https://www.americancityandcounty.com/wp-content/themes/acc_child/assets/images/logo/footer-logo.png
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcast
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Events
    • How to Contribute
    • Municipal Cost Index – Archive
    • Equipment Watch Page
    • American City & County Awards
  • Magazine
    • Back
    • Digital Editions
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • Advertise
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Statement
    • Terms of Service
American City and County
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcasts
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Events
    • How to Contribute
    • American City & County Awards
    • Municipal Cost Index
    • Equipment Watch Page
  • Magazine
    • Back
    • Digital Editions
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • Subscribe to GovPro
    • Manage GovPro Subscription
    • Advertise
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Stament
    • Terms of Service
  • newsletter
  • Administration
  • Economy & Finance
  • Procurement
  • Public Safety
  • Public Works & Utilities
  • Smart Cities & Technology
acc.com

Public Works & Utilities


Public Works Leader of the Year: Public works pacesetter

Public Works Leader of the Year: Public works pacesetter

Gary Gilot's innovation and creativity keep South Bend, Ind., one step ahead
  • Written by Robert Barkin
  • 1st August 2010

Not long ago, Doug Marsh, architect and associate vice president at the University of Notre Dame, was approached by a group of students who wanted a new walkway to make it easier for pedestrians to cross a busy street at the border of the campus and South Bend. Ind. “We provided the equipment, and the city supplied the engineering staff to install it,” Marsh says. But, he says that the direct involvement of the city’s Public Works Director Gary Gilot “made it happen.”

Considering that Gilot also has been able to make happen everything from computerized manhole covers to greenhouse heating with computer servers, the job of installing the new walkway may seem, well, pedestrian. But Marsh thinks it represents exactly what makes Gary Gilot special. “He’s always evolving and growing,” Marsh says.

For his outstanding performance with groundbreaking major projects that are reshaping the public works landscape in South Bend and being held as national models, American City & County magazine has picked Gary Gilot as the Public Works Leader of the Year.

In nominating Gilot (pronounced “jiLOT”), South Bend Mayor Stephen Luecke says that his public works director “represents the best of creativity, innovation and ingenuity in government” and that Gilot has turned the public works department “into a laboratory for new ideas and concepts.” Luecke says that Gilot’s entrepreneurial approach has combined efficiency with an open approach to new ideas that serves the city well. “It’s hard to condense what Gary represents into a short answer,” he says. “He has a ‘can-do’ attitude. It’s never, ‘It can’t be done.’ It’s, ‘How can we do it?’ and then, ‘How can we do it better?'”

A high-tech CSO solution

At the top of Gilot’s recent accomplishments, Luecke cites the installation of computerized technology to tackle a century-old problem of managing water through its combined stormwater and sanitary sewer system. With 772 other U.S. cities, South Bend is mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce combined sewer overflow (CSO) by 85 percent over the next 20 years. Without improvements, the system faces the chronic problem of dumping untreated waste that exceeds its management capacity into its rivers during storms. A total separation of the system is estimated to cost $650 million over the next two decades.

For South Bend, a city of 100,000 residents in Northwest Indiana, fixing the problem with conventional solutions would be extraordinarily expensive. But, with CSOnet, a network of embedded wireless sensors and computerized control systems that Gilot installed in conjunction with Notre Dame and Purdue University engineers, South Bend will become the first city in the world to integrate computerized sensors and motorized controls to prevent overflows. Over time, the city will invest $4 million in CSOnet infrastructure to avoid a projected $120 million in future capital expenses for the same level of environmental benefit. A consulting firm estimated that applying the test program citywide would cut the problem by 25 percent. The project was partially funded with a $3 million federal stimulus grant.

In its first month of service, the network of sensors prevented 2 million gallons of combined sewage and stormwater from being released into the St. Joseph River. It actively retained water from nearby parking lots or other sources of stormwater runoff, only releasing it into the system when the danger of an overflow from the combined sewer overflow downstream had passed.

Michael Lemmon, a Notre Dame engineering professor, recalls that he met with the city about five years ago to identify how the engineering department could apply research to its real-world needs. Gilot was interested in new technology that could apply a wireless sensor network to the water runoff dilemma. “Gary was very supportive and forward thinking,” Lemmon says. “He was willing to consider a nonstandard solution and give it a try to see if it would work. I was really impressed. He was willing to look outside of the box.”

