How American Water Pays
American Water's A0 to P4 professional ladder, M1 to M4 management tiers and E0 to CEO executive layer priced across 12 US markets, with a 15 percent discount ESPP open to 7,000 employees but company-funded equity reaching only 324, a $7.06M CEO package at 73:1, and eight 2025 Camden H-1B filings.
Band Hierarchy
American Water does not publish a current enterprise grade catalogue. The A0 through P4 operations and professional ladder and the M1 through M4 management ladder are a reconstructed market architecture built from live job postings, not internal grade codes. Only the executive layer carries company disclosure, and even there the visible artefacts are two SEC offer-letter exhibits citing salary levels 80 and 90 rather than a published band chart.
Operations and professional ladder — A0 through P4
Management ladder — M1 through M4
Executive and board — E0 through Board
Disclosed executive layer
Track divergence
Hierarchy qualifications and legacy structures
- American Water job postings expose a clear title sequence of associate, senior, lead, principal and director alongside supervisor, manager and senior manager, but the company has never published a grade code for any of them.
- Older plan and severance documents contain legacy labels such as L07 and ML1 through ML3. Nothing in the current record establishes that those labels remain the live architecture, so they are not mapped as active bands here.
- Salary levels 80 and 90 are the only numeric grade references that appear in a filed document, and both come from historical individual offer letters rather than a current rate table.
- The crosswalk is most reliable for engineering, technology and corporate roles, where postings carry explicit salary ranges, and least reliable for represented field and call-centre work, where 74 collective bargaining agreements with 14 unions set wages the company does not aggregate publicly.
- The nonemployee director row is a governance package, not an employment band, and is excluded from the range chart along with the two proxy-disclosed executive cohorts.
Peer-level mapping
| Band | Archetype | Peer mapping | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| A0 | Intern / Apprentice | Essential Utilities and California Water Service intern programmes | American Water publishes no intern pay scale; the range is inferred from adjacent entry postings.Modelled from the $40,000 to $71,000 entry envelope in the bundle; no equity because interns receive no omnibus grant and are unlikely to complete a share purchase period. |
| O1 | Frontline / Customer Operations | Represented utility field and call-centre classifications | About 44 percent of American Water employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements, so many O1 wages follow a negotiated schedule rather than this band.A $38,000 to $90,000 span from postings and employee-reported records; Glassdoor places customer service representatives at $38,000 to $53,000 within it. |
| P1 | Associate Professional | Early-career professional at a regulated utility or a large public company | Title sequence is observable in postings; the pay boundary between P1 and P2 is modelled.A $59,000 to $118,000 posting envelope; no routine equity grant is evidenced at this band. |
| P2 | Senior Professional | Senior individual contributor at a regulated utility peer | The P2 and M2 pay bands overlap heavily, so the choice at this point is scope rather than money.Anchored on the disclosed $70,690 to $118,100 New Connection Project Manager and Senior Developer Services Specialist posting range. |
| P3 | Lead Professional | Lead or staff individual contributor at a large public company | Selective long-term plan grants are possible for strategic positions at this level but are not routine, so the equity column is zero rather than modelled.Anchored on the disclosed $100,260 to $164,860 Lead, Project Delivery Engineer posting; the bundle models selective grants for this band at $0 to $50,000. |
| P4 | Principal / Architect | Principal engineer or enterprise architect at a large public company | The 2025 Camden labour condition applications sit inside this band at $118,858 to $167,582 of base wage, which is the tightest external check available on any American Water level.Anchored on the disclosed $101,760 to $170,050 Principal, Project Delivery Engineer posting in Belleville and cross-checked against eight Camden visa wage records. |
