By PATRICK GILLESPIE
Shawn Hamilton resigned as the Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in November after nearly two decades in the agency. He rose through the Department’s Northwest District office to Deputy Secretary of Land and Recreation to Secretary in 2021. He is now Associate Department Manager for Dewberry, a nationwide planning, design, and construction firm.
Below is a Q&A format with Hamilton, reflecting on his time of public service, what he learned, what shaped his service, and what he’s doing now.
Q: After decades in state service, why did you decide to move into the private sector?
A: Simply put, family. Our two oldest sons and their families live in Tampa, and our youngest son is transferring to the University of South Florida (USF). My wife and I dreamed of doing day-to-day life with our family — share dinners, visit the beach, go fishing, have game nights, and spend Sundays together at church followed by dad picking up the dinner tab (which I love, by the way).
Q: Leading a large and complex agency comes with unique challenges. What leadership lessons did you learn that stuck with you?
A: Make sure all levels of the organization are connected to the mission and have a clear understanding of how their individual responsibilities contribute to the overall success of the organization. Then, take every opportunity to acknowledge those contributions privately and publicly.
As a leader, it’s your responsibility to make decisions. Often, I’ve seen leaders get stuck and become unable or unwilling to make a decision. You should always gather relevant council, but at the end of the day, as leaders, it’s critical that you make decisions in order to move the mission of your organization forward.
Have the right people in the right positions.
Q: What division, section or program did you interact with at the Department that you didn’t anticipate would be the most interesting?
A: Each division and program are exciting in their own ways and at any given point are deserving of the singular title as the most important. Many people are familiar with the environmental inspector who checks for compliance at various regulated facilities; or the engineer who is responsible for the review of complex designs for water, wastewater, solid waste, stormwater, or coastal projects; or those who every day and in all kinds of conditions take hundreds of water quality samples throughout the state to allow for data driven decisions; and many others.
However, the agency’s ability to complete its mission also depends on the teams that navigate the complex state procurement and budget processes, those that perform the laboratory analysis of the countless number of water quality samples referenced above, those that perform the policy reviews based on the latest science and data to formulate new science-based policy recommendations, or those that negotiate the acquisitions of critical conservation lands, administer billion-dollar grant programs, or the legal teams, park rangers, emergency response and environmental crimes teams, among others. The collective ability of the agency to accomplish its mission is dependent on the individual ability of each team successfully performing their unique mission.
Q: Was there someone you met or somewhere you traveled that was particularly memorable?
A: While I’ve had many memorable experiences, there is one interaction that I’ve used to keep me grounded. During my time in the Pensacola regulatory district office, while serving as the external affairs director, I got a call from a lady who was trying to help her church navigate the permitting process. Turns out, they purchased a property sight unseen only to find out it included wetlands. Once they heard the news from the contractor, they were completely caught off guard and at a total loss as to what to do next. They reached out to the Department in search of answers.
I advised them they should hire an environmental professional to assist with pulling together the necessary applications (all of which seems straightforward to those of us who work in this space). After they hired a consultant, I connected them with the Environmental Resource Program (ERP) team for a pre-application meeting to work out the details.
After several months, I got a call while I was in my office that someone was in the lobby and wanted to see me. Now that the church was constructed, she and a few fellow church members had made the trip to Pensacola to personally thank me with a large batch of cookies. As you can imagine, I was quite surprised that someone would do something like this for someone who was simply doing their job. As often as possible, I try to remind myself and those around me that there are people who are the benefactors of the individual decisions we make each day (or the ones we don’t make). While there may not be a large batch of chocolate chip cookies waiting in the lobby, the relevance of our actions is the same. And yes, all gift provisions were strictly adhered to.
Q: What is a lesson you would provide to the private sector that interacts with the Department that may be helpful?
A: I think it’s important to approach each interaction in a meaningful and productive way, however small and fleeting the opportunity might be. Often, we forget that there are people just like us on the other end of our engagements. There are always opportunities to stay solution-oriented, and at the end of the day, the rule and the laws are the deciding factor, not the individual. If we can remember that during our interactions, we reduce the risk of personal frustrations limiting the ability to have productive and solution-oriented conversations.
Q: In your new role, what type of work are you doing?
A: I serve as Dewberry’s regional water lead based out of Tampa, and my primary focus is maintaining existing and developing new relationships in southwest Florida. One thing that drew me to Dewberry was the opportunity to support the focus on a “One Water” paradigm, meaning the journey of water through the various natural, domestic, and industrial processes, like stormwater management, groundwater extraction, drinking water treatment and distribution, wastewater collection and treatment, and its subsequent beneficial reuse.
Q: What is Dewberry doing in Florida that excites you?
A: I’m always excited when I see new and innovative ways to deal with some of the complex environmental challenges we face as a state. Along those lines there are two projects that come to mind.
The first is a project in Plant City where Dewberry assisted in a cooperative effort with the city’s parks and recreation and utilities departments to plan and construct a natural system with both recreational and water resources benefits. The result is the McIntosh Preserve Integrated Water Treatment Wetlands project, which is a multi-phased project that involved the design, permitting, bidding, and construction administration services for the installation of two miles of ADA-compliant recreational trails, a parking lot, a wildlife viewing platform, trail and educational signage, and kiosks.
The current phase of the project involves 172 acres of multi-purpose constructed treatment wetlands. When complete, the project will provide beneficial reuse of an estimated 2.5 million gallons of water per day, an annual net reduction of almost 10,000 pounds of total nitrogen (TN) and phosphorus (TP), increased stormwater capacity, and reduced localized flood risk, all while providing nature-based recreational opportunities.
Another project highlights a key component of the One Water paradigm and includes a direct connection to the rule-making efforts that were wrapping up while I was at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection/ While the Department navigated the extensive direct potable reuse (DPR) rule-making process, Polk County Utilities, with grant funding supplied by the Southwest Florida Water Management District, initiated a pilot project at the Cherry Hill Water Production Facility (WPF). Polk County Utilities has a goal to increase the resilience of the county’s water supply and provide an opportunity to investigate direct potable reuse as a future water supply option. Dewberry provided planning, design, and construction administration of the DPR pilot facility located at the Cherry Hill WPF, which, amazingly, is the first in Florida to conduct feasibility testing at a water treatment plant rather than a wastewater plant.
The goal of the project was to use up to 1.5 million gallons per day of reclaimed water for innovative treatment methods and to verify that contaminants can be removed while adhering to rigorous state and federal drinking water standards. Now that the project has produced over a years’ worth of data, results can be directly compared to the new DPR rules to produce a uniquely data-driven design for any future project phases, and more importantly, support the critical need for public education to consumers about DPR’s viability as a safe and reliable drinking water source.
Q: Any last thoughts or comments you would like to share?
A: I look forward to getting out and connecting with and supporting the utilities, local governments, and other stakeholders in southwest Florida as they work to provide the infrastructure necessary for the incredible growth our state is experiencing.
