Celebrating 30 Years of Service – James Matthews, PE, Sr. Vice President Environmental Water
In 1994, James (Jamie) made the leap early in his career from the public sector to consulting when he left the City of San Diego – Water Production Division to joined PACE. As such, he came to support the design of the company’s very first wastewater treatment plant project under the guidance of founder Johan Perslow.
This marked the start of an entirely new services path for PACE, leading to the formation of the Environmental Water Division, to offer advanced water and wastewater treatment and infrastructure design, which Jamie continues to lead today. When asked why we named this new division “Environmental Water” vs. “Water Infrastructure”, Jamie simply said; “Because the vision of this division is to do so much more…..” Today our EW Division provides not only the standard practice civil water infrastructure, but also in-house Water Quality Lab Services, Custom Process Piloting, Instrumentation & Controls, and Electrical Engineering; all focused on holistic, all-inclusive solutions.
As a Registered Professional Engineer in 11 states, including NCEES National Registration, Jamie even found time to become a Licensed Wastewater Treatment Operator in Arizona. Since then, he has led the design of well over 200 treatment facilities and over 1,000 projects. His accomplishments include dozens of award-winning facilities garnering international recognition, developing innovative treatment processes, identifying new applications of existing technologies, and holding three patents for his design ingenuity. Additionally, he started two other groups within PACE: Our Instrumentation and Controls(I&C), to support a wide range of automation, communication, and controls systems on our projects, and our Electrical Engineering group, both critical pieces to generating a complete in-house team for advanced project delivery.
If you can’t find Jamie at the office, it is likely because he is out at a project site, never afraid to get his hands dirty or his feet wet by overseeing construction, supporting startups, optimizing controls systems, or providing operational guidance. He truly embodies the belief that engineers must be able to wear the hard hats of contractors and the shoes of operators to provide great design.
As a leader, mentor, and project manager, Jamie continues to inspire all of us at PACE to strive for “Advanced” in all that we do. We look forward to what he will help our team accomplish next as a key member of the PACE family.