| M1 | Supervisor | First-line supervisor at a regulated utility peer | Supervisors frequently manage represented crews, so their pay is set against a negotiated wage schedule they do not themselves sit on.A $61,050 to $120,000 posting envelope; no routine omnibus grant is evidenced. |
| M2 | Manager | Functional manager at a regulated utility or large public company | Manager and senior professional pay overlap; the bonus target is the clearer separator.An $80,000 to $135,000 envelope reconciled with the upper half of the New Connection Project Manager posting range. |
| M3 | Senior Manager | Senior manager at a regulated utility peer | Selective long-term plan participation is plausible at this level, modelled by the bundle at $0 to $75,000, but no grant is routine.A $99,000 to $163,000 envelope bridging the manager and director posting anchors. |
| M4 | Director | Function director at a regulated utility or large public company | Some strategic directors sit inside the roughly 324-person omnibus participant pool, with grants modelled at $25,000 to $250,000, but the equity column stays at zero because participation is the exception rather than the rule.Anchored on the disclosed $145,600 to $231,400 Director, Operational Training posting in Camden, widened at the bottom to $128,540 for lower-cost states. |
| E0 | Vice President / State President | Corporate vice president at a regulated utility peer | American Water publishes no vice-president compensation table. This row is bracketed by two SEC offer-letter exhibits: salary level 80 at $385,000 base with a 50 percent bonus and 100 percent long-term target, and salary level 90 at $600,000 base with a 75 percent bonus and 160 percent long-term target.Base modelled across a $220,000 to $400,000 envelope around the level 80 and 90 anchors; equity is the midpoint of the $220,000 to $900,000 grant range the bundle models for this layer. |
| E1 | Executive Vice President / C-suite | Named executive officers at Essential Utilities, California Water Service and American States Water | Averages of the four continuing non-CEO named executive officers in the 2025 Summary Compensation Table, not a range for every EVP-titled employee. The other column carries a large pension-value change that is an actuarial movement rather than cash.Mean of David Bowler, Cheryl Norton, Stacy Mitchell and Maureen Duffy across salary, stock awards, non-equity incentive, pension-value change and all other compensation. |
| E2 | President and Chief Executive Officer | Chief executives of Essential Utilities, California Water Service, American States Water, SJW Group and Middlesex Water | John Griffith became chief executive on 14 May 2025, so the salary line is a partial-year amount. The pay-ratio calculation instead uses an annualized $7,697,503.2025 Summary Compensation Table. Current base is $1,050,000 with a 120 percent annual plan target and a 430 percent long-term plan target. |
| Board | Nonemployee Director | Boards of United States regulated water and energy utilities | A governance package rather than an employment band. The independent board chair receives $200,000 of cash and about $275,000 of equity; committee chairs receive $140,000 to $145,000 of cash.The standard nonemployee director package: a $120,000 annual cash retainer and an annual equity retainer of about $175,000, with no meeting fees. |
Critical evidence warning
American Water does not publish salary ranges, band minimums or midpoints below the executive tier, and it publishes no rating scale at all. Individual job postings do carry statutory pay ranges, and those are the strongest non-executive evidence in this report, but they describe one requisition in one location rather than a company band. Every modelled figure here should be used for orientation rather than quoted as an American Water pay band.
Compensation by Band — Camden
Low / median / high annual values at 1.00× base and 1.00× total-compensation factors versus Camden. Total equals base plus bonus plus annualized equity.
