Fort Wayne Utilities Leader Receives PPI Award

By Trenchless Technology Staff June 18, 2026

Matthew Wirtz, P.E., is the recent recipient of the Certificate of Appreciation Award from the Municipal Advisory Board (MAB) of PPI’s Municipal & Industrial Division.

Wirtz is the deputy director and chief engineer at Fort Wayne City Utilities in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The award recognizes Wirtz’s contributions to his and other utility and water systems throughout North America by developing and sharing best practices for the use of resilient and sustainable high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe.

The award was presented by MAB co-chairs Luis Aguiar and Camille George Rubeiz. The MAB serves as an independent, non-commercial adviser to the Municipal & Industrial Division of the Plastics Pipe Institute.

Wirtz has been with the utility for more than 27 years and has been instrumental in the development of its program to update more than 2,700 miles of the city’s water, wastewater and sewer pipes using trenchless methods such as horizontal directional drilling and pipe bursting along with open cut, as detailed in the AWWA M55 Manual, and using stick pipe and pipe on reel.

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“Matthew and his team have volunteered their time and provided their expertise and knowledge to many of our committees and task groups for many years,” stated Rubeiz, P.E., F. ASCE, co-chair, HDPE Municipal Advisory Board (MAB), and vice president for the Plastics Pipe Institute’s (PPI) Municipal & Industrial Division. “Fort Wayne itself has developed and embarked on major programs to rehabilitate and install new potable and wastewater services using HDPE pipe as the material of choice due to its toughness, flexibility, corrosion resistance, and leak-free fused joints. Matthew and Fort Wayne City Utilities have openly shared this information and best practices with other utilities with the goal of helping communities with their water systems. We thank Matthew and his team for their consistent and valuable contributions.”

Fort Wayne City Utilities, which serves on the Municipal Advisory Board and on the AWWA 263 Committee, is the largest municipally-owned utility in Indiana, with some 106,000 services and providing water to more than 300,000 residents in three counties.

SOURCE – Plastics Pipe Institute

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