David Totman, a California water infrastructure and asset management specialist who served as 2019 president of the ASCE Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute, has died.
Totman, P.E., M.ASCE, was chair of the ASCE Wildfire Resources Strategy Committee, helping to launch the Society’s multidisciplinary wildfire resilience initiative.
Committed to his volunteer service, Totman suffered a heart attack during his year as UESI president but returned to complete his term, continuing work on certifications, standards, strategic planning, and ISO initiatives.
With more than 40 years of experience in the water industry, Totman was the current asset/EAM manager at Golden State Water Company. Formerly, as manager of utilities for the City of Colorado Springs, Colorado, he oversaw water, wastewater, stormwater, and gas systems.
Totman had over 30 years’ experience in CAD and GIS business process optimization, project analytics, and infrastructure management. Yet he was also known to hold equal mastery of the soft skills, speaking thoughtfully and on point, with an ability to restore order to boardroom chaos.
On becoming UESI president, Totman had a reputation for strategic planning. He brought in leaders from civil engineering, wildfire science, utilities, emergency management, infrastructure operations, forensic engineering, insurance, ecology, and academia to address a growing need for unified wildfire resilience guidance, and a path toward wildfire resilient communities and infrastructure systems.
A need for cohesive, unified resources emerged that would address infrastructure performance, risk and exposure modeling, community and evacuation planning, utility system impacts, environmental considerations, and long term community recovery. “Wildfire resilience can no longer be approached in silos,” said Totman.
From that ASCE created the Wildfire Resources Strategy Committee, which held its first meeting last October. The WRSC will identify gaps, defining priorities, and outlining product pathways for future wildfire-related resources.
Totman also served as ASCE liaison to the ISO Asset Management Committee, responsible for their standard on asset management, ISO 55000. He was a senior fellow of the Asset Leadership Network.
