Pat Burke
Secretary-General, IDA
'The queen of the IDA' has helped guide that organisation and its predecessors for nearly 30 years.
Pat Burke – Pat Burke
Pat was working in the aerospace industry when her employers diversified into water. Initial enquiries into the state of play in the desalination industry led rapidly to her joining the board of the then National Water Supply Improvement Association.
She served on the US Water Resources Export Council, led a number of US Department of Commerce missions and on the successive boards of the NWSIA and the IDA once that body was formed out of the NWSIA and the International Desalination and Environment Association. She is a representative to the UN's NGOs.
In 1973, I was working for a big aerospace company, but they were diversifying into water.
I went down to see what was going on in desalination, and came back on the board of what became the IDA; so you could pretty much say I'm the mother of the IDA.
It wasn't a conscious decision that this was going to be my life, I just sort of fell into it, like a lot of people do.
I went down to see what was going on in desalination, and came back on the board of what became the IDA; so you could pretty much say I'm the mother of the IDA.
It wasn't a conscious decision that this was going to be my life, I just sort of fell into it, like a lot of people do.