The Advisory Council members are appointed by the Board of Trustees to provide counsel and advice to the Board as may be requested and shall serve at the pleasure of the Board (Bylaws, Article V.C.). There is no limit to the length of service for the members of the Advisory Council. However, appointments are reevaluated annually. Most Advisory Council members serve on one or more of the various AWBD Committees and contribute professional, non-marketing information to AWBD members and the public. The current Advisory Council is made up of 16 members.
INFRAMARK, LLC
Forvis Mazars, LLP
Quiddity Engineering, LLC
Masterson Advisors LLC
Assessments of the Southwest, Inc.
Polley Garza PLLC
BGE, Inc.
Pape-Dawson Engineers, Inc.
AWBD Advisory Council Emeritus Members are long time members of the organization—in some cases founding members—who have now retired. We thank them for their lasting contributions of time and effort to AWBD and its mission. We are honored to list them here.
Allen Boone Humphries Robinson LLP
Radcliffe Bobbitt Adams Polley PLLC
Costello, Inc
IDS Engineering Group
© 2024 Association of Water Board Directors - Texas
Municipal District Services, LLC
Calvin C. Browne, Jr., Senior Client Manager with Municipal District Services, LLC, has been in the operations industry since 1992. He started his career as a Facility Operator and has worked in all areas of operations including regulatory compliance, facility operations, preventive maintenance, business development and executive management. He is a certified “B” operator in the state of Texas.
Inframark, LLC
Todd Burrer is President of Utility Districts (UDs) for Inframark. He has over 20 years of management experience in the area of operations, customer service, and billing within the water and wastewater industry. His responsibilities have included overall financial, operational, and compliance for the Texas utility district business.
At Inframark, he is the leader of the senior level management team charged with managing day-to-day operations for the Texas MUD Region with over 400 employees, 180 utility districts, and 128 water and wastewater facilities that serve over 400,000 Texans.
A fifth-generation Houstonian, he earned his BME from Texas Christian University and has completed numerous courses in water and wastewater operations, utility management, and other related areas.
Actively involved in the Association of Water Board Directors, he currently serves as a member of the Program and Legislative committees as well as the Advisory Council. He served as Chairman of the Vendor Relations Committee from 1999 to 2020 and as a trustee for six consecutive years. He currently chairs the Operations and Environment Committee.
He is Chairman of the Greens Bayou Coalition and serves on the Board of Directors for the West Houston Association and the Cy-Fair Educational Foundation. Previous community positions include service to the Board of Directors of the Cy-Fair Volunteer Fire Department, the Board of Directors of Harris County MUD No. 489, and Harris County MUD No. 374.
In 2020, Todd was asked to serve as a regional representative for San Jacinto County on the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) regional flood planning groups. This planning group was tasked with developing Texas’ first regional flood plans, culminating in the state’s first-ever state flood plan.
TNG Utility Corporation
Bill Callegari is a Professional Engineer with a BS from LSU and MS from Univ of Houston. He has been a Licensed Professional Engineer for 50 years, and also holds “Double A” Certifications in water and wastewater operations. In 1974 Mr. Callegari founded AM-TEX Corporation, which provided operations and management services to utility districts and municipalities. As President and CEO, he pioneered AM-TEX’s growth as a major force in the state and national water industry. He currently owns WC Engineers, which provides engineering consulting services for water districts, cities, & private entities. Over his career he was involved in the design, development, and operation of numerous major residential and commercial projects. He participated in engineering, operations & management for hundreds of utility districts and cities in Florida, Colorado, New England, and major Texas projects, including The Woodlands, Kingwood, Cinco Ranch, Copperfield, Fairfield, Atascocita, Clear Lake City and many others. After selling AM-TEX in the 1990’s, he served as President of major national and international water companies. During his professional career Mr. Callegari founded the Texas Association of Water Board Directors in 1975, and served in leadership positions on several professional and civic committees. Mr. Callegari served as a member of the Katy ISD Board of Trustees in the 1980’s. He was elected to the Texas Legislature in 2000, representing Katy and Cypress in West Harris County for fourteen years until his retirement in 2015. State Representative Callegari was regarded by many as the State Legislature’s leading water expert.
Mr. Callegari is a member of both the LSU and the University of Houston College of Engineering Halls of Distinction as well as the LSU Alumni Hall of Distinction and the LSU Alumni Center Wall of Honor. His legacy at LSU is recognized by the William A. Callegari Environmental Center on the LSU campus named in his honor. Callegari is proud to have been named as a TSPE Distinguished Engineer and a “Fellow” by the Texas Engineering Foundation. He was also honored by TSPE with the “George Washington Citizen Engineer Award”. Mr. Callegari was honored as the First Board Emeritus by the Katy Area Economic Development Council Board of Governors in 2019.
