Dennis Cantrell Joins the GBA Team as a Vice President/ Principal for the Water Environment Group

A warm welcome to Dennis Cantrell, who has joined GBA as Vice President/Principal for the Water Environment Group! Dennis will be headquartered in our Lenexa office and will work closely with GBA offices in Kansas City, O’Fallon, St. Louis, and Omaha.

Dennis’s broad experience includes assisting many large and mid-sized metropolitan areas to comply with the EPA’s Clean Water Act and NPDES requirements. Most recently, he has been responsible for management of design for facility and utility projects for the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s facilities, sewer, water, stormwater, and Overflow Control Plan (OCP); the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District’s sewer and Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) program projects; and the Omaha, Neb., CSO program.

Dennis’s career has taken him around the world and back and he’s enjoyed every minute of it…well, almost every minute! In Seoul, South Korea, traffic jams were so severe in the 1990s that vehicles could, literally, be stopped in place for hours. Dennis said he would take a taxi as far as it could go, then walk to the nearest subway station for the rest of the commute. In each country, Dennis made a point of learning the local ways as he helped build water and wastewater infrastructure to meet the needs of the people, from Mexico and South America to Taiwan, the Philippines, Egypt, and the Middle East. By the way, he highly recommends a visit to the Cairo Antiquities Museum, a highlight of his many business travels!

If Dennis has traveled the world, his roots are still firmly planted in the Midwest. He is a native of Kansas City, Kansas, where he graduated from Wyandotte High School (he mentored students there until a couple of years ago), and earned a BS degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Kansas, where he still attends football and basketball games. Dennis and his wife, Betsy, met at KU, and their daughter, Lindsey, is studying communications and marketing there right now!

Dennis also points proudly to their other “daughter,” Kendrea, who came to them as a foster child and at 16 decided to stay! Now 42, Kendrea is a full-time officer in the Army National Guard and lives with her own family in Olathe. Dennis and Betsy clearly enjoyed their experience as foster parents to a number of children!

Dennis comes to us from HNTB Corporation, where he was Director of the Water Services and Water Resources Group for their Kansas City, St. Louis, and Omaha offices.

Our best wishes to Dennis in his new endeavors!

Helping You Achieve Project Success through CxA Selection

John Riley (left) and Pat Prendergast

We're always trying to get the word out about commissioning, just what it is and why it’s important to your project. In an article that appeared in latest issue of "The Checklist," the quarterly newsletter of the Building Commissioning Association, GBA/ViroCon commissioning agents Pat Prendergast, P.E., and John Riley, P.E., talk about how to select a commissioning agent and why he, or she, holds the key to a successful project.

According to our authors, lots of people can perform commissioning tasks, from third-party commissioning agents (CxA) like GBA/ViroCon to construction managers, contractors, equipment suppliers, designers, and owners. Whoever performs commissioning, however, must have the appropriate expertise to ensure desired system performance.

Pat and John suggest that stakeholders determine the “depth and rigor” of commissioning required to achieve the desired goals for the project, then select the CxA with the necessary qualifications. Together they can develop and document specific commissioning goals to ensure that tests are written and executed by qualified personnel.

This leads to the fact that, at least for more complex or “critical” facilities, commissioning staff should be diverse and include system specialists, system engineers, and technicians who can be assigned appropriate tasks to maximize effectiveness and cost-efficiency. The CxA manages the overall commissioning process.

More information about the discipline-specific approach to commissioning, its total cost, the staffing approach and cost, and selecting a commissioning agent is available here.