Lemmon believes that the technology employed in South Bend may have application nationwide as cities grapple with the issue of stormwater management, and he has spawned a small start-up corporation to promote the solution. By shifting excess water during heavy storms to pipes underground with excess capacity, the city keeps the overflow out of residents’ basements and out of the rivers. “This is an idea that can go national,” he says.

Server heat warms greenhouse

Another project undertaken with Notre Dame that Gilot has shepherded involves using the heat generated by university computers to warm the Desert Dome in the city’s popular greenhouse in Potawatomi Park. Seeking to avoid rapidly growing costs to cool computer servers, the university agreed to place 200 high-performance servers near the greenhouse so that the heat from the computers warms the dome, reducing the dome’s heating bill by 10 percent. The university saved about $42,000 for cooling costs on campus, and substantially reduced its carbon footprint. A high-speed fiber network that Gilot deployed in the city enables the project. “Gary understands the fundamental engineering but also the fundamental science,” says Paul Brenner, who heads science-computing operations at the university. “He is able to integrate the technology with the existing infrastructure.”

Not all of Gilot’s creativity comes through the implementation of high technology. In his quest to economize on winter road maintenance in January 2009, he turned to the lowest of technologies: adding water to salt.

At the time, prices for rock salt were rising, so the city joined with other governments to buy a large quantity of salt at about one-third the market rate. But Gilot figured that 1 ton of rock salt covers four miles of street, but the same amount of rock salt converted to brine covers 19 miles. And, because the salt brine can be applied before storms, the city also could save on overtime pay. In its first year, the city used $160,000 less in salt and avoided $5,000 in overtime costs. In addition, the use of brine reduces the corrosive effect of the salt on the environment.

For his part, Gilot admits that his training in civil and environmental engineering and his advanced degree in business administration influence his approach to the public sector. “The environment has always been what makes me tick,” he says. “We have limited resources, and we have to figure out smart ways to allocate resources. There’s not more and more money to do things.”

A creative style

Gilot, 53, began his public works career in Elkhart, Ind., in 1984. At the time, he was working as a consultant and received a call from the newly elected mayor, who needed a public works director to straighten out the wastewater treatment plant, which was under a regulatory order. He stayed for 16 years. “They gave me the freedom to be creative,” he says. “I got a different perspective of government that it wasn’t bureaucratic and restrictive. They gave me latitude to undertake applied research projects.”

After the mayor who hired him was defeated, Gilot received an offer from Mayor Luecke and moved to the bigger city in 2000. “He encouraged me to be entrepreneurial,” he says.

The CSOnet project was attractive because “it’s creative, it’s disruptive.” But it was very new, so he wanted to deploy the technology in a trial setting. “You don’t drop new technology, full scale overnight,” he says. “It was conceptual, but I’m open to people’s ideas to improve on the original plan.”

One of the biggest lessons learned is that the system had to be developed to better manage the amount of information moving through it. Rather than sending two men to look into a single manhole cover, the entire system now sends updated information every five minutes. That allows the city to send crews before an overflow, but it also taxes the managers’ ability to monitor the system. As a result, the first change was in data management. “Now, [I] can tell at a glance what the system is telling me,” he says.

The greenhouse project, where heat from university computers heats a greenhouse, is exactly the type of project, with its efficiency and recycling, that excites Gilot’s environmental bent. “Too much keeps us in silos,” he says. “We’ve not done a good job of reducing waste.”

So, working with the university science department was the perfect project in his book. “It takes as much electricity to cool the computers as the energy they use,” he says, effectively doubling the energy use. “This has an environmental impact, climate improvement.”

He sees potential application of the heat transfer concept to the city’s wastewater treatment plant, which requires heat to break down the waste. It also could be used at the city pool, which is heated during some months. Hospitals and other facilities also might be able to use a similar heating system.

Transportation improvements ahead

The next frontier for South Bend is an improved transportation system that would include a trolley in the city and a high-speed rail line for inter-city travel. Gilot says that both projects are long term but have significant potential for the city. The trolley would run about five miles and connect technology parks, the downtown area and the medical center. Carrying a $25 million price tag, though, it is still some time in the future.

