Powerful Life

At the helm of two massive projects

Megan Walker spent the last few years overseeing two high-profile projects underway at OPPD. As the project manager for the utility’s two new natural gas generating plants, Turtle Creek and Standing Bear Lake stations, she worked to keep construction on schedule at both sites.

Managing these projects means Walker played a huge role in bringing new power plants online to help ensure OPPD maintains a reliable and resilient system.

The plants are the utility’s largest project in years. Together, they will generate up to 600 megawatts of electricity to serve unprecedented growth in OPPD’s service territory. The plants can run on natural gas and light fuel oil. As balancing stations, they help OPPD provide reliable backup power.

Walker worked for four years to see the projects to this point. Construction is nearly complete and system testing is beginning soon. Earlier this month, she handed the reigns over to two people on her team as she takes a new role in the utility.

She credits the projects’ success to the work of many OPPD teams.

“These new generation plant projects are massive undertakings, requiring significant support from across the district and well-thought-out planning to be successful,” Walker said. “We have learned valuable lessons for our future projects. It’s been challenging, rewarding and exciting to be part of growing OPPD.”

Scott Eidem, director of Engineering Services at OPPD, said Walker’s work managing the gas plant projects has been integral to the projects’ success.

“Megan’s leadership and collaborative approach has made the difference on these complex and regionally significant projects,” said Eidem. 

Road to OPPD

Walker, an Omaha native, graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee with a biomedical engineering degree. She also earned her master’s in electrical engineering from Walden University and master’s in business administration from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Walker worked for a small biomedical company and then a telecommunications manufacturing company, both in Omaha, where she got her first taste of project management while overseeing product development and new projects.

The telecommunications job prepared her for future projects when she was hired by OPPD in 2012, she said.

She started at Fort Calhoun Station (FCS), where she worked in system engineering, specifically electrical instrumentation and controls. That work revolved around preparing the plant to return to service after it was shut down during substantial flooding in 2011.

The new gas plants are not the first large project for Walker. When FCS ceased operations in 2016, the nature of her role shifted to support decommissioning.

She was the project manager for the nuclear plant’s system abandonment project, which involved evaluating every operation system to determine which were needed, then preparing them to support building demolition. Though challenging, the decommissioning effort furthered her path toward project management.

Many FCS workers who stayed with OPPD broadened their skill sets and found roles that suited them in different areas of the utility, including herself, she said. Walker took advantage of the training options, including training specifically on project management.

A project manager’s work

Managing a project means leading a group of people to achieve a set goal, Walker said.

Typically, a project has a charter — a stated goal, along with the scope, she said.  There is also a time frame, a schedule, a budget, and key stakeholders and partners.

“And there is always a customer, the person or group for whom this project is being done,” Walker said.

The project manager navigates issues that invariably come up over the course of a project, and must know how to address those issues. Does the problem need escalating, or can we solve it with a few phone calls or a face-to-face discussion?

While building the two new generation plants, Walker worked with project managers from OPPD’s two equipment vendors, Wärtsilä and Siemens Energy, among others, and their  internal OPPD counterparts.

Gina Miller, a project manager in OPPD’s Technology & Security Business Unit, is one of those counterparts.

She became involved in the gas plant project early in the process. Her group connected the plants’ communication systems to OPPD’s systems.

Miller worked closely with Walker throughout the project and said she is amazed by her colleague.

“Megan is phenomenal,” Miller said. “The amount of information she took in and processed and shared with the teams was incredible. She is a great leader overall and especially on the gas plants project.”

Living OPPD’s core values

Walker’s new role is in Utility Operations as manager of Design Engineering, a new challenge she looks forward to tackling. But the role will still require her to use her project management skills, she said.

Walker’s organizational skills and ability to track key issues continue to support OPPD’s new production sites, even after her transition to her new role, said Matt Eibes, director of OPPD’s Project Management Office.

“Leading a project of this magnitude and complexity requires flexibility,” Eibes said. “Megan’s dedication to her role and her team is commendable, definitely a living example of OPPD’s core values.”

Work isn’t the only place Walker stays busy. She has 11-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. She enjoys a tap-dancing class with friends when she isn’t busy with her kids’ activities. And yes, the sound of tapping shoes is awesome, she said.

“I was involved in different dance classes when I was younger,” she said. “My daughter is in dance too, and we take the tap class together. About eight or nine of us ladies are in the class, and we have a lot of fun.”

Along with family, Walker’s passion is volunteering with the American Cancer Society. She has served on the local Relay for Life committee since 2001.

“It’s a great event that focuses on fighting back against all cancer types,” she said. “They recognize the cancer survivors that come to the events and have a ceremony honoring those that are either fighting cancer or have lost the battle. It seems everyone knows someone impacted by cancer and the Relay for Life helps bring people together for the cause.”