Retiring Employees

Two long time Employees have retired from SWUA. General manager Gary Aitken and water assessor Caren Kirk retired this year. Both employees will be honored at the annual meeting this Saturday.

Gary Aitken
Gary Aitken was employed with Strawberry Water Users Association from July 1977 to June 2011.Gary started as an accountant and was appointed General Manager in May 1989. Gary also worked closely with Strawberry Electric Service District and Southern Utah Valley Power Systems.The rebuilding of the Spanish Fork Power Plant was done in 1983 and the Spanish Fork Diversion Dam in 1986. There were many changes during the years that Gary was employed at SWUA. Gary was involved with the transfer of rights in Strawberry Valley from SWUA to the federal government. Gary also worked on negotiations between SWUA and Central Utah Water Conservation District on the 1991 contract Gary pursued SWUA’s return flow rights and the Diamond Fork Power Privilege.During Gary’s time at SWUA he worked closely with the canal companies in the Strawberry Valley Project (SVP). There were 5.5 million of rehabilitation funds expended under his management that went to the betterment of the individual canal company’s and the SVP as a whole. The water saved by these projects is large.Gary worked with the board for many years reinvesting the funds from Strawberry Valley and then using the growth of those funds to allocate to the canal companies to be used for rehabilitation on canals.

Caren Kirk
Caren Kirk was employed with Strawberry Water Users Association (SWUA) from May 1979 to July 2011.In Caren’s early years at SWUA she did secretarial duties. Caren is one of those individuals that all employers and managers hope, for she is very diligent in completing her work. Caren has always been very well liked by the shareholders, board members, canal companies and employees she is a very conscience and caring person. In the beginning when the water records were first given to Caren it was a very extensive and exhausting process to complete requests. As time went on new programs and procedures were given to Caren to hopefully streamline this process. That was not always the case and Caren was the person that had to learn all of these new things and help determine if they were going to be successful. Caren always worked with a good attitude and completed her tasks timely with diligence and accuracy.