Every once in a while, Utility Engineer Dan Pirsig gets a message like this from any of the five utilities he oversees. Whether it’s water, wastewater, gas, electricity, or district energy, there’s always something that needs to be fixed or improved upon. For Pirsig, it’s part of the job he loves.

“It makes a day difficult but rewarding at the same time,” he said. “You didn’t plan on working on that, but you helped solve a real-world problem.”

Pirsig initially went to school in civil engineering as a non-traditional student and graduated in 2005. From there he worked on heavy industrial projects, including ethanol plants, wind farms, and a wood-fired power plant in Texas. After a year of consulting, Pirsig felt he needed to make a change and remembered a town he used to pass through.

“I lived northwest of here,” he said. “When I drove through here to go to college in Mankato, I always liked the town. I even drove the bottom road a lot, looking at all the turkeys and deer and wildlife and the river. It’s always been a nice medium-sized town.

Pirsig has several projects planned for the future of public utilities. Here he points out some switchboards in need of replacement.

In June 2015, Pirsig began working as a Utility Engineer for New Ulm. After around eight years in the position, he said many long-term projects are on the horizon. The wastewater plant is almost 50 years old, and a significant chunk of the plant’s mechanisms are from the original building. There are also plans for the water plant.

“We’re going to be looking at doing a condition assessment of the water plant, which was built in 1994,” Pirsig said. “That’s 30 years old. It has had some improvements over the years, but it’s time to look at some of its electrical switchgears and valves to keep everything functioning. We want everything to keep running so people don’t even know we’re working.”

In comparison to his previous jobs, Pirsig said this position is significantly more difficult. There are so many different things to work on and plan for across the five utilities, on top of regulations and bureaucracy to grapple with. But Pirsig said diving into his work and getting projects done is the most rewarding part of his job.

“We did an emergency repair for a water line underneath the river to some of our more significant wells,” he said. “We’ve taken on FEMA projects, and we redid a transmission line while I’ve been here. They’ve all been things that have been in need for a while. We’ve taken on some things that haven’t gotten done yet. I enjoy taking on the hard projects.”

For the New Ulm Utilities Department, Pirsig said what they do best is planning for the future while maintaining a reasonable cost. He said with legislation providing changes and older infrastructure needing updates, staying on budget is a lofty goal. He hopes they can continue to work on communication with customers and dispelling stigmas.

A public utilities worker seals two pipes together, which will replace a leaky pipe. Pirsig said it was one of the most memorable projects of his career due to the location of the leakage, the sheer size of the pipes, and having to wait until winter to replace the pipe due to the area being a floodplain in the summer.

“I know we see rate comparisons for lots of different areas,” Pirsig said. “There’s the stigma that New Ulm utilities are high. If you look at our local competition, generally we are in the middle. It’s where being average is a good spot [to be in].

Being New Ulm’s Utility Engineer for eight years has imparted its fair share of wisdom to Pirsig. Even in the busy and multi-faceted workload of public utilities, a less strenuous quality is one he’s found to have gained the most from.

“Make sure you remain flexible,” Pirsig said. “Sometimes we start on a project that may not be where we planned on ending it when you’re done. A lot of times it ends in a better place than you planned on.”

Several projects are in the pipeline for the next few years. In the next six months, an intern from overseas will work on a water and wastewater project to determine what major improvements need to be completed on both facilities.

Over two years, they hope to add a solar or green project to the city’s electrical grid. Pirsig said a new industrial park near Walmart will necessitate the construction of a new substation to properly serve that area. Pirsig said he is excited to see what the future brings.

“We got to keep trying to improve things around here,” he said. “It will be interesting with some of the projects the city and some of the developers are doing in the next few years. We’ll see some modernization and improvements complementing New Ulm the way it is now.”