To celebrate International Women in Engineering Day yesterday (June 23), Thames Water highlighted the work of Dina Gillespie – who runs the company’s largest wastewater pumping station.
Dina is the catchment manager for North East London, which includes Bazalgette’s Victorian Abbey Mills Pumping Station, our largest wastewater pumping station.
Dina works at the ‘Cathedral of Sewage,’ where the legacy of Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s Victorian infrastructure meets the newly fully activated 25km long Tideway tunnel. This site is a key hub in London’s Victorian sewer network, alongside Thames Water’s extensive network of more than 109,000 km of underground pipes and over 5,000 pumping stations.
According to Dina, it is the blend of historic and modern-day engineering, combined with working alongside passionate colleagues, that inspires her every day and makes her feel proud to be part of a team that provides a critical service to Londoners.
In the past year the Lee Tunnel has been connected to the new Super Sewer at Abbey Mills, completing the London Tideway Tunnels network. Her site is the biggest contributor to the London Tideway Tunnels network in terms of volume of flows during wet weather.
Dina, who is immensely proud of the role she has, says:
“The Tideway team have done a fantastic job constructing the new tunnel. Altogether we can now prevent 1.6 million tonnes of water and sewage going into the Thames and it all goes through here at Abbey Mills before being treated at Beckton.”
As well as her everyday role throughout her career at Thames, Dina has played a huge part in the Women’s Network in Thames Water. “We launched the network in 2018 to support women at Thames and celebrate their successes. I love that it’s grown with the company’s support and become a double award-winning network.” In last year’s inaugural Women in Utility Awards, the network won ‘Women’s Network of the Year’ as well as ‘Best EDI Initiative’ for its Allyship Programme.
Through her involvement in the Women’s Network and her work within waste operations, Dina is a strong advocate for the importance of encouraging more women to pursue careers in operations. Dina says:
“Working in operations is so exciting and no single day is the same. I have stayed in the waste side of the business throughout, and I can’t see myself going anywhere else.
“Having a diverse workplace makes the quality of what we do so much richer. The different experiences and ways of thinking means we can solve problems quicker and also be more innovative. I love what I do, and I am really proud to be a woman in operations. If you enjoy solving problems and want to be part of an organisation that delivers a critical service to 16 million customers, then consider joining our business. There is a role for everyone!”
Thames Water said that Dina is a true example of how its people show up and continue to be passionate about what they do every day.