Schwartz, Page & Harding, L.L.P.
Since 1998, Howard Cohen has focused his legal practice on public finance, local government law districts, representing municipal utility, levee improvement and other types of special districts in the Houston metropolitan area. Serving as both general and bond counsel, Howard has represented districts before various state and local government agencies, including the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Public Finance Division of the State Attorney General’s Office, Brazoria County, Fort Bend County, Harris County and Montgomery County, as well as the cities of Houston, Pearland, Sugar Land and Richmond. Howard is registered with the Texas Ethics Commission as a lobbyist and is substantially involved in state legislative and rulemaking matters with the Texas Legislature and state agencies that regulate special districts, including the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Howard also represents landowners, developers, lenders and other private entities in a broad range of legal and legislative issues related to special districts, municipalities and other local governments and contracts with entities for the construction and financing of public infrastructure.
Howard has substantial experience in general real estate matters and, since 1998, has been certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in Commercial Real Estate Law. Howard also serves as a member of the Legislative Committee of and the Advisory Council to the Texas Association of Water Board Directors. Prior to joining Schwartz, Page & Harding, L.L.P. in 1998, Howard practiced commercial real estate law in Houston with Hoover Slovacek, LLP and with Fouts & Moore, LLP.
A native Houstonian, Howard is licensed to practice in all Texas state courts and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Forvis Mazars, LLP
Sherri W. Greenwood, CPA, is an assurance partner with Forvis Mazars, LLP. She is a member of the firm’s Nonprofit, Education and Public Sector Group and provides services, including financial statement audits and agreed-upon procedures engagements (developer reimbursement reports) for approximately 200 municipal utility districts. She has more than 34 years of experience providing audit and consulting services for municipal utility districts, employee benefit plans and commercial entities.
Sherri is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants. She also serves on the Advisory Council for The Association of Water Board Directors – Texas and is a member of its Nominating Committee.
Sherri is a 1987 graduate of Texas A&M University, College Station, with a B.B.A. degree in management, and a 1989 graduate of The University of Texas at Dallas, with an M.B.A. degree in management and an M.S. degree in accounting.
Jones-Heroy & Associates, Inc
Ken Heroy received a Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering from Louisiana Tech University in 1989. After spending two years as a water engineer in the Peace Corps, he began his career in Texas in 1992 with the Texas Water Commission (now TCEQ) Creations and Bond Review Team. Mr. Heroy reviewed district creations and bond applications from 1992 through 1995 while at the TCEQ. In January of 1996, Mr. Heroy went to work for the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). At the TWDB, Mr. Heroy worked in the Office of Project Finance and Construction Assistance reviewing applications from cities and water districts for loans under the State Revolving Fund (SRF) program and the Economically Distressed Areas Program (EDAP).
In September of 1998 Mr. Heroy left state government for the private sector. Mr. Heroy spent 8 years in engineering consulting, planning and designing master planned communities in central Texas before joining Jones – Heroy & Associates, Inc in 2007.
Four & One Landscape Architecture
Tara Klein, PLA, ASLA is a principal with Four and One Landscape Architecture. There she works daily with Municipal Boards and Developers on parks and recreation spaces throughout Texas. If you ask her what is her favorite part of the job: it is the educating people on what landscape architecture is, encompasses, and how the design can have a lasting effect on the world we live in. Ms. Klein has been actively involved as the committee chair for the AWBD Parks Committee since 2016. Currently she is the board president of HCID #13.
Allen Boone Humphries Robinson LLP
Trey’s principal area of practice relates to public finance, development, local government regulation, and state legislative matters. He regularly represents special districts whose chief purpose is providing water, sewer, drainage, roads, and parks. Trey also represents developers in connection with economic development agreements, tax increment reinvestment zones, local government corporations, municipal management districts, and other financing mechanisms used to facilitate development and financing of public works and infrastructure. He serves as general counsel and bond counsel to special districts. Trey works with developers to structure development agreements with cities and other local government entities for public participation in commercial, residential, and mixed-use developments.
Quiddity Engineering, LLC
Joshua P. Lee, P.E. is a Vice-President at Quiddity Engineering, LLC, leading the Water District Services and Water/Wastewater Facilities and Treatment Divisions. He is passionate about the long-term success of Water Districts in the State of Texas. His career has focused on representing numerous water districts in the Houston-Metro area and helping them build and maintain quality infrastructure to enhance and sustain the communities they serve. Joshua has worked with numerous water districts as they have experienced significant growth. He provides guidance on how to best incorporate this growth while maintaining the existing infrastructure and level of service the constituents expect. He is focused on providing a superior level of service to his clients. He also serves on AWBD’s Local Government/Regulatory Affairs Committee.
