Water management

There was a time when Daniel DeLisi thought the South Florida Water Management District should be disbanded.

DeLisi, an engineer whose career has spanned the private sector, was speaking out of frustration with the water-management agency, which over time had become a bureaucratic swamp with its share of wasteful spending.

Today, DeLisi is chief of staff for the agency that has a $720 million budget and 1,530 employees. “The organization has transitioned in the last four years. What I hear from business people, from a regulatory standpoint, is we're infinitely easier to deal with and to work with than at any time in the past,” he says. “That's what I wanted to see four years ago.”