 8/29/03.
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