ASPE President Brian Hutton: Helping People Get to Where They Want to Go

Brian Hutton: I think my story kind of mimics that of many of our 7,600 plus members in ASPE. It's just something I ended up getting into. I don't know very many people that grow up and decide they want to be a plumbing engineer or do plumbing design, and wasn't one either. Nor could I have ever dreamed that this would be where I'd be, working with an organization like this.

I was born and raised in Oklahoma. I grew up on a farm, and for me engineering was second nature. We were always engineering things on the farm. I always knew I wanted to be an engineer. I'm one of five children, and three of us are engineers. I got into ASPE and plumbing design back in 2002.

After graduating from the University of Delaware, I worked for a chemical company, BF Goodrich at the time—it's known as Lubrizol today—and I had a great 27-year career there. Back in 2002 we had an incident where one of our folks was sick and they needed a replacement, and they called me. They asked me to help out one of our materials groups that did plumbing. 

So I went to the [ASPE] convention in Dallas-Fort Worth. I had a great time, I met several people, and I just started to form some bonds with people such as Kelvin Kennedy who was one of the board members back then at the local chapter. I just kind of fell in love with it. 

After that, my role at my old employer changed and I began to support a lot of plumbing in high rise commercial construction and things like that. That was my intro to ASPE—just one of those calls, “Hey, can you fill in there?” and it was something that I latched onto.

HPAC Engineering: So you come to this role not just as an engineer, but with a manufacturing perspective. So how do you foresee that driving your presidency?

Brian Hutton: I'm an engineer first when it comes to what I do for a profession. Working for a manufacturer like Lubrizol, I did a lot of the engineering support work that led me into some other things like fiberglass, which ended up leading to where I'm at today, at Composites USA, where we manufacture high purity water tanks and piping systems and that work with high purity and ultrapure systems. 

I'm also one of those people that really loves to work on personal development, kind of that continuous improvement process. If you've been around manufacturing, you may have heard about lean manufacturing. It comes down to being efficient, but also not doing things that don't create value; being able to seek opportunities that have value and eliminate those that don't.

When I think about ASPE and what we do, there's a couple of areas that we're looking forward to advancing over the next couple of years. I'm just really excited about the opportunity. We've got a lot of great members in our organization, great people, good companies that support us—so it’s an exciting time.

HPAC Engineering: The association’s members are facing a lot of challenges—new technologies, new regulations, workforce shortages, the demands of climate change—how do you see the ASPE’s role in helping members navigate these challenges?

Brian Hutton: I see ASPE playing a big part. One of the number one things we hear from our members is that they seek education. When it comes to ASPE and what we do, education is at the core of that. It's also about a mindset prioritizing mental health and a mindset of being receptive. What we hope to do here at ASPE—and what I strive to do with so many of the people that I interact with—is to try to help them be ready to receive.

There's a lot of information, there's also a lot of people out there that are experts in their field, and they can really shorten that retention time, help us when it comes to learning, understanding and being able to apply all this knowledge. And it's important for many of our designers to understand the materials that they use to understand the techniques of design.

We've changed so much in the plumbing industry around the low flow. There's less and less water that flows down from the sinks and urinals into the drainage systems and the water. Water is becoming more and more precious and there's a lot of drive to just get smarter. Our plumbing systems have to get smarter. We have to be able to adapt. So that continuous improvement in learning is a must.

HPAC Engineering: Your personal journey is different than the many of the folks at ASPE, as the first African-American to lead this 64-year-old organization. Can you describe that journey a bit within the industry?

Brian Hutton: As a minority there's a lot of places I've been where there's not a lot of people that look just like me in the room. There's a lot of these kind of places, and I've learned a long time ago, it's really not about the color. It's not about that as much as it is just about people and understanding people and being a good person and doing the things that are right—there's always a time to do what's right. 

For me, I don't think much about it. I realized the impact of it, I'm excited to represent my heritage, but I think with ASPE, it's just so much more than that. It's not really about where you're from as much as where we want to go.

Getting together with people that have a common goal and a common sense of education that pulls us all together, that common sense of purpose. We're an inclusive type of organization. We have people that have a lot of different journeys. There's an endless amount of wonderful stories of how people became designers or got into the profession. And there are a lot of successes that have come out of it, with people that have attained great achievements and, ultimately, really being able to live these fruitful lives.

Everybody defines success differently. Not everybody has the same goals or wants the same things out of life. But hopefully, with ASPE, we can help people get to where they want to go.

Much more of Rob McManamy’s interview with Brian Hutton is available at https://www.hpac.com/members/podcasts.