Filipina makes waves in San Francisco water system upgrade

San Francisco Bay Tunnel Project Manager Johanna Ilano Wong inspecting new pipelines.

SAN FRANCISCO — Hard work, determination and a passion to help aspiring young engineers has propelled a Filipina to the top of the “man’s world” of engineering and in an adopted land at that.

To this day, not many in San Francisco, much less the Bay Area, know that a Caviteña has been a major player in the Bay Tunnel Project brought into service October 15 — Project Manager Johanna Ilano Wong, a University of the Philippines Diliman BS in engineering cum laude.

The first water channel to be built under the San Francisco Bay, the Bay Tunnel extends five miles under San Francisco Bay at depths of up to 100 feet. It was constructed using a specialized Earth Pressure Balance Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) driven through highly variable geologic conditions, from soft soils to hard rock under significant groundwater pressure.

The tunnel replaces an aging deteriorated pipeline infrastructure built in the 1920s and 1930s that traverses the Bay on now deteriorated wooden trestles built on environmentally sensitive wetlands.

The Bay Tunnel also forms a lifeline within the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System delivering drinking water from Hetchy Hetchy, San Antonio and Calaveras Reservoirs to customers on the Peninsula and in San Francisco. It links the existing segments of Bay Division Pipelines (BDPL) in the East Bay with those on the Peninsula, bypassing environmentally sensitive wetlands.

Built over 4 years

In construction for over four years, the project at the onset was viewed by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) as one of the riskiest of the 83 projects within the Water System Improvement Program (WSIP).

Ilano Wong being interviewed in her office. PHOTO BY JUN NUCUM

But a spunky young lady engineer, Johanna Ilano Wong, rose to the occasion, took up the challenge and not just delivered, but also did much more than expected.

The project, now operational, will be fully completed ahead of schedule this year and at $25 million under the original budget, costing only $288M of the original estimate of $313M,” beamed Ilano Wong who has helmed the project from the initial planning phase through to its final completion.

As part of her continuing climb to higher positions with more responsibilities Ilano Wong is currently serving as the Bay Division Regional Project Manager (RPM) of the Water System Improvement Program for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, overseeing all the Bay Division Projects worth around $800 million.

This includes the Bay Tunnel where she is concurrently the direct Project Manager, and the Seismic Upgrade of Bay Division Pipelines (BDPL) 3&4 at Hayward Fault, among others.

UP engineering grad

No stranger to achievements, Ilano Wong was a consistent honor student in the Philippines, including finishing cum laude as a major in civil engineering at UP, relishing physics and math.

With job offers coming her way, she had no problem landing her first, job at a water resource engineering firm that was planning to put up a dam. But she could only stay with the company for only a few months as her family had to move to the U.S. Her father, Manolito, a lawyer and deputy general manager of the Philippine Tourism Authority then, was offered a position as a full-time pastor in Los Angeles.

Workers inside part of the new Bay Tunnel.

“We moved here to the U.S. because we considered the very limited advancement opportunities in the Philippines,” Ilano Wong recalled. “We first had a garage we called home before eventually moving to a house that practically had the whole family paying a mortgage on.”

Johanna recounted further: “It certainly was a culture shock, but the more challenging part was to find a job on something I prepared hard myself and had companies rushing to me for. I realized that I may have graduated with honors from the top engineering school in the Philippines, but having no actual local experience here in the U.S. worked against me as I could not work for my license yet. Nobody was giving me a chance to work then. It was a shattering blow to my ego.”

It was her mom, Jasmin, who egged her to take a job selling clothes while there were no engineering jobs available. She worked at a small retail store for two months until an opportunity came.

A Filipino church mate offered her a job in a startup engineering company as its first, and for a long time the only engineer, on a regular full-time assignment. At first, she had to be mentored by the church mate and was practically working until 9 p.m. earning only a little more than the minimum wage. That decade-long arrangement worked for her as she learned a lot and became well rounded.

That the company grew and became well-known, and she soon was sent to become a consultant to other big-name companies like Bechtel Engineering, Construction and Project Management Company and Caltrans, the California agency responsible for highway, bridge and rail transportation planning, construction and maintenance.

It was also at this time when she went back to school for her master’s at University of California in Irvine, going to classes that lasted up to 10 p.m. after her consultancy job at Caltrans.

Climb to the top

“I wanted to shorten my learning curve so I spent a lot of time at work especially when I was on a new job and in my higher studies. I knew having a graduate degree from a university in the U.S. would enhance my credentials,” Johanna explained. “Now, I have an engineer Chinese spouse who is very understanding about the amount of time I spend working.” 

She attributes her attitude towards work and studies to growing up with a “typical Filipino upbringing, with close ties among family members.

“My parents stressed the Filipino values of strong family ties, following the rules, education/achievement (being the best in your chosen career), loving your job, Christian service and taking care of the elders by providing for them when time comes. All those helped shape the present me,” Ilano Wong shared.

“They also demonstrated unconditional love. I grew up in a family that has been deeply rooted in Christian service and that certainly sets a tone of integrity, loyalty, fortitude and excellence in my life,” she added.

She is the second of six children, and after the eldest sibling married early, she was expected to set a good example to the younger ones, especially about not starting a family too early.

“In fact, I started dating only after college when I was already in the U.S., adhering to Father’s rule that disallowed dating while in school but grabbing the first guy you want after graduation,” she chuckled.

She continued her climb on the ladder of success keeping in mind the lessons her two-month experience as a salesgirl taught her, which is to value her job.

Ilano Wong does not have any kids of her own, but she would have raised them the same way she was raised. Now that her father is gone, she has kept in touch with her mom, visiting her and her siblings in Southern California once a month. They have gone together on trips abroad including to the Philippines.

Ilano Wong during Bay Tunnel site inspection.

Women engineer models

“It is good to see women on engineering jobs holding top position,” she declared. “They have motivated and inspired me to become what I am today. Unfortunately I did not see a lot of Filipino Americans in those jobs even in the city. But I saw a lot of women and knowing that they are there makes you think succeeding as woman engineer in a foreign land can be done.”

She wants to be known as a hardworking engineer of competence and integrity, that strictly sticks to U.S. engineers’ code of ethics.

In the next years, Ilano Wong hopes to continue mentoring younger engineers as she habitually does. She also hopes to be either the head of the Project Management Bureau at SFPUC, or a manager at a large, complex capital improvement program. But she quickly added hoping to see more Fil-Ams succeed.

“I have seen Fil-Am engineers move to the U.S. only to settle for drafting or non-engineering jobs because they lacked credentials,” particularly licenses, higher education and certifications.

“When I was head of the San Francisco Airport civil engineering section in charge of some 35 engineers and draftsmen, I did see some Filipino Americans, but not at the high-level positions,” lamented Johanna. “I hope that I can be an inspiration and a role model for those aspiring engineers to motivate them to strive for the top engineering posts.”

To help achieve this, she plans to join an informal group of Fil-Am engineers and other professionals that could get together for fellowship and career enhancement.