Tetra Tech's Kevin Friedman Wins Company's 2020 Project Management Achievement Award

Incorporating advanced energy-efficient technologies to improve treatment efficiency, reduce power consumption, and minimize future rate impacts for residents

As part of the Garney and Wharton-Smith design-build team, Tetra Tech’s Kevin Friedman and his design team developed innovative and cost-saving design solutions for the award-winning Hillsborough County Northwest Regional Water Reclamation Facility—the largest capital improvement project in the history of Hillsborough County, Florida.

These innovative solutions for this $193 million wastewater treatment plant expansion resulted in $11.7 million in savings, of which the County reinvested more than $10 million for value-added facility improvements and enhancements. Kevin and his team helped provide all project deliverables on time, within budget, and meeting or exceeding the County’s standards. The project team also had zero lost-day safety cases for the 1,020-day project duration. The project was Engineering News-Record Southeast Regional 2020 Project of the Year and the 2020 Florida Regional Design-Build Institute of America Water Project of the Year.

As part of its northwest region Capital Improvements program, Hillsborough County undertook its wastewater treatment consolidation program to improve treatment efficiency, reduce power consumption, and minimize future rate impacts for residents. Expansion of wastewater treatment capacity from 10 million gallons per day (MGD) to 30 MGD was the cornerstone of the program. The County’s consolidation program included demolishing two aging advanced wastewater treatment plants and expanding the Northwest Regional Water Reclamation Facility to be the region’s sole treatment plant—all while maintaining 100 percent operation.

As part of Tetra Tech’s collaborative effort to understand the County’s mission and requirements, the design-build team hosted a three-day value engineering workshop. Working in partnership with our client, our team workshopped the design and construction elements and identified innovative concepts that resulted in the $11.7 million net savings for the County.

Kevin led a multidisciplinary team of more than 90 Tetra Tech employees across seven offices. He was responsible for delivering multiple phased deliverables for the design-build project on an extremely tight schedule. To meet these critical deadlines, Kevin created design teams with discipline leaders who demonstrated quick problem-solving skills under time and technical stresses.

Kevin regularly worked with key staff to address any design-related issues or other risk factors. As part of the contractor-led design-build team, he regularly engaged the design-build contractor to provide input related to overall project constructability, cost, and risk factors as decisions were made.

The design-build team was able to increase the average annual daily flow capacity of the 10 MGD facility to 12 MGD with a re-rate of the biological treatment process and modifications to the disinfection system. The findings from this effort were then applied to the expansion, resulting in a rated capacity of 30 MGD rather than 25 MGD. The design also incorporated biological and carbon odor control systems and noise mitigation to ensure that the facility does not adversely affect use of the adjacent park and residential housing communities.​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​Congratulations to Kevin for leading a multidisciplinary team throughout this complex, four-year project, meeting the design schedule, and exceeding client expectations.