The Bureau of Reclamation recently announced that Blaise Prebo is Reclamation’s Project Manager of the Year. Prebo is a project manager working in the Columbia-Pacific Northwest Region in Grand Coulee, Wash.
The award, new this year, reinforces the importance of project management for Reclamation’s mission of delivering water and electricity to the western U.S.
Prebo is being honored for his management of hydropower projects at the 6,809-MW Grand Coulee Powerplant in Washington and 428-MW Hungry Horse Powerplant in Montana. He manages the supervisory control and data acquisition projects for the facilities, which provide supervisory control and monitoring of power generation and irrigation water delivery to more than 670,000 acres in the Columbia Basin Project.
“We congratulate Blaise Prebo on this significant recognition of his professional excellence,” said Deputy Commissioner for Operations David Palumbo. “Blaise’s work provides critical data that enhances the effectiveness of Reclamation’s operations and represents the sound project management approach that Reclamation is committed to providing our customers in the Pacific Northwest.”
Prebo began his career with Reclamation at the Grand Coulee Power Office Construction Office in 2017 and is duty stationed in Grand Coulee. He is assigned highly complex projects supporting the largest powerplant in the U.S. He is known by colleagues as a strong leader and shares time-proven project management skills with his team, Reclamation said.
The Reclamation award coincided with International Project Management Day on Nov. 5, a designated occasion to encourage project-based organizations to demonstrate appreciation for the achievements of project managers and their teams.
Reclamation promotes project management, which can significantly improve performance by applying project management knowledge, processes, skills, tools and techniques. This is increasingly accepted across all industries. Reclamation has a project management framework that integrates existing government-wide and U.S. Department of the Interior project management requirements and clarifies project management practices for those projects for which no specific mandates apply.
Reclamation is a federal agency under Interior and is the largest wholesale water supplier and second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the U.S.
