A Water Account Manager Day for Young Professional Network

[JayHoffman]

Day in the Life of a Water Account Manager — Young Professional Network Edition

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work at the intersection of technology, environmental stewardship, and community impact, then step into the shoes of a Water Account Manager for a day.

Water touches every aspect of life — from the tap in your kitchen to the rivers that power cities. As a Water Account Manager, your mission is to help utilities, municipalities, and organizations use GIS technology to better manage this precious resource.

Let’s walk through a typical day.

☀️— Morning Kickoff

The day starts with coffee (of course) and a quick scan of emails and project updates. You check in on:

• Client messages from water utilities looking for updates on GIS projects.
• Prospecting of Potential Opportunities From new Logo’s to expanding existing GIS users.
• Internal team updates from solution engineers, project managers, and technical specialists.
• Industry news — staying informed on water policy changes, conservation initiatives, and technology trends is key.

Pro tip for YPN members: Start your day with a clear priority list. Water projects often involve multiple stakeholders, and being organized is your superpower.

:calendar:— Strategic Partner Meeting

You hop on a video call with a regional water utility. They’re facing challenges with leak detection and asset management.
Your role?

• Listen to their operational pain points.
• Share success stories from other utilities.
• Recommend GIS-driven solutions, like real-time monitoring dashboards or mobile field data collection apps.

It’s part consultant, part problem-solver, and part relationship-builder.

🛠️— Collaboration with the Technical Team

You meet with solution engineers to review a proposal for a smart water network project. This could involve:

• Mapping underground assets.
• Integrating IoT sensor data with GIS.
• Building analytics tools to predict maintenance needs.

Working closely with technical experts ensures your solutions are feasible, scalable, and impactful.

🌱— Lunch & Learning

Many Water Account Managers use lunch breaks to connect with peers or attend YPN webinars.
Today’s session: CAlGIS Conference January 20-23rd, 2026  where young professional of Geospatial Community can learn from Workshops, Networking and Solutions Showcase.

🗺️— On-Site Visit

Some days involve field visits to water treatment plants or utility offices.
You might:

• Walk through their operations.
• See GIS in action on field tablets.
• Discuss how data collection is improving decision-making.

These visits help you build trust and see challenges firsthand.

:bar_chart:— Proposal Development

Back at your desk, you work on a proposal for a city looking to modernize its storm water management system.
You outline:

• The GIS tools they’ll use.
• The training plan for their staff.
• A timeline for implementation. This is where storytelling meets technical knowledge — showing how technology will make a measurable difference.

:sunset: — Wrapping Up

You close the day by updating your CRM, sending follow-up emails, and jotting down tomorrow’s priorities.
It’s a mix of relationship management, strategic planning, and continuous learning — and every day is different.

💡 Why YPN Members Should Care

A career as a Water Account Manager is perfect if you:

• Love solving real-world problems.
• Enjoy building relationships with diverse stakeholders.
• Want to make a tangible impact on communities and the environment.

With GIS and innovative partners, you’ll be part of shaping a more sustainable water future.

Your Next Step:

If this sounds like your kind of challenge, start exploring water industry trends, connect with YPN peers already in the field, and look for opportunities to shadow or collaborate on GIS water projects.

If you have additional questions or want to shadow one of my engagements let me know.

[MohammadZavedAnwarchowdhury]

(1) leak detection and asset management.

(2)  Integrating SCADA and IoT sensor data with GIS.

Need training offer of two topics and details description of training venus and schedule. 

[ChristyPerez]

I really enjoyed reading this blog! It was very insightful. What kind of projects or responsibilities are most common for someone just entering this field?

[JayHoffman]

Leak Detection and Asset Management. 

Leak Detection: You can look at Drone2MAP if you want to fly a Drone to inspect Water Towers or over a large plot of land to see if any of the patches of grass are green is a good sign of some type of Leak Detection. No specific classes on Leak Detection. There is a training class on ArcGIS Drone2MAP Essentials

Asset Management, with Leak detection, you would look to one of our water partners like Novotx to do Locates and Work Orders. This helps isolates the are and then what valves to turn off once Field Tech get to the effected area. On a lighter side there used to an App named Workforce and now it is called Tasks which is a part of Field Maps for a very light weight work order process. For more traditional Asset Management then you would look at a Partner I mentioned above.

In order to integrate SCADA and Iot Sensor or other types of Live Streaming Data into GIS, you need ArcGIS Enterprise and some connectors to make it work in the back end.  

[JayHoffman]

Hello Christy,

What I have found is folks just entering the Water Sector end up doing field data collection learning from the outside with ArcGIS Online. It gives you a good sense of what those Field Techs are doing. Then once you get or feet "Wet" then if you want to put your GIS skills to work, then I would look at wanting to do some Data Management work with the ArcGIS Solutions Water Distribution Management Schema

This is a spread sheet with many data columns to enter your Distribution Network Assets etc.. Once this is completed then you can publish to ArcGIS Online and get the pretty looking map of showing the main distribution line in the street and to curb stop then connected to water meter for delivery of water. 

Without accurate data management, it is difficult to the fun stuff in GIS. This could be a full-time job in itself since some utilities may have there data siloed in many different systems. It would be a hero moment. 🙂