CONNECT Utilities & Critical Infrastructure Summit

It’s an honor to be here today at the CONNECT 2025 Utility and Critical Infrastructure Summit, where we have the opportunity to gather as regional utilities, local governments, and essential partners. And I want to start by thanking all of you—not just for being here, but for the work you do. Because infrastructure isn’t just pipes and roads and power lines. It’s the invisible architecture that holds our communities together. It’s what allows us to function, to grow, to build the future. And too often, we only talk about it when it breaks.

My name is Andrew Flynn. I am the President of the Board of CONNECT, a Commissioner in Mt. Lebanon, and professionally a Registered Municipal Advisor where I work with agencies across the country to fund major infrastructure improvements and, crucially, to build long-term fiscal resilience.

If you take one thing away from this morning, let it be this: Infrastructure is not just about fixing things when they break. It’s about rethinking, redesigning, and rebuilding the systems we rely on before they fail.

Because here’s the reality: Our infrastructure is under strain. We have aging systems that weren’t built for the demands we now place on them. We have changing stressors—more flooding, more extreme heat, more unpredictable disasters. We have evolving communities that need changing services, but we’re often stuck using funding models and organizational structures that were designed for a different set of services in a different era.

And if we keep thinking about these issues in isolation—if municipalities are dealing with road reconstruction over here, utilities are managing power grids over there, and emergency responders are trying to patch the gaps in between—we will always be reacting instead of preparing and improving.

We are here today because we share a responsibility—a responsibility to ensure that our communities have reliable, resilient, and sustainable infrastructure to meet the demands of today and the challenges of tomorrow.

Our infrastructure is the backbone of our daily lives. It powers our homes, delivers clean water, supports emergency response, and keeps our businesses running. But as we all know, it’s also under pressure. The only way forward is through collaboration, innovation, and proactive planning.

Municipalities care deeply about these issues because we are directly responsible for much of our public infrastructure. We maintain roads, manage stormwater, ensure public safety, and coordinate with our utility partners within a constantly changing environment.

Some things are working well, but others are not—and it’s our responsibility to fix that. When infrastructure fails, it is our communities that feel the impact first. That’s why we must take a leadership role in shaping solutions that work for our residents and businesses alike.

Collaboration is at the heart of our success. In Mt. Lebanon and across our region, we’ve seen firsthand how partnerships between municipalities and utilities lead to smarter, more effective solutions. By sharing data, coordinating projects, and aligning our goals, we reduce costs, minimize disruptions, and maximize impact.

CONNECT has played a critical role in fostering this collaboration. As a formalized network of municipalities, we bring together local governments to address shared challenges and advocate for collective solutions. In the past, CONNECT has taken strong stances on utility-related issues, passing resolutions that call for greater transparency, efficiency, and accountability in our infrastructure planning. Today, we continue that work by expanding our focus and pushing for regional approaches to utility coordination.

First, we have to embrace innovation—not as a buzzword, but as a core operating principle. Smart grids, real-time leak detection, predictive maintenance, cybersecurity, drones—these aren’t just flashy tools, they’re the future of cost-effective, resilient infrastructure. And at the policy level, we need to stop thinking of infrastructure as just a collection of physical assets and start treating it as a system—one that needs smarter governance, better integration, and long-term financial planning.

Second, resilience has to be our priority—not just in theory, but in how we allocate resources and build infrastructure. Severe weather events aren’t rare anymore. As a volunteer firefighter, I see firsthand how fragile our infrastructure really is. A downed power line, a flooded roadway, a compromised water system—these aren’t minor setbacks. They cost money, they slow down emergency response, and they put lives at risk. And right now, we’re still too reactive. We need to be designing infrastructure that doesn’t just survive these challenges, but adapts to them.

And third—and this is key—we need to be honest about the financial realities we face. The federal landscape is shifting. Disaster funding is less certain. State budgets are going to be increasingly strained.

We cannot assume that the money we need is just going to show up from somewhere else. It means we have to be proactive. It means exploring new funding models that align the resources we have. It means leveraging regional partnerships. It means asking, every time we make an investment, "Is this building long-term capacity, or just buying us time?"

Because here’s the thing: The future of our infrastructure isn’t just about whether we fix what’s broken. It’s about whether we rethink what’s possible. And that’s the work ahead.

So, what’s our next step? It starts right here. With conversations like this one. With partnerships. With action. Because the future of our infrastructure—it’s not something that happens to us. It’s something we build. And if we do this right, if we bring the right people to the table, if we make smart investments and embrace innovation, then we won’t just be maintaining what we have—we’ll be creating something better. Stronger. More dynamic.

That’s the vision. That’s the work. And I am grateful to be in a room full of people who are ready to take it on. Thank you for being here, thank you for your commitment to this region, and I look forward to working together to make this vision a reality.