Masterson Advisors LLC
Greg Lentz is a Director and equity owner with Masterson Advisors LLC and specializes in providing municipal advisory services to special district clients in Texas including municipal utility districts, water control and improvement districts, fresh water supply districts, levee improvement districts, management districts and tax increment districts
He received his BS in Civil Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 1996 and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Houston in 2007.
After graduation in 1996, Greg started his career with an environmental and geotechnical engineering consulting firm in Columbia, South Carolina before relocating to Houston in April 2001 to work with LAN as the program manager for the City of Houston’s Surface Water Transmission Program. In 2004, he took a project manager position with R.G. Miller Engineers working as a district engineer for special districts. In June 2008, Greg shifted his career path and accepted a Vice President position with First Southwest Company (now Hilltop Securities through an acquisition in 2016). In Spring 2018, Greg and his fellow owners started their own firm, Masterson Advisors LLC, to better serve their clients with the unwavering principles of integrity, humility, collaboration and excellence, and with a broad background of experience, expertise and skills in the municipal finance industry.
Assessments of the Southwest
David Patterson is originally from Jacksonville, Texas, a small town located in East Texas. He has his Associate Degree in Surveying and received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering Technology from the University of Texas at Tyler. He received his start in the property tax industry in 2008 after working in the plastics industry as a superintendent for several years. He received his Registered Texas Assessor/Collector (R.T.A.) designation in 2012 and worked as a Deputy Tax Assessor/Collector until 2018 when he became the owner of Assessments of the Southwest, Inc. (ASW). Currently ASW deals with eight different appraisal districts and are the tax assessor/collector for approximately 180 different taxing jurisdictions.
Municipal Accounts & Consulting, L.P.
Ms. Autumn Phillips currently serves as the Industry Council representative for Finance & Economy on the AWBD Advisory Board. She is also an active member on the Programs and Office Relations Committees and has been serving on a master MUD board in Travis County since 2012. In addition, Ms. Phillips has previously served as the AWBD Executive Vice President and Treasurer on the Board of Trustees from 2014-2020 and served on her own MUD Board while she was a resident of Brazoria County.
As the Director of Professional Services for Municipal Accounts & Consulting, Ms. Phillips serves as the Subject Matter Expert in various areas. She leads the design, development & implementation of MAC’s Software Development, Internal Controls and Internal Training Programs. With an impressive 18 years of special purpose district experience, Ms. Phillips is thoroughly knowledgeable with every aspect involved in the financial process of governmental bookkeeping, bond procedures and financial budgeting for the various types of governmental entities.
Polley Garza PLLC
Mr. Polley has been with the firm since June 2007 and became a Member in 2014. Mr. Polley currently serves as the Managing Member of the firm. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Polley practiced construction litigation with a boutique Houston firm. Currently, Mr. Polley serves as general counsel, bond counsel and special counsel to various types of special districts and water utilities including municipal utility districts, special utility districts, water supply corporations and private utilities. Mr. Polley’s responsibilities also relate to the creation, financing, development, and operation of those entities. In addition, Mr. Polley has overseen the firm’s monitoring of the Texas Legislature and preparation of the firm’s Legislative Update memorandum for each legislative session since 2009.
BGE, Inc.
With 25 years of civil engineering experience, Keli Schroeder, PE is a Principal at BGE, Inc. and serves as Director of District Services. In this role, she provides oversight, guidance, and support for the services her team provides to developing and mature MUDs throughout their life cycle. She has served as District Engineer for over a dozen MUDs over the course of her career. She is known for her expertise in public financing through bond applications approved through TCEQ. She approaches each district with the same level of care and detail as if it were her own neighborhood.
Keli is currently a member of the Advisory Council. She is also active on the Conferences and Recognition committees. In addition to AWBD, she is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce.
A licensed engineer in the state of Texas, Keli received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University. She was a participant in Fort Bend Leadership’s Class of 2003 and received BGE’s Dick Gay Core Values Award in 2014.
Pape-Dawson Engineers, Inc.
As COO, DeKécha is responsible for the performance of all Costello divisions and human resources. DeKécha thrives on driving excellence in execution and equipping team members to reach their full potential. DeKécha has over 23 years of experience focused on land development and municipal utility districts, and she likes training others by sharing her “lessons learned” with Costello’s staff. Outside of the office, DeKécha enjoys spending time with friends and family, traveling to new places, shopping for the best deals, and serving in a Christian outreach program for college students.
Fort Bend Co MUD 146
Richard joined the Advisory Council in 2020 after decades of membership in AWBD. He currently serves as the president of Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District No. 146.
Richard has over fifty years of experience in civil and municipal engineering. Beginning his career in Corpus Christi as an engineering and survey technician, he served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before returning to civilian life to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.
