Background
A water authority in the Southeast had received funding approval for a capital program covering collection system rehabilitation and a series of treatment plant upgrades. The program represented a substantial increase in the authority’s construction activity and would be delivered through a mix of consultants and contractors, with the authority responsible for oversight, budget control and reporting to its board.
The Challenge
The authority had never staffed a program of this size on the owner side. Existing engineering staff were fully committed to operations and permitting work, and the organization had no capital projects manager. Public-sector hiring compounded the problem. Every candidate required a background check and residency verification, salary bands were fixed by council-approved schedules and the approval cycle between offer and start date ran considerably longer than private-sector candidates were used to. Two earlier attempts to hire through a general staffing firm had failed when candidates accepted other offers during the approval window.
The Solution
Advastar built the search timeline around the authority’s own procurement and approval calendar rather than treating those steps as obstacles. We handled background and residency screening before submittal so that no candidate reached the offer stage carrying an unresolved question. Candidates were briefed honestly on the pace of public-sector hiring during the first conversation, which removed the people who would not tolerate it and strengthened commitment among those who stayed. A capital projects manager was placed direct-hire, followed by two staff engineers. For the peak design review phase we added contract hydraulic modelers with WaterGEMS and SewerGEMS experience, engaged for a defined period and rolled off when the workload passed.
The Outcome
The program team was seated eleven weeks after kickoff, ahead of the first construction package going out to bid. No candidate was lost during the approval window. The contract modeling staff absorbed the design review peak without the authority creating permanent positions it would not need in two years, and the capital projects manager has since taken on the authority’s asset management planning as well.