Underground Infrastructure - February 2023 - 20

DCA PRESIDENTPROFILE
DCA President Kevin Parker
Puts His Passion into Processes
Jeff Awalt | Executive Editor
" Trust the process. "
Th at phrase has become commonplace
in recent years among sports teams
rebuilding under new coaching systems,
but it's a sentiment that Mears executive
Kevin Parker has embraced throughout
his career in infrastructure construction.
" I fi rmly believe in management systems, "
said Parker, senior vice president
of Health, Safety and Environment for
Mears Holdings. " It's defi nitely a passion
of mine. "
While management systems and
operator qualifi cation programs might
seem like dull fare from a distance, these
processes have proven essential to improving
the safety, quality and consistency
of construction projects. Parker's passion
and decades of experience at Mears
made perfect timing for his term as president
of the Distribution Contractors
Association, whose safety management
system template and operator qualifi -
cation integrity process ranked among
DCA's top priorities in 2022.
Spending the later years of his youth
in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., Parker lived just
a short drive south of Mears' birthplace
of Rosebush, Mich., and started working
for the company as a construction laborer
during his pre-engineering studies at
Central Michigan University in 1984.
Aſt er earning a bachelor's degree in
geological petroleum engineering from
the New Mexico Institute of Mining
and Technology in 1988, he returned to
Mears as a project engineer and manager
and eventually became director of its
Construction Division.
Kevin Parker
20 FEBRUARY 2023 | UndergroundInfrastructure.com
He later moved to the group level
of Mears - now part of Houston-based
Quanta Services - fi rst as a director and
then as vice president of Health, Safety
and Environment (HSE) and fi nally to
his current position, in which he oversees
new program development and implementation,
as well as strategic initiatives.
Parker started att ending DCA functions
in 2008 and was awarded Safety
Director of the Year in 2012. He's
played a key role in DCA's spring Safety
Congress and has been both a roundtable
panelist and moderator at DCA's
annual April utility workshop with the
American Gas Association (AGA). A
member of the DCA board since 2017,
he's also past chair of the Safety/Risk
Management Committ ee and a member
of the Government Relations Committ ee
and the Operator Qualifi cation Integrity
Process Task Force.
Underground Infr astructure spoke with
Parker in mid-December about DCA's
2022 progress and its priorities for
2023 as the association prepared for its
February annual convention in Miami.
UI: You started out in the fi eld
doing pipeline construction.
What kind of projects were you
working on in those early days?
Parker: I worked on a lot of smaller
projects, but I'd say the fi rst big one that
people might know was the (1,700-mile)
Kern River project for Line A, the fi rst
line that went in from Wyoming in the
early '90s.
UI: So, you learned early on
what it's like to spend a lot
of time on the road.
Parker: I certainly did. I was on the road
almost full-time. But that hasn't changed
a lot. I still travel about 40 to 45 weeks a
year right now.
UI: You rose to director of
the Construction Division
but eventually veered toward
a primary focus on safety.
Was that always an area of
strong interest for you?
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