Gloversville-Johnstown water plant gets new manager

Johnstown resident Harry Brand has become the first manager since facility board members terminated Wallace Arnold's contract earlier this month amid growing staffing concerns. Arnold had been with the plant for eight years.

“He did a lot of good things and sometimes you just have to make a change,” said Eric Parker, a facility board member and Johnstown councilman.

Brand, a former power plant manager at Rensselaer Cogeneration, was one of five finalists for the position in 2016. The board at the time chose Arnold, a former contractor at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, due to his engineering credentials.

Facility officials reached back out to Brand regarding the position in the late winter, as they anticipated a shift in leadership.

At that point, the facility had failed to meet a state Department of Environmental Conservation staffing benchmark after an employee failed a licensing examination, according to facility board Chairman Christopher Vose. The next examination was three months down the line.

“That was going to put us outside of the timeframe that DEC gave us to hit these benchmarks and that's the potential liability that we were exposed to,” Vose said.

Arnold’s contract was set to expire next year. A separation clause allowed the board to terminate Arnold’s agreement early provided that he had a 60-day notice.

“We just wanted to make the transition to the new management as smooth and seamless as possible, so we asked him to remove himself,” Vose said.

Vose, Johnstown’s city engineer, served in a de-facto leadership capacity during the transition period. Vose said that he only had to come down to the mega-facility twice to help out because the staff already had a firm grasp on operations.

About 20 union and non-union employees work at the site off Union Avenue in the town of Johnstown.

One of the greatest challenges for Brand, Vose said, is keeping the workforce together.

“Everything seems like it's going to be positive, but until you get there you just never know for sure,” Vose said.

Brand, who is expected to make $110,000 in his first year under a five-year contract, visited the site last week.

The Johnstown resident — until now — has never worked in a wastewater treatment facility. He’s been studying up on the ins and outs of the trade ever since he accepted the position. Vose is confident that Brand will catch on quickly.

Don Schwartz, a facility board member and director of public works in Gloversville, believes the new leader’s managerial experience will pay off.

“We met with him a number of times,” Schwartz said about Brand. “There was a lot of back and forth conversation and at every turn, he seemed to fit the bill.”

The Gloversville-Johnstown facility provides services for about 25,000 people — nearly half of Fulton County’s population — including users outside of the Glove Cities. It has the capacity to treat upwards to 13.8 million gallons of wastewater per day.

The site hasn’t always had a permanent leader. Before Arnold, the facility for four years had been run by acting manager Tyler Masick and later, wastewater engineer Christopher Stankes and C.T. Male engineer Robert Flores.