WC143 JulyAug 2025 - Magazine - Page 8
WATER STORY
From the Ground Up
How a high school job sparked a lifelong career in water—and led to the OWWA presidency
BY TOM WOODCOCK
STARTED MY WATER JOURNEY while in high
school working a summer job as a water meter reader for
my father, Tim Woodcock, who owned a meter reading
company, Canadian Water Services, which he eventually
sold to Ontario Water Products (OWP) in London, Ont.
During summers between my engineering studies at Western University, I moved on to working at the OWP pipe
yard pulling orders for contractors and delivering
them to construction sites.
I was first introduced to the Ontario Water
Works Association (OWWA) when I was in my
third year at Western. OWWA Young Professionals (YPs) held a presentation on the water industry
I
contract administration and commissioning. This project went
on to receive the OPWA Technical Innovation Award in 2015,
which continues to be a source of great pride for me.
I have been an OWWA and American Water Works
Association (AWWA) member since 2011 when my manager
at RVA, David Evans, suggested that I join the OWWA YP
committee where I began volunteering on the Student Chapter
“This project laid the foundation of my
technical knowledge in wastewater treatment,
Instrumentation and Controls (I&C) and SCADA.”
with City of London Engineer and the OWWA
President at the time, John Braam. This started
me thinking about a career in the water industry.
I started my professional career at R.V.
Anderson Associates Limited (RVA) in 2010
after graduating from Western with a Bachelor
of Engineering Science in Chemical Engineering. At RVA, my first projects were sewer and watermain
replacements and eventually I was assigned to the Greenway
WWTP Dewatering Upgrades throughout the entirety of
my Engineer-In-Training (EIT) time. This project laid the
foundation of my technical knowledge in wastewater treatment, Instrumentation and Controls (I&C) and SCADA. I
gradually took on more responsibilities ranging from pilot
testing centrifuges, modelling process piping in REVIT,
and designing the SCADA system. The most impactful
time of the project came during construction where I was
embedded onsite at the plant completing site inspections,
Tom Woodcock is a Senior
Associate and Lead I&C
Engineer at RVA.
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WATER C AN ADA • JULY/AUGUS T 2025
sub-committee. My first responsibility was organizing the
Student Chapter Leadership Forum bringing together students
from across the province to learn about OWWA. From there
I continued volunteering with the YP committee, becoming
YP Committee chair in 2016 and joining the AWWA YP
Committee in 2017. I was elected to the OWWA Board of
Directors in 2020 and was recently elected as OWWA President. It has been rewarding for me to meet students and YPs,
help them get involved in OWWA while at school, join the YP
committee and watch them go onto have successful careers in
the water industry.
In 2016, I was made Associate at RVA and in 2022 was
further promoted to Lead I&C Engineer of the firm. Shortly
after, I became the Manager of Instrumentation & Controls
where I now lead the I&C division providing I&C and SCADA services to clients across Ontario and Atlantic Canada.
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
