NSW Legends of Water 2025 - Celebrating Icons of the Water Industry

Brie Jowett 
Manager Water & Wastewater Operations, Engineering Division
Tweed Shire Council

Brie is a Chartered Civil and Environmental Engineer with over 23 years of experience in infrastructure delivery, operational management, and emergency response in the water and wastewater sector. As Manager of Water and Wastewater at Tweed Shire Council, she leads a team of 120 staff, overseeing $1.7 billion in assets and a $51 million annual operational budget. Brie is passionate about delivering safe, reliable services for communities, driving cultural transformation, and fostering environments that attract and grow talent. She is the Deputy Chair of the NSW Water Directorate and an active contributor to industry leadership and mentoring initiatives, including a “Women in Water” traineeship program and STEM outreach in schools. Her career also includes international volunteer work, notably in Vanuatu, where she supported engineering capacity-building in local communities. We are proud to welcome Brie as a Legend of Water. 

Graham Attenborough

Graham Attenborough
Director, Infrastructure Services 
Eurobodalla Shire Council 

Graham brings decades of experience in the water industry, having worked across private utilities and government sectors in Australia, the UK, Europe, and South-East Asia. A Civil Engineer with an MBA, his expertise spans the full water cycle—from operations and asset management to project delivery and private sector investment. He is passionate about working with people, creating a positive organisational culture and ensuring communities and customers are at the heart of decision-making.

Career highlights include getting his hands dirty repairing water pipes and operating plants, negotiating and securing long-term investment and operational agreements, incident management and responding to drought-breaking rains and flood events, working for the NSW Valuer General, featuring in a TikTok video which went viral and working within a range of very different regulatory regimes and cultures.

Susan Petterson 

Professor Susan Petterson 
Director, Water & Health Pty Ltd

Originally trained as an Environmental Engineer, Susan has worked in the water industry since taking her first role with the NSW department of Public Works and Services, Manly Hydraulics Laboratory in 1997. Susan went on to undertake a PhD in Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment,  growing carrot and lettuce crops at UNSW with sewage effluent from Bondi.  

Since then, she has worked on numerous international urban water projects with water utility and research institute partners in Australia, Europe, UK, Africa, US, and Canada; and served on numerous international advisory boards including for the World Health Organization (Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality, Guidelines for Sanitation and Health, Guidelines for Reuse of Wastewater and Excreta in Agriculture, Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment for Water Safety Management, Guidelines for Potable Reuse of Wastewater), The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), and PATH( (www.path.org) supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Global Innovation Fund).   

In Australia, Susan has been a leader in policy development as a member of the NHMRC drinking water and recreational water quality guidelines committees, and advises the NSW Government on current water issues as a Member of the Independent Water Advisory Panel for the NSW Department of Climate Change Energy the Environment and Water.  Working between industry and academia, Susan is recognised as an international leader in risk assessment, water quality and public health.

Non-Member