THE FORMIDABLE FOUR

Four women have leading roles in the city’s most ambitious pipeline initiative ever

A water pipeline project that will be crucial to Houston’s future is being led by women engineers.

Nine-foot-wide pipe — tall enough for WNBA player Tina Thompson to stand in with three basketballs balanced on her head — was recently carted to Houston in 25-foot sections and laid 30 feet below ground near U.S. 59 and Texas 8.

The pipe is the backbone of the Northeast Transmission Water Line, which will bring 365 million gallons of water a day from the Lake Houston reservoir to the city and surrounding counties. The pipeline, nearly 17 miles long, is Houston’s most ambitious water project ever, aimed at reducing the metro area’s reliance on groundwater and pro-

viding for a population expected to grow by nearly 50 percent to 10 million by 2040.

It’s historic for other reasons. Four leaders of the project are women.

Engineering is still a profession dominated by men, who make up 86 percent of engineers nationally. Despite increasing numbers in the engineering and other technical fields, it’s still unusual for women to head major projects, which makes it all the more remarkable that four women are overseeing everything from the $450 million pipeline’s engineering and construction to its operation and maintenance, said Kristina Swallow, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

“This is something that is a long time coming,” Swallow said, “having more women at the helm, having more women leading projects.”

On a recent Monday afternoon, the four women drove out to view the next thousand-foot, 12-ton section of pipe being readied for installation, a process that entails digging a trench, welding the pipes together and installing valves, manways and manholes before disinfecting the pipe and connecting it to the existing system.

Mackrena Ramos handed out neon vests and hard hats from the back of her SUV. She is the program manager for the engineering company the city selected as its technical adviser for the pipeline, Lockwood, Andrews and Newnam, and makes sure construction stays on budget and on time.

Venus Price is Public Works section lead for the city’s largediameter pipelines. Yvonne Forrest, the director of Houston Water, is responsible for the operation and maintenance of Houston’s regional water and wastewater systems, and Shannon Rodriguez, managing engineer for the city’s drinking water operations, makes sure water continues to flow with sufficient volume and pressure even while sections of pipeline are turned off for maintenance (she’s known by her colleagues as the Water Wizard).

The four women could continue to work together for years after the new pipeline is completed, overseeing operations and maintenance and eventually making repairs as necessary.

“The whole life cycle of the pipe is just this team,” Rodriguez said.

The careers of the four women capture the progress, albeit slow, that women have made in engineering and other technical professions. As the team has worked to shape the future of Houston’s water, they’ve also witnessed the changes in engineering shift to include more women. When Forrest attended the University of South Carolina in 1989, she was one of two women in her class of 12 chem-

“This is something that is a long time coming.” Kristina Swallow, American Society of Civil Engineers

Mark Mulligan / Staff photographer Shannon Rodriguez, left, Yvonne Forrest, Mackrena Ramos and Venus Price are working together in leading Houston's largest drinking water pipeline project.

When Houston native Rodriguez was a child, her father showed her a 1940 video of a suspension bridge in Washington undulating wildly before collapsing into the Tacoma Narrows. “That’s when I fell in love with engineering,” she said. “I wanted to know, why did that happen?” She is now managing engineer for the city’s drinking water operations.

“Talk to my kids, they’ll tell you: She’s a nerd,” Forrest said. “But people have no idea of what women in technical fields look like. And I think those stereotypes need to be broken down.” One of only two women in her graduating class of chemical engineers, Forrest is now director of Houston Water.

Price’s family fled to America during the Iranian Revolution nearly 40 years ago. News reports about water shortages in major cities such as Los Angeles made her interested in ensuring that large metropolitan areas have enough water.

Ramos moved to Houston from Mexico and became interested in the city’s water when her professor asked her to monitor water quality in the bayous. After starting at Lockwood, Andrews and Newnam engineering firm in 1999 to intern on large-diameter pipelines, she worked her way up the ranks to become the project’s manager.