Distinguished Alumni Interview Series: Udai Pratap Singh, Secretary General, Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council.
Mr. Udai Pratap Singh (BT/CE/1972)
Outreach Cell, IIT Kanpur brings you the 2nd edition of the Distinguished Alumni Interview Series. We interview people who have contributed exceptionally to the Society after graduating from IIT Kanpur and bring their inspiring life stories to you.
This edition brings you the story of Mr.Udai Pratap Singh, who received the Distinguished Alumnus Award for Professional Excellence in 2009.
Udai Pratap Singh(Linkedin.com/in/udai-singh-3200005/) received his B.Tech. Degree in Civil Engineering in 1972 from IIT Kanpur and subsequently received graduate degrees in water resources engineering from Clemson University and environmental engineering from the University of Florida, USA.
Here are some excerpts from our conversation with Udai Sir-
Q. There must have been a lot of exciting incidents of your stay at IITK. Can you share some of the differences that you might have seen at IITK comparing it to the past?
I visited IITK in the last 10-15 years a few times. Comparing it to the past, the difference I see is that it used to be much less crowded in terms of people, buildings, facilities, and everything else, and the campus was quite isolated from the town. There were some tempos but not very convenient and frequent. There was an IITK bus that would go 2-3 times a day to the city. We had one restaurant on the campus by the name Red Rose which was one of our favorites. Also, the first supercomputer, an IBM computer that came to India, was installed in IIT Kanpur in a brand new sizeable air-conditioned building. We were one of the first batches to use it and learn computer science. We had more interaction among us and with faculty during my time, with less number of students and no cell phone or internet.
Q. How did you maintain a balance between your extracurricular activities and academics during your college life?
It was hard because that's difficult to do. I was very active in some of the sports areas. I was in the IIT Kanpur table tennis team for my last three years at IITK and the captain of the IIT team in my final year. We won the inter IIT sports meet in table tennis because we had an outstanding team, actually one excellent player (not me). I was in civil engineering, and the secretary of the Society of Civil Engineering on the campus. We had a lot of extracurricular professional activities in the Society. We had to go through 5 years of tough academics back then, not four years as it is now. It was quite tough to maintain a balance between academic and extracurricular activities and do well in both.
Q. How did your life at IITK shape your interests and help you in deciding your career path?
Life at IITK is one of the things that ties into deciding my career path. Things are different now, I think. We were very close to our professors. Especially in Civil, the class size was small; there were 25 or so people. So we would know our professors, and they would talk to us all about the potential things we wanted to do after graduation or what they had done in their life. A lot of the professors came from the US and helped us figure out life beyond IITK.
We had a professor G.D. Agrawal who did his Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley and then came to India. He had experience with a lot of projects so that he would tell us about both the academic and the practical side of things. He gave me a final year project to design the Sharda barrage, which was a significant barrage built in the Northern UP area. He knew the people working in the Public Works Department and the Irrigation Department on the project. So he sent us to the team at the site, and we stayed there for 3 or 4 days and learned about the project, got all the data, came back, and designed it ourselves in parallel with what the government was doing; it took us a long time, but we did it. That interested me in how to design dams and how to do canal and water resources projects, and that's how my interest got shaped up in water resources engineering just before I applied to the US for graduate studies.
After IITK, I got admission into IIM Calcutta, so I had a choice between management and engineering. I selected engineering and came to the US after the IITK. That's how I got into the water resources engineering academic program here in the US, found a suitable job at CH2M Hill, and eventually went into Environmental Engineering, which overlaps with Water Resources Engineering.
Q. Your journey from joining CH2M Hill in 1974 to retiring as Vice President in 2014 would genuinely inspire the young generation at IIT Kanpur. Please tell us about the same.
My career has been like a big umbrella. It started on the technology path, one spoke of the umbrella. Technology is something that I would recommend to the IIT Kanpur students who are into engineering now but would want to go into management too. You need to have your base very strong if you are in a technical field. You need to start in the technology career path and know everything about that field to be able to move into management because you cannot do justice to management unless you see the technology of your business or employment.
I joined CH2M Hill, a civil/environmental engineering consulting firm in '74 in Florida. I started as a Water Resources Engineer and was performing and designing water resources projects: things like stormwater management plans, flood planning, and management, planning point source water discharges, looking at water pollution abatement in rivers and lakes. While working full time, I started my part-time doctorate in environmental engineering and completed that degree in a few years. What helped me was a lot of cutting edge projects in water pollution at CH2M Hill.
Near the shores of South Florida, there are many sensitive and living ecosystems, such as coral reefs in the Atlantic Ocean. Secondarily treated municipal wastewater discharge into the ocean was harming them. The United States Environmental Protection Agency directed the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Authority to cease that practice or be severely penalized. The Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Authority then came to CH2M Hill to look for a solution. Luckily I got to work on that research and pilot project and lead it. We demonstrated an innovative solution using deep proper disposal of secondarily treated municipal wastewater. It turned out to be a success. We went to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, demonstrated to them on behalf of the city, and it was accepted. The city gave us a contract, and we designed and built the most extensive deep well injection system in the world, designed for safely injecting 250 million gallons a day of secondarily treated wastewater effluent nearly 3,000 feet underground.
That treatment and disposal system in south Florida is still running and saving coral reefs from extinction. That's what helped me with my environmental career path. CH2M Hill became one of the largest companies in civil engineering in the world, especially in environmental and water resources engineering. They did a lot of mega projects like program management of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics Games, the recent expansion of the Panama Canal, and the next World Cup Qatar 2022.