| Band | Title | Base | Variable | Total TC | Equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A0 | Intern / Apprentice 0–1 years · modeled | $47K – $63K | 2% | $56K $48K – $65K | — |
| O1 | Frontline / Customer Operations 0–5 years · reported | $54K – $74K | 3% | $66K $56K – $76K | — |
| P1 | Associate Professional 2–6 years · modeled | $70K – $94K | 5% | $86K $73K – $99K | — |
| P2 | Senior Professional 5–10 years · verified | $85K – $115K | 7.5% | $108K $91K – $124K | — |
| P3 | Lead Professional 8–15 years · verified | $104K – $140K | 10% | $134K $114K – $154K | — |
| P4 | Principal / Architect 10–18+ years · verified | $123K – $167K | 12% | $162K $138K – $187K | — |
| M1 | Supervisor 3–8 years · modeled | $81K – $109K | 10% | $105K $89K – $120K | — |
| M2 | Manager 6–12 years · modeled | $94K – $127K | 15% | $127K $108K – $145K | — |
| M3 | Senior Manager 10–17 years · modeled | $111K – $150K | 20% | $156K $133K – $179K | — |
| M4 | Director 12–22 years · verified | $153K – $207K | 25% | $225K $191K – $259K | — |
| E0 | Vice President / State President 15–25 years · modeled | $255K – $345K | 40% | $980K $833K – $1.13M | $560K |
| E1 | Executive Vice President / C-suite 18–30 years · verified | $508K – $688K | 75% | $3.33M $2.83M – $3.83M | $1.14M |
| E2 | President and Chief Executive Officer 20–35+ years · verified | $872K – $1.18M | 120% | $7.06M $6.00M – $8.11M | $4.06M |
| Board | Nonemployee Director Senior executive or utility regulatory background · verified | $102K – $138K | — | $295K $251K – $339K | $175K |
Total Compensation Range by Band
Total compensation in Camden across the employee bands. Proxy-disclosed executive cohorts are excluded so the employee bands stay readable.
Global Footprint & Pay Arbitrage
American Water reported 6,979 employees at 31 December 2025 and no employees located outside the United States. There is no offshore delivery centre, no international payroll and therefore no onshore-to-offshore multiplier to calculate. Camden is the pay anchor, and the eleven other markets are analytical display factors derived from sampled postings rather than published company pay zones.
Office and market catalogue — calibration factors versus Camden
| Location | Likely office profile | Presence | Base | TC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Camden United States · USD | Corporate headquarters, enterprise technology, finance and executive centre | Official job postings and SEC filings | 1.00× | 1.00× |
Sacramento United States · USD | California regulated operations and customer service | State operating subsidiary | 1.08× | 1.08× |
Voorhees United States · USD | Southern New Jersey operating and shared-services market | Official job postings | 0.98× | 0.98× |
Alexandria United States · USD | Military Services Group contract operations across Northern Virginia | Military services contract sites | 0.98× | 0.98× |
Mechanicsburg United States · USD | Pennsylvania regulated operations, the largest state subsidiary by customers | State operating subsidiary | 0.94× | 0.94× |
Belleville United States · USD | Illinois regulated operations and capital project delivery engineering | Official job postings | 0.93× | 0.93× |
St. Louis United States · USD | Missouri regulated operations and regional engineering | State operating subsidiary | 0.91× | 0.91× |
Indianapolis United States · USD | Indiana regulated operations and customer service | State operating subsidiary | 0.90× | 0.90× |
Davenport United States · USD | Iowa regulated operations and treatment plant staffing | State operating subsidiary | 0.89× | 0.89× |
Lexington United States · USD | Kentucky regulated operations and field service | State operating subsidiary | 0.88× | 0.88× |
Chattanooga United States · USD | Tennessee regulated operations and field service | State operating subsidiary | 0.87× | 0.87× |
Charleston United States · USD | West Virginia regulated operations, the lowest-cost market in the set | State operating subsidiary | 0.86× | 0.86× |
American Water operates regulated utilities in 14 states and provides services reaching about 14 million people in 24 states, plus a Military Services Group operating water systems on military installations. The twelve markets modelled here are the ones for which the bundle established a display factor; they are not a complete site list and none of them carries a disclosed employee count.
