create something greater than the sum of its parts — a genuinely transformational program. Putting outcomes first Our programmatic approach comes to life at a critical moment for our clients: the very beginning of a program. Throughout my career, I’ve seen that it’s essential to start where the program ends — with its outcomes. It’s easy to hear this and think ‘of course’. But taking positive outcomes for granted is both common and ill-advised. Instead, the key to delivering enduring impacts is to focus not just on the infrastructure itself, but centering on what matters most: clients and the communities they serve. By engaging early, our teams help clients understand their vision for their programs and how they fit into a broader ecosystem of opportunities — from unlocking economic benefits to delivering social value and greater sustainability. At the heart of this ecosystem, of course, is the people the program will impact. We look beyond a typical program’s scope, identifying how to bring communities into the fold from the outset — and to ensure they benefit long after a program completes. An example of this mindset at work is the Pure Water Southern California Program, which our teams are delivering in partnership with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. As the largest supplier of treated water in the country, Metropolitan delivers water to 26 member agencies that serve 19 million people across seven counties in Southern California. Its Pure Water program with Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts could deliver 150 million gallons of purified water annually to safeguard and expand the region’s water supply. From the very outset, our teams have played a key role in shaping this key water reuse program, which could become one of the world’s largest. Their first step to managing such an immense challenge was to start with what matters most: the stakeholders and their needs. Working with Metropolitan and Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, we identified dozens of communities, regulators, utilities and other organizations that could play a central role in the program. And critically, we defined the unique outcomes each may require. This work spans mission critical needs like permitting, navigating regulations, and securing funding, to social considerations such as community engagement and outreach with landowners and impacted communities, to environmental benefits such as state-of-the-art reuse, efficient effluent utilization and minimal discharge. This, of course, is an immense undertaking. But it’s also where our Program Management team really shines. Supported by AECOM’s multi-sector industry leadership, our program managers have access to integrated, multidisciplinary expertise — from water treatment and public engagement to funding and social value — to deliver on these many diverse objectives.
Though still in the initial stages, the program has a foundation for long-term success. Thanks to early client engagement, we’ve helped turn complexity into a roadmap for tangible outcomes for dozens of stakeholders. In that sense, it’s an embodiment of what our business does best. People- and Planet-Centered Future However, when we think about delivering positive outcomes through program management, it is also important to consider more than just program delivery. We as practitioners also have a direct role to play and it is critical for our team to seek to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. This is a profession about people, building relationships and creating trust, which demands cultivating diverse perspectives to anticipate the needs of many stakeholders. And that is something I am advancing at AECOM. I support our BeBOLD and the Ethnic Diversity Network Employee Resource Groups in the U.S. and Europe, helping foster an inclusive, innovative culture that attracts and retains the diverse talent driving our success. I expect equity and sustainability will remain at the center of our field. Already, these issues have come to define the next generation of programs, with Pure Water Southern California just one of many examples. When thinking about program management, it is easy to focus on the scale of the infrastructure delivered. And of course, this is what makes our practice so rewarding: we get to transform the built environment for the better. But during my 30+ years in the field, I have seen that, at its heart, our practice is in fact about people. Whether we’re partnering with minority- and women-owned enterprises to revitalize Dallas’ Fair Park, or helping replace 400,000 miles of lead service lines in Chicago, the programs we take on increasingly embed sustainability and social value into their mission. These are objectives that we are seeking to embody from the inside and out. And I am proud to help make that possible. As a global, integrated firm with multidisciplinary expertise, we are ready to capitalize on the next generation of program management projects – including emerging trends in new energy and technology. Our role is to coordinate, orchestrate, align, and build trust. We do that through technical expertise, but also through a commitment to those we serve — our clients, our communities, and our very own teams.
DREW D. JETER is Executive Vice President and Chief Executive for AECOM’s Program Management Global Business Line. In this role, Jeter is responsible for leading AECOM’s program management business around the world, providing upfront advisory and delivery of hundreds of billions of dollars in capital infrastructure programs for clients across numerous market sectors, including rail/transit, aviation, highways, ports, water, energy, buildings, sports venues, smart cities, the environment, and disaster recovery.
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Summer 2024 csengineermag.com
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