Trinity River Authority Project: Warren Brewer

The Trinity River Authority of Texas (TRA) oversees the management of the Trinity River’s two regions: the Northern Region and the Southern Region. The Northern Region is responsible for flood control, water reclamation, and water treatment of the Northern part of the Trinity River Basin, including the DFW metroplex area. In 1979, Warren Brewer became the Regional Manager of the Northern Region and worked in that role until 2011. Mr. Brewer was first hired by TRA in 1977, after having worked for the engineering firm of Forest and Cotton, during which time TRA was his major client. Initially brought on to oversee the Joe Pool Lake Reservoir Project (known then as the Lakeview Reservoir), Mr. Brewer rose quickly through the ranks to his position as Northern Region Manager. In his capacity as Regional Manager, Mr. Brewer oversaw the design, construction, and operation of all Northern Region facilities. Under Mr. Brewer’s leadership, TRA was able to develop a regional approach to water service and wastewater systems by adding customer cities, which lowered costs for customer cities and dramatically improved water quality. Mr. Brewer was instrumental in negotiating contracts with customer cities and building a relationship of trust and cooperation with them. One of the bigger changes that occurred during Mr. Brewer’s tenure as Northern Region Manager was the entry of private water and wastewater service providers into the industry as competitors. Privatization was an attractive cost-savings option to some municipalities and might have disrupted the regional approach to wastewater treatment and water services. The Trinity River Authority and Mr. Brewer were challenged to find ways to make TRA a competitive service provider from a cost and operations standpoint in order to maintain contracts with its customer cities. Mr. Brewer’s deep and collaborative relationships with TRA’s customer cities were instrumental in leading the cities to allow TRA the time to respond to competition with changes that were beneficial to all involved and produced greater efficiencies and lowered the cost of providing water to the region. Mr. Brewer retired from TRA after 33 years. He states his priorities while serving TRA were: customers, employees, reliability.