Underground Infrastructure - April 2023 - 24

Underground Infrastructure Conference
took the next day off . And I've been here
ever since - or, at least, until last April.
UI: Of course, Disney was already
there, but Orlando has seen
enormous growth since you started
working for the city in 1985.
Howard: Absolutely. We had a rather
aggressive
planning
department
that
liked to annex and grow bigger and
bigger and bigger. Th en the city's population,
because of Disney's growth,
really swelled over the years to well over
300,000. Because we have so many visitors
here at one time, our infrastructure
got a litt le overtaxed for the size of city
that we were, because we had to provide
services for all the visitors.
UI: With that background,
it makes sense that you would
start at Pan Am. Is it fair to
assume that aviation was part
of the attraction, even though
you worked on facilities?
Howard: It was kind of kind of the
best of a couple of diff erent worlds. Th e
work was interesting, and we got fl ight
benefi ts, so we were gone every weekend
someplace. I could have gone and
done some consulting and probably
made a lot more. But it was the travel
opportunities that really kept me there.
Th ey just happened to own the contract
with the Air Force to maintain
the Eastern Test range, and the work
was maintaining operations all the way
down to Pretoria, South Africa. If we
weren't on a plane going someplace fun,
we were doing work on Ascension Island
or Grand Turk or some other place
downrange a lot.
It was easy to get standby seats in
those days. If you wanted to fl y domestic
fi rst class, you could do it for 25
bucks. And if you wanted to fl y international
fi rst class, it was $50. I went as
far and as oſt en as I could possibly go.
I think I'm only missing one continent,
and that's Antarctica.
24 APRIL 2023 | UndergroundInfrastructure.com
UI: As a young civil engineer
traveling abroad, were you taking
in the diff erent engineering
approaches along the way?
Howard: Yes, I've seen a lot of wastewater
treatment plants all over the world.
And dams and bridges. Th ose are things
that always interested me.
UI: It sounds like you landed
a perfect fi rst job. What led you
to give that up for a landlocked
public works job?
Howard: Th ere were a couple of reasons,
actually. First, I had a very good
friend who was running the Streets and
Stormwater Section in Orlando. Th e
other reason was the federal Defi cit Reduction
Act of 1984 (laughs). As part
of that legislation, they were going to
start taxing our fl ight benefi ts. I thought,
" Hmm, this might be a good time to
jump ship, " because I fi gured out my
fl ight benefi ts at market rate - which is
what they were going to tax - would have
been more probably than I was making.
So, it was not a diffi cult decision, even
though I loved the work, and I did things
there that I'll never do again. I took my
last trip to Germany, and when I came
back, I started December 31st. Th en
UI: I suppose the long-range
planning required for Disney and
other tourism expansions helped
Orlando see ahead and get its
infrastructure in place in time?
Howard: Th at's true. Fortunately, we
also had a (city) administration that recognized
those things and did try to plan
ahead. We tried to grow the infrastructure
in places where we knew there was
going to be growth and development.
UI: That helps explain how
you grew to a CapEx budget of
$300 million and 630 employees
during your tenure.
Howard: Th at's right, although I think
that was at its peak. We had ebbs and
fl ows. I think by the time I leſt , it was a
litt le bit less than 620, but that was because
of all the vacancies. We had positions
we just couldn't keep fi lled.
UI: When we think about
constructing and maintaining
wastewater and stormwater
infrastructure in Florida, hurricanes
and sinkholes come to mind.
Were there unique challenges
to public works in your region?
Howard: Sinkholes were always an issue,
not so much in the city but outside the
city, there's a lot of limestone formations.
Really, all of Florida is prett y much limestone
formations. And with stormwater
you get a lot of the acidity and it dissolves
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