3/23/2022
Joseph C. Geagea and Damon S. Williams are two of six recipients of 2022 Grainger College of Engineering Alumni Awards for Distinguished Service.
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CEE alumni Joseph C. Geagea (BS 81, MS 82) and Damon S. Williams (BS 78) are two of six recipients of 2022 Grainger College of Engineering Alumni Awards for Distinguished Service. This award is conferred upon exceptional alumni each year and recognizes recipients for professional distinction through outstanding leadership, contributions to the field of engineering, creativity and entrepreneurship; as well as service to society, the professional community, and to the department, college or university.
Geagea was recognized for “his outstanding professional achievements culminating in his role as one of the highest ranking executives in one of the largest energy companies in the world; for his successful efforts to facilitate impactful partnerships between Chevron and the University of Illinois; and for generous personal philanthropy to the department, college and university.”
Geagea joined Chevron in 1982 as a design engineer and is now Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor to Chevron’s Chairman and CEO, a position he assumed in August 2021.
Previously, Geagea was executive vice president of Technology, Projects and Services since 2015. In this role, he was responsible for energy technology; delivery of capital projects; procurement; information technology and digital; asset performance and process safety; health, safety, and environment; environmental management; business and real estate services; and talent selection in support of Chevron’s upstream, downstream and midstream businesses. Prior to that, he was senior vice president of Technology, Projects and Services.
Geagea served as a corporate vice president and president of Chevron Gas and Midstream from 2012 until 2014, responsible for commercializing Chevron’s natural gas resources and overseeing the company’s shipping, pipeline, and power operations as well as supply and trading operations. His prior positions at Chevron include managing director of Chevron Asia South Ltd., where he was responsible for Chevron’s upstream activities in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam; vice president of Upstream Capability, where he worked to improve the delivery of support services to Chevron’s global upstream operations; vice president of Chevron International Exploration and Production Company; president of Fuel and Marine Marketing; and president of downstream operations in East Africa, the Middle East and Pakistan.
Geagea is an active supporter of diversity and inclusion and prioritizes mentoring others and supporting early-career employees. He served as Executive Management Sponsor for Chevron’s Asian Employee Network and served on the board of directors of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Society of Petroleum Engineers and has served as Executive Management Sponsor for Chevron’s Summer Intern Program (2020). He previously served as President of the American Chamber of Thailand and was a trustee on the board of the San Francisco Ballet Association. He was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus by the Grainger Engineering’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Alumni Association in 2016.
Williams was recognized for “pioneering entrepreneurship and leadership in the water industry, including the areas of municipal drinking water, wastewater and recycled water; for serving as a visionary trailblazer and inspirational role model for African Americans in environmental engineering; and for financial support, mentorship and career assistance to underrepresented minority students in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.”
Williams is the Managing Engineer of DSW Water Strategies, LLC, a firm specializing in providing high level consulting services to municipalities, Federal, state and local agencies, utility districts, water districts, private water companies, universities, municipal and industrial water and wastewater treatment operators and other consultants in the water industry.
He is the former founder and Chief Executive of Damon S. Williams Associates, LLC, a firm which, for 23 years, specialized in planning, design, research, construction administration, and start-up and commissioning of major water resource recovery and water treatment facilities in the Western United States.
In his four-decade career, Williams has played a key role in water infrastructure planning, design and development for numerous major municipalities across the country. He has performed major projects, many of them award-winning, for predominant water agencies in Arizona, California, Texas, Oregon and Nevada. Williams has played a key role in addressing water scarcity and sustainability issues throughout the arid Western United States. He contributed significantly to the implementation of water reuse and water recycling in numerous projects, including the innovative and award-winning Tres Rios Environmental Restoration Project-Flow Regulating Wetlands, for the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the City of Phoenix. He has helped design more than a dozen recycled water treatment facility projects during his career, most involving biological nutrient removal (for Nitrogen and Phosphorus), and some involving Indirect Potable Reuse (IPR).
Williams is a Registered Professional Engineer in seven states, as well as a licensed water and wastewater treatment plant operator in two states. He is a Board-Certified Environmental Engineer (BCEE) of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists and is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is a Life Member of AWWA and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He has authored or co-authored numerous technical papers and he has presented at numerous state and national industry conferences.
Williams established the Damon S. Williams Scholarship in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to provide scholarships to promising minority graduate students who are studying environmental engineering. He was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus by Grainger Engineering’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Alumni Association in 2004.
See all the 2022 winners at grainger.illinois.edu/alumni/distinguished/2022. The 2022 class of Alumni Award for Distinguished Service Recipients will be guests for a virtual chat on Friday, April 8 from 3:00-4:00 p.m. CT. Learn more about the event and register to attend at grainger.illinois.edu/news/webinars/distinguished-alumni-chat2022.