Richard moved to Fort Bend County in 1983 to become Sugar Land’s City Engineer. His direct involvement with MUDs and LIDs began in Sugar Land assisting in development and ultimately in the annexation of MUDs within the City’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. He has continued his work with special districts through his professional career providing consulting services assisting various cities in the region, as a design project engineer on public and private sector projects, as Fort Bend County Engineer (retired), and in his service on the board of directors for Pecan Grove MUD and FB146. His career continues on a part-time basis as the Senior Engineer at Kaluza, Inc.
Allen Boone Humphries Robinson LLP
Mr. Allen is the founder of the law firm Allen Boone Humphries Robinson LLP and a very influential figure in the Texas water district industry.
Mr. Allen and a Vinson & Elkins colleague came up with the concept for municipal utility districts, and much of Houston’s modern real estate development boom can be traced to the advent of MUDs.
Prior to founding AWBD, Mr. Allen spent 28 years at Vinson & Elkins and his practice throughout his career there and with ABHR has consisted of representing special districts providing infrastructure for new development; working with both public and private entities on a wide range of issues related to construction, financing, and operation of public infrastructure, primarily water, sewage and drainage; and representing private entities contracting with public bodies. He has served as both general counsel and bond counsel in public entity representation.
Mr. Allen has represented several major companies in franchising, development, contractual and regulatory matters with the City of Houston.
He has been the principal author and lobbyist of a number of major laws affecting the water industry has been active in numerous political campaigns.
Mr. Allen was instrumental in creating the 1985 legislation that reorganized the Texas Department of Water Resources into the Water Development Board and the Texas Water Commission. Mr. Allen also played a vital role in the creation and longevity of AWBD.
In response to a question about where he sees his place in Houston’s history, Mr. Allen simply says, “My practice is about building better communities for people to live in.”
Mr. Allen is a proud Baylor Bear, getting both his B.A. and law degree from the university.
Ms. Bobbitt’s practice has been concentrated in the areas of public law/public finance. Prior to joining RBAP, Ms. Bobbitt was a partner at a large Houston law firm, where she was a member of that firm’s Public Law Section. She has worked with and been associated with utility districts since 1978, and her practice has included representation of municipal utility districts, regional water authorities, water supply corporations and other governmental entities as general counsel and bond counsel in Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Montgomery, Sabine, Travis and Waller Counties. Ms. Bobbitt also currently serves as general counsel to the North Harris County Regional Water Authority and to the Association of Water Board Directors – Texas(the “AWBD”). Her experience includes work with both public and private entities on a wide range of issues, including construction, financing and operation of public facilities, annexation and de-annexation matters, creation and dissolution of districts, interlocal agreements, standby fee applications and controversies, water law issues, election law matters, legislation/lobbying matters and other utility district-related issues. She has represented entities before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Texas Water Development Board, the City of Houston, the City of Austin and the City of Missouri City. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the AWBD and is a recipient of the its “Visions Award”. Ms. Bobbitt also serves as a member of the Program and Legislative Committees of the AWBD.
Costello, Inc.
David is currently serving as a member of the AWBD Advisory Council and has served since 1996. He is also serving his third term as the Advisory Council Representative (spokesperson) as the Advisory Council member of the Board of Trustees. David has also served on or as chairman / co-chairman of the Conferences Subcommittee (formerly Program Committee) since 2006. He has also served on the Local Government Subcommittee, Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee, and Office Relations Subcommittee.
David graduated in 1975 with a Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University. He has served as a civil engineering consultant for several firms for over 46 years and has worked for his current employer, Costello, Inc., since 2003. During his engineering career, David has also served on two different MUD Boards – Fort Bend County MUD 108 and Baybrook MUD No. 1. During His professional career as a civil engineering consultant, he has experience with a multitude of land development and municipal projects. Responsibilities have included all aspects of planning, design, and construction supervision of utilities, paving, drainage, and detention for residential communities and MUDs in the southeast Texas region.
IDS Engineering Group
Teague’s lifelong interests in biological systems led him to environmental science and then civil engineering specializing in water supply and wastewater treatment systems. Most of his 35 year career has involved the development, financing, and operations of municipal utility districts, and he has served as District Engineer to numerous water districts throughout Texas in that time. Within IDS, Teague uses his expertise to help identify and resolve critical regulatory approval issues, and help evaluate the initial capital costs versus life cycle costs of client and engineer design decisions. He is skilled in working with developers, elected officials, attorneys, operators, and regulatory agencies to create sustainable places to live and work. Teague is an active member of industry organizations which encourage best practices and monitor new legislation and regulations to provide constructive comments to government agencies and elected officials. He has served on stakeholder committees for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) involving MUD reimbursement rules, wastewater design criteria, and bacteria TMDLs.