(Raleigh, N.C.) City Manager J. Russell Allen today named John Robert Carman to head the City of Raleigh’s Public Utilities Department. He will begin work on January 4. While he has spent the past four years with global engineering firm CH2M Hill, in Utah, northern California and currently as a vice president based in Chicago, the majority of Mr. Carman’s 30-year career in water and sewer operations and management has been in the public sector.

He served as general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake & Sandy in his native Utah from 2002 to 2005.  In this position, Mr. Carman was responsible for all functions of the system that serves an estimated population of 750,000.  This included management of the system’s $250 million capital improvement plan and a stint as president of the board for the Provo River Water Users Association. In 2006, Mr. Carman was appointed to the Utah Board of Water Resources by the Utah governor.

The seven previous years, Mr. Carman, 49, was the water quality and operations manager for Salt Lake City’s Metropolitan Water District.  He has learned the water treatment business from the pump up, starting in 1979 as a pump station and pretreatment operator for the Salt Lake City Water Reclamation Facility. He received prompt promotions, first to treatment plant operators for City Creek Water Treatment Plant and then to operator for Salt Lake City’s Big Cottonwood Water Treatment Plant.

He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Utah at Salt Lake City. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Utah.

The City of Raleigh Public Utilities Department provides the treatment and distribution of the city’s drinking water supply, as well as the collection and treatment of wastewater in Raleigh, Garner, Rolesville, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Wendell and Zebulon. Raleigh sells water, wastewater treatment or both services to several municipalities including Apex, Fuquay-Varina, Middlesex, Clayton and Johnston County. The department’s annual budget (currently more than $143 million) for all operations is a self-supporting enterprise, fully funded by revenues received from the users of the water and wastewater services.  The department’s capital improvement program totals more than $927 million for the coming 10 years.

Mr. Carman fills the position that will be vacated Dec. 31 by the retirement of H. Dale Crisp after 25 years of service to the City of Raleigh and 14 years as the Public Utilities Department’s director.