WHAT I’VE LEARNED

LYNDSEY HALL

Pretreatment Sampling Specialist

Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority

Hometown: Toole, Utah

Age: 39

Years with LRWRA: 9

BLUEPRINT: What do you like most about your job?

LYNDSEY HALL: I feel very rewarded at the end of the day knowing that I’m doing my part for protecting the environment, working for the utility. The utility has been great as far as opportunities and continuing my education. The people are awesome and the benefits are great.

BP: What are some of the primary benefits of working here?

LH: One of the big benefits of the utility is a tuition reimbursement program. They will pay up to a certain dollar amount per year for you to get a degree or finish a degree. And they offer plenty of training hours or licensing programs to obtain a wastewater license.

BP: How did you find this career?

LH: I was always interested in science, so I knew I wanted to be in a field like that. I earned my bachelor’s in environmental management and I got an opportunity to get hired on as a lab tech at the Fourche Creek location. That’s how I got started here.

Growing up in Utah, water was very scarce out there. I knew I always wanted to do something to help with that, so when that opportunity arose, I jumped on it.

BP: What soft skills are important there?

LH: Communication is a big one. We monitor the industrial users that discharge into our treatment plant. Communication is key as far as keeping up with the industry and communicating with operations to let them know what could be coming into the plant that could cause a problem. Teamwork is another one. There’s three people in the pretreat area which I work in, and teamwork is key for these roles. One person could be busy doing something else while you might need a member of your team to go look into someone doing some discharging.

BP: What would you tell a young person still looking for a career path about working for LRWRA?

LH: You can go as far as you want to in the water and wastewater fields. As a young person, you don’t really think about the impact of not having any water one day. Knowing that we all need water, having a career in this field means being almost guaranteed to always have a job.