Since the 1980s, I was mostly involved in hazardous waste management and remediation at sites where toxic waste was discharged into surface or groundwater and soil. The US Environmental Protection Agency determined and finalized a list of 1,500 or so worst places in the nation in terms of human health risk. CH2M Hill got one of the first contracts and many subsequent deals from EPA to investigate and remediate these sites. I have worked on about 250 of those worst 1500 sites in the US for EPA, and we have made significant progress. I led multidisciplinary teams consisting of toxicologists, geologists, chemical engineers, civil engineers, construction engineers, ecological scientists, and others. This combination is typical environmental engineering.
That's been my career path. I started at CH2M Hill as a very technical person and then moved into project delivery, including project and program management, another spoke of the umbrella. Starting from managing small projects for $100,000 or so, I moved to manage large projects for a few million dollars. Eventually, I became a Program Manager, managing technical programs worth hundreds of millions of dollars. During the last couple of decades, I was simultaneously active in business development and operations of the firm in the environmental services area, the other two spokes of the umbrella.
Q. Please tell us about your book, technical papers, and other work in the field of environmental and water resources engineering.
Outside of my regular day-job, which was not in academia, I was fortunate to be able to perform other professional activities like writing and publishing technical papers, books, and making presentations at conferences, universities, and other organizations, as well as serving on advisory boards of engineering schools. So far, I have published about 60 technical papers, authored five books, and edited eight books, all in civil engineering/infrastructure, mostly in environmental and water resources.
I have enjoyed leading technical committees of the Water Environment Federation and the American Society of Civil Engineers in the last few decades. It was an honor to be elected the President of the American Society of Civil Engineers Environmental and Water Resources Institute. During my presidential term, I worked as an Advisor to the Water Caucus of the United States Congress and led US engineering delegations to China and some other countries.
Q. Where are you currently involved, and what is your role in the organization?
After retiring from CH2M Hill in December 2014, I have been doing part-time consulting at the request of friends, colleagues, and clients. For that, I had to open my consulting engineering firm: US Environmental Services. Lately, I have been the representative of the United States to another organization: the Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council, or ACECC. The United States is a co-founder of this organization. There are 14 countries in this organization, including India.
A few months ago, I was elected by these 14 countries to be the secretary-general of ACECC, similar to the Managing Director or CEO of their organization, for six years. ACECC's mission is to transfer civil engineering knowledge from one country to the other and to advance the civil engineering profession to improve the quality of life of citizens. ACECC has Executive Committee meetings every six months rotated among member countries. Around these meetings, we also conduct technical seminars, tours of local civil engineering projects, and other activities. Besides, ACECC organizes a civil engineering conference in the Asian Region every three years. We are performing several activities, such as promoting ethics and inculcating young leaders within each member country in the field of civil engineering. That keeps me motivated and excited, as I get the satisfaction of giving back to the profession.
Q. What effect do you think this whole pandemic situation has had on the environment?
Yes, it's directly related to the environment, especially to an interdisciplinary area. Everybody knows that it's related to the medical field, but it is also associated with the environmental engineering field. For example, in the last month or two, people here in the US in my profession are looking for the treatment of the virus in practice. For instance, we are determining the effect of the current water and wastewater treatment on the virus. Are there cost-effective ways to kill the virus during the treatment process? We must maintain our drinking water supplies and the related environment safe from this virus, Environmental scientists and engineers are looking into it and are in the process of coming up with innovative solutions.
The economy has slowed down quite a bit, but now the US industry is trying to figure out what's the best way to keep working during the pandemic. Innovations in science and engineering, especially in computer science and artificial intelligence, are going to make sure that the disruption in our life and career due to the pandemic gets minimized. Even the students at IIT Kanpur can use this as an opportunity to innovate opportunities in their life and career and not be afraid of taking risks. This pandemic situation may be an opportunity to learn a new skill and also improve their time management skills.
Q. Please give some advice to the current students of IITK.
This question reminded me of a visit to Carnegie Mellon University a few years back when one of the professors invited me to address engineering students at Carnegie Mellon University. He asked the same question. I told the students to start thinking of their future and see what they want to do in life. It's not easy to figure out everything at this stage of their life, but once they contact their professors, alumni, and introspect, they will gradually understand. While they are in the third or fourth year, they should start preparing their resume. Even though they are not applying for a job or higher studies, it's a good idea to just start with a mindset for the future.
Another thing is to study hard but do not despair if you are not getting great results. I was not a great student, but I think I have done reasonably fine after leaving IIT. IIT will give you enough things in your foundation that will help you do well after your studies. When I completed my B.Tech in civil engineering, I wasn't sure how I would do in my master's degree in the US. I was surprised; I did quite well because IITK had laid an excellent foundation for me.
I would recommend all IITK students to work on their communication skills, both verbal and written. You need to show enthusiasm to your potential employers, especially in the last year of IITK. Once you've got your first job, you need to think about what to do and how to do it well; spread your network. It's just the beginning of your career, and how successful you become will depend on a lot of things, including continuous learning, formal and informal.
Be willing to work on areas suggested for improvement. You have to make sure you understand constructive criticism, not take it in the wrong way, and be prepared to work on them. And that's how you will improve.
A crucial thing that helped me in my career is finding a mentor or mentors. Find and engage someone who could help you in the academic field during IIT, possibly another or others to help after IIT and in your job. That's how you get feedback on what you are doing, suggestions on alternatives that you may not have thought of, and help in expanding your network to gain a variety of experiences.
Don't stay in your comfort zone for long. Once you get too comfortable, you won't be able to accomplish much. Always look for something more challenging. The training and environment you get at IIT Kanpur provide these kinds of opportunities and challenges to do well outside of your comfort zone.