The high-speed railroad costs even more — at least $8 billion, according to estimates — but the project received a head start with a $2.5 billion planning grant from the economic stimulus program. Gilot wants to make sure that the project, which would run from Michigan to Chicago and Wisconsin, includes South Bend as it passes through Indiana. “I used to think that it was very long term, an academic exercise,” he says. “But I think more are realizing that it’s essential for the economy of the Midwest hub for business and commerce.”

As he looks to the future, Gilot is optimistic about others who will eventually take his place, innovating and experimenting. “We still attract a lot of very bright, good young people in this field,” he says. With people like Gilot to encourage his staff to use innovative ways to solve age-old problems, South Bend can be optimistic about its future, too.

Robert Barkin is a Bethesda, Md.-based freelance writer.

Related Stories

  • Public Works Leader of the Year: Master of disaster
  • Goal diggers: Public works leaders cultivate sustainable communities
  • Rethinking public works: Public works departments focus on sustainability

Tags: Public Works & Utilities

Related


  • American City & County’s 2020 Crown Communities Awards
    Projects nominated for American City & County's annual Crown Communities Awards are judged on uniqueness, short- and long-term value to the community and effective/innovative financing.
  • 2020 Crown Communities Awards winner: Rock Hill, S.C.'s My Ride
    Rock Hill, S.C.’s My Ride project is a great example of how a city can solve multiple issues with one innovative project. My Ride is an all-electric, fare-free, fixed-route bus system that operates within Rock Hill (pop. 75,000). Seven electric buses ferry passengers over four routes that span across major corridors in the city. The […]
  • How small cities are tackling lead service line replacement
    “We move Heaven and earth,” says Montana Birt. A transplant from Georgia, Birt is a pastor in a local church in Thorp, Wisc., the smallest of cities with a population of just more than 1,600. His more earthly endeavor, however, involves digging up and replacing lead pipes that threaten to poison his neighbors’ water in […]
  • Six tips for making sure your dispatch is doing all the right moves
    Planning, design, construction, maintenance and waste disposal are a few aspects public works departments deal with daily. It seems like a great deal of specialized work and reporting because it absolutely is. And all of it routed through a dispatch center. Without the right tools in place, a dispatcher cannot keep things running smoothly. Nor […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your American City and County account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • The future of transportation – leveraging smart solutions to boost user experience
  • Five reasons why city managers should put utility vehicles to work
  • Six cities share $745,000 in grants for sustainability projects
  • The uncertain future of community composting in New York City

White papers


Discover How Public Sector Officials are Monitoring and Managing Overtime in This New White Paper

22nd February 2021

How to Assemble a Successful Government Grant Proposal

5th February 2021

The Rise of Procurement’s Next Normal

5th February 2021
view all

Events


PODCAST


Young Leaders Episode 4 – Cyril Jefferson – City Councilman, High Point, North Carolina

13th October 2020

Young Leaders Episode 3 – Shannon Hardin – City Council President, Columbus, Ohio

27th July 2020

Young Leaders Episode 2 – Christian Williams – Development Services Planner, Goodyear, Ariz.

1st July 2020
view all

Twitter


AmerCityCounty

How technology can ensure equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine dlvr.it/RtlLNC

1st March 2021
AmerCityCounty

American City & County’s 2020 Exemplary Public Servant of the Year Award dlvr.it/RtZbX2

26th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

American City & County’s 2020 Crown Communities Awards dlvr.it/RtZbVz

26th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

2020 Crown Communities Awards winner: Rock Hill, S.C.’s My Ride dlvr.it/RtZSFp

26th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

Three communities hosting Augmented Reality Developer Challenge competitions dlvr.it/RtZ94D

26th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

Using data to improve emergency response resources dlvr.it/RtVSc0

25th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

How small cities are tackling lead service line replacement dlvr.it/RtV9G8

25th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

COVID-19 and pivoting into a new year: It may be 2021, but did we really leave 2020? dlvr.it/RtQRcr

24th February 2021

Newsletters

Sign up for American City & County’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about local governments.

Resale Insights Dashboard

The Resale Insights Dashboard provides model-level data for the entire used equipment market to help you save time and money.

Municipal Cost Index

Updated monthly since 1978, our exclusive Municipal Cost Index shows the effects of inflation on the cost of providing municipal services

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital audience? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • IWCE’s Urgent Communications
  • IWCE Expo

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us

FOLLOW American City and County ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2021 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X