Katie Mackay Email & Phone Number

Kitchener, Canada Area

In my final co-op position for the University of Guelph, I worked with the Water Services Division at the Region of Waterloo to develop a project prioritization system for the Region's water and wastewater facilities. This is being completed with the focus on effective and logical management of the assets at these facilities, based on condition, expected remaining lifetime, potential consequences of downgrading the project priority and fiscal considerations. One of my main tasks while at the Region was preparing, tracking, completing and finalizing Condition Assessments for a large portion of the Region's water services facilitates. The Region hires consultants to go to their water services facilities and inspect the building, the process equipment, the grounds, ventilation, electrical, etc. This is so that they can get a clear understanding about what condition everything is in, and whether they should prepare to have soon to replace anything that is wearing out, or do maintenance to delay replacing it. This should be done every few years, and to maintain the level of detail of the assessments, I was helping to improve a template for each facility to make it clear for the consultants and the Region, what asset is what.I also helped to develop a template for a Capital Budget, and helped nearly complete one for 2018.

Toronto, Canada Area

As a project manager trainee with OCWA, I was able to be fully involved with a great group of engineers trying to help a lot of municipalities, towns, companies, etc. to reduce the amount of energy being consumed at their water and wastewater treatment plants. The group performs energy audits where they note potential issues with current technology selections or operational choices. Much of my work involved completing applications for Save On Energy grants on behalf of the clients, and calculating typical energy consumptions in the initial state, estimations for consumption after our recommended technologies are implemented, and actual consumptions after the recommended technologies are implemented. Another large part of my job was helping to track the progress of each project. Between a handful of engineers, over 60 projects were on the go at any time, so I maintained three group's tracking worksheet as well as handled the preparation and submission of all grant applications. While at OCWA I also got to tour a number of wastewater treatment plants under OCWA's operation and was able to attend the installation and commissioning of a number of VFDs (Variable Frequency Drives) at one plant.

Ottawa, Canada Area

In my position with the NCC, my primary task was completing assessments of fuel tanks stored on land owned by the NCC and leased to farmers, residents, companies, etc. These assessments included a visual inspection on site, and maintaining the asset database.In addition, I spent time organizing all of the information from previous inspections, updating a second database following receipt of designated substance surveys from consultants, and participating in/learning about Environmental Site Assessments, phases 1 through 3.

My responsibilities involved combining nation-wide data sources in order to help improve known relationships between soil test parameters for the purpose of reducing the number of variables needed in AAFC's phosphorous contamination risk calculations. I also researched the effects of frozen soil and other winter conditions that could affect phosphorous runoff into lakes, a leading cause of eutrophication in Canada surface waters.

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

I assisted in field work, data organization and analysis, and more for a few projects the G360 groundwater research group is currently working on. I also helped with the organization of the recent consortium, specifically with the editing and printing of the presentations abstracts booklet.