Camden anchor medians — the basis of every modeled cell
| Band | Base | Stock | Bonus | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| O1 | $64K | $0 | $2K | — | $66K |
| P2 | $100K | $0 | $8K | — | $108K |
| P3 | $122K | $0 | $12K | — | $134K |
| P4 | $145K | $0 | $17K | — | $162K |
| M4 | $180K | $0 | $45K | — | $225K |
| E1 | $598K | $1.14M | $647K | $945K | $3.33M |
| E2 | $1.03M | $4.06M | $1.64M | $333K | $7.06M |
| Board | $120K | $175K | $0 | — | $295K |
- The Camden column is the anchor because it carries the strongest direct evidence: the Director, Operational Training posting at $145,600 to $231,400 and all eight of the 2025 labour condition application wage records.
- P2, P3, P4 and M4 medians sit inside disclosed posting ranges rather than being modelled. P2 comes from the $70,690 to $118,100 New Connection Project Manager posting, P3 from the $100,260 to $164,860 Lead, Project Delivery Engineer posting and P4 from the $101,760 to $170,050 Principal, Project Delivery Engineer posting in Belleville.
- The O1 frontline row is the widest and least certain band in the report because roughly 44 percent of the workforce is represented and its wages follow 74 separate collective bargaining agreements the company does not publish.
- Levels.fyi records for American Water are technology-only and place reported total compensation at roughly $128,600 to $191,000 with a median near $169,200, which brackets the P3 and P4 rows but is a small sample.
- The E1 and E2 rows are proxy disclosures rather than a Camden pay range. Applying a city factor to them would be meaningless, because executive pay is set at enterprise level.
Model rules
- Every modelled cell is the Camden median multiplied by the city display factor. There is no foreign-exchange step because every market is dollar-denominated.
- City factors run from 1.08 in Sacramento down to 0.86 in Charleston, a total spread of about 25 percent between the highest and lowest markets. American Water publishes no geographic differential table, so these are analytical factors, not company pay zones.
- The factor is applied identically to base and to total compensation, because the bonus target is set by band rather than by location and no city-specific incentive design is disclosed.
- Total compensation is base plus target annual plan bonus plus any annualized equity. For every band from A0 through M4 the equity term is zero, so total compensation equals target direct cash.
- American Water publishes no city-level headcount, so no market in this table can be ranked by employees and none is labelled the largest site beyond the Camden headquarters context.
Variable Pay & Annual Cash Incentive
American Water states that the Annual Performance Plan applies to all employees, including represented employees where the applicable agreement provides for it. That is unusually broad. What the company does not publish is the target grid: only executive targets and the company payout factor are disclosed, so every band target below E1 here is modelled.
| Band | Target | Mechanism | Recent payout |
|---|---|---|---|
A0 Intern / Apprentice | 2% of base | Annual Performance Plan; generally paid by 15 March after the performance year. | 2.83% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
O1 Frontline / Customer Operations | 3% of base | Annual Performance Plan, subject to the applicable collective bargaining agreement where one exists. | 4.25% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
P1 Associate Professional | 5% of base | Annual Performance Plan; generally paid by 15 March after the performance year. | 7.08% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
P2 Senior Professional | 7.5% of base | Annual Performance Plan; generally paid by 15 March after the performance year. | 10.61% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
P3 Lead Professional | 10% of base | Annual Performance Plan; generally paid by 15 March after the performance year. | 14.15% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
P4 Principal / Architect | 12% of base | Annual Performance Plan; generally paid by 15 March after the performance year. | 16.98% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
M1 Supervisor | 10% of base | Annual Performance Plan with a team and safety delivery component. | 14.15% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
M2 Manager | 15% of base | Annual Performance Plan with a function delivery component. | 21.23% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
M3 Senior Manager | 20% of base | Annual Performance Plan with a function delivery component. | 28.30% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
M4 Director | 25% of base | Annual Performance Plan weighted towards enterprise and business-unit results. | 35.38% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
