Hi, I wish you the best. I worked as an industrial electrician and PLC programmer for the Las Vegas Valley Water District for 10 years and change. I took an early out in 2010 and lasted 1-1/2 years without working and went crazy and now I'm a programmer at an assembly plant.
As opposed to an integrator, a not-for-profit utility has its pros and cons:
Pros:
Good benefits and pension. I get a good amount a month for life, not a company funded pension but an annuity.
All the tools, money, time and material to do any job. No questions asked when you drop your fluke 87 IV in a 30' underdrain vault and it shatters into a million pieces. Only question my planner had is do I have the receipt from Grove-Madsen when I stopped to pick up a new one on the company account.
Not too much electrical construction. Lots of PM's which I hated. One winter a little freeze snap caused a lot of exposed little SS lines to PRV's to break, so the director ordered production electrical (us) to install heat trace everywhere. No provision for it, so digging trenches, running circuits, etc. I hated that so much that I almost quit.
As one poster said, the telemetry was interesting. Since this is only potable water, we needed to assist them occasionally. They wouldn't touch anything over 24 VDC. Our equipment was mostly 5 kv motor starters, RVAT starters, Rosemount, E & H, yokogawa instrumentation.
Cons:
No real money to start with. I had come out of the hall in Seattle at $30 an hour and change and moved with my new spouse at the time to Vegas (She didn't like the rain) and went into the public sector at $19 an hour and change. They had just changed the pay increase policy to needing lots of classes, CEU's, touchy-feelie_ classes, on-line training etc for our evals instead of the previous 1- page that gave anyone that could fog a mirror 5 % a year. It took 10 years to get to $40 an hour.
There's a lot of politics at a public entity. Most managers are in name only. I worked for a really good planner; I probably wouldn't have stayed had it been with some of the other Jacka**es there.
State law said that anyone with access to drinking water had to have a Treatment Operator I Certification,full certification and a Distribution Operator III certification, which there were only 4 levels, with the 4th being reserved for management. Lots of classes and math, nice days in the A/C, tests, renewals. I know a lot about water treatment, water math, flow, pressure, level. Big whoop, huh? My OEM doesn't much care about that.
One more Pro: I did learn Rockwell PLC, at their expense PLC 5/40's everywhere, not many HMI's, a lot of program changes, lots of analog BTW, BTR experience, comms experience that has helped me to this day.
I wish you the best and like I say an integrator is different that an actual utility when one is "in-house" so to speak. I love it here in SE Michigan, feels more like home than where I grew up. Palm trees and 75 degrees just doesn't cut it for me at Christmas. I left Vegas in 2010 for Michigan and have only been back once. Good luck!!