Director's Comments 2024

Hello friends, partners and customers of the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC). As many of you know, Christopher Dunn retired in March 2024 after 18 years as HEC Director. We miss his positive, steady presence in the office, but he tells me that retirement is great, so our loss is his gain. Chris continues to live in Davis and I'm fortunate enough to catch up with him over lunch now and then.

With Chris's retirement, I was selected as HEC's fifth Director in its 60-year history. Prior to becoming HEC's Director, I served as the Water Resource Systems (WRS) Division Chief at HEC for the last 10 years. The WRS Division focuses on consequences and ecosystems, with a recent expansion into reservoir analysis. My career in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) started in 2006 when I joined the Sacramento District, eventually becoming Chief of the Hydraulic Analysis section. My experience at the Sacramento District immersed me in the Planning world and led to an interest in nonstructural flood risk management approaches. I joined the USACE National Nonstructural Committee in 2013, eventually serving as the Committee Chair before stepping down in April 2024 to lead HEC.

Prior to joining federal service with Sacramento District, I spent 11 years in water resources engineering consulting, both in Seattle and Sacramento. I received a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Davis and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington.

The last five months have been equally enjoyable and challenging. First and foremost, I (and HEC as a whole) are fortunate to have a strong Division Chief leadership team, and they have been tremendously supportive during this transition period. Each Division Chief is both a technical expert and a skilled manager, a somewhat rare combination in a technical field. I particularly appreciate Richard Nugent stepping up to backfill my position as WRS Division Chief on very short notice and serving a 120-day detail as the Acting Water Resource Systems Division Chief. Additionally, Josh Willis is the next WRS Acting Chief who will lead the Division through December 2024. Opportunities to test drive a supervisory role at HEC are infrequent, so we're making the most of this vacancy before filling the position permanently. 

Our much-loved Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Dawn Palma, also retired at the end of March 2024. Kimberly Core stepped into the CAO role on the same day that I started as Director, and I have really enjoyed getting to know her as we've established our new operational routines. Kim has been steadily building her own team in the front office and has been a fantastic addition to HEC.

I was fortunate to inherit a high-performing organization with fantastic staff, and my goal as HEC Director is to build the next generation of HEC excellence upon this tremendous foundation. My two main focus areas are reinforcing key values that contribute to our strong organizational culture and developing a 5-year vision in partnership with the HEC Division Chiefs and staff. I want HEC's culture to continue to reflect a strong mission focus, teamwork, integrity and kindness. These values will drive our success in the coming years, and align with our defined roles and responsibilities in supporting the USACE mission: we exist to support Corps staff and leadership. In addition, a well-considered 5-year vision will provide HEC staff, our partners and our customers with a clear understanding of what we're working towards. Development of that vision by the leadership team at HEC is well underway and plans for action in FY25 are starting to take shape.

While HEC's 60th year included a significant change in leadership in 2024, what hasn't changed is the excellent, innovative work produced by HEC staff. One of the best aspects of being Director is getting an opportunity to learn more about and support the wide variety of innovative and interesting work efforts underway at HEC. Our newsletter articles share a representative sample of these efforts with you, highlighting recent software advancements, several forward-leaning efforts and our most important asset, our people.

Software advancements include the new Peaks Over Threshold Analysis analysis type within HEC-SSP, the addition of stormwater pipes in HEC-RAS Version 6.6, a complete modernization of HEC-FDA with Version 2.0, as well as the new ensemble modeling capabilities and new integration of Python tools into our suite of water management tools. In addition, HEC staff are leaning forward with efforts to research improved post-wildfire hydrologic parameter adjustments; pursue a foundational update to our shared data storage system, HEC-DSS; and make the first release of HEC-RAS 2025, which marries state-of-the-art computer science with tremendous user experience improvements. And underlying both the current and future software enhancements is our commitment to DevOps, an industry-standard approach to software development that allows us to deliver significantly more value to our customers per dollar invested.

While the software development research and advancements are exciting, what really makes HEC tick is the people. Our list of staff changes at HEC since the Spring 2023 newsletter contains an incredible group of talented folks who have come on board in the last 18 months. And finally, we couldn't be more proud that our very own Stanford Gibson was recently honored with the Hans Albert Einstein Award. Stanford is very deserving of this prestigious award, and as they say, it couldn't have happened to a nicer person. 

I hope you enjoy learning about what's happening at HEC these days. We're always interested in hearing from our colleagues, so don't hesitate to reach out if something sparks your interest.

Lea Adams, P.E., BC.WRE
Director