E0 Vice President / State President | 40% of base | Executive-style plan on the company scorecard; a filed offer letter at salary level 80 shows a 50 percent target and one at level 90 shows 75 percent. | 56.60% of base at the 141.5% company factor |
E1 Executive Vice President / C-suite | 60% to 90% of base | Annual Performance Plan on the disclosed company scorecard, certified by the compensation committee. | 141.5% of target for 2025, after 157.32% for 2024 |
E2 President and Chief Executive Officer | 120% of base | Annual Performance Plan on the disclosed company scorecard, certified by the compensation committee. | 141.5% of target, paying $1,635,585 against a $1,155,891 target |
Executive incentive targets — percent of salary
Named-executive outcomes
| Executive | Target | Paid | Attainment |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Griffith | $1,155,891 | $1,635,585 | 141.5% of target |
| Cheryl Norton | $666,749 | $943,449 | 141.5% of target |
| David Bowler | $478,214 | $676,673 | 141.5% of target |
| Stacy Mitchell | $405,062 | $573,163 | 141.5% of target |
| Maureen Duffy | $279,000 | $394,785 | 141.5% of target |
| Melanie Kennedy | $50,923 | $72,056 | 141.5% of a prorated target |
| Susan Hardwick | $516,267 | $0 | Forfeited on retirement treatment |
Employee payout timing and history
American Water publishes no bonus-target grid by band and no employee-wide payout history. The 141.5 percent company factor is a disclosed scorecard result that applies to the plan as a whole, but individual awards can still be modified by business-unit and individual performance the company does not describe. The band targets shown here are modelled by the research bundle and are not company statements.
Sales and special incentives
American Water is a regulated utility with no quota-carrying sales organisation, so there is no commission plan, accelerator or draw structure to describe. Spot bonuses, project incentives and deal-closure bonuses are not disclosed as standard enterprise programmes either; the evidence supports the annual plan and the selective long-term plan only.
Equity — RSUs, PSUs, Options & ESPP
American Water runs two equity systems with completely different economics, and treating them as one is the most common mistake made about this company. The discounted share purchase plan is employee-funded and open to roughly 7,000 people. The omnibus plan is company-funded and reached about 324 employees at 6 March 2026. Broad eligibility on paper is not broad participation in practice.
- A simple outstanding-to-identified-pool ratio at 2025 year-end is about 6.4 percent, calculated as 477,157 outstanding against 7,445,627 total identified. That is a capacity measure and not a dilution measure, because plan counting rules, future grants and share recycling all affect availability.
- The gap between eligibility and participation is the defining fact of American Water equity. Roughly 7,000 employees can buy discounted shares; roughly 324 hold a company-funded award.
- Restricted stock units and performance stock units are the only instruments actually granted in the reviewed cycle. The plan permits options and stock appreciation rights, but no option grant appears in the 2025 disclosures.
- The amended plan's individual annual maximum of 300,000 shares is a governance cap on a single grant, not an indication of typical grant size. The largest disclosed 2025 grant was Susan Hardwick's at $4.82 million of grant-date fair value.
Equity plan capacity and participation
Vesting — common reported employee schedule
Restricted stock units granted under the Long-Term Performance Plan vest in approximately equal instalments over three years, subject to continued service and the plan's exception provisions. Cheryl Norton's February 2026 grant of 4,258 units, for example, vests on 31 January 2027, 2028 and 2029. Performance stock units are a single three-year cliff settled on committee certification at the end of the performance period, so a 2025 grant settles against 2025 to 2027 results. This is a genuine three-year design and not the four-year schedule common at technology employers.
Eligibility by hierarchy level
- The discounted share purchase plan is the only equity channel a typical American Water employee can count on, and it is the only one they fund themselves. A 1 to 10 percent payroll election capped at $25,000 a year buys shares quarterly at 85 percent of fair market value.
- Company-funded grants are described as being for certain strategic positions. The bundle models selective ranges of $0 to $50,000 at the lead and principal levels, $0 to $75,000 at senior manager and $25,000 to $250,000 at director, but no routine grant is evidenced below the vice-president layer.
- Officers and directors are excluded from the amended share purchase plan. Moving into a Section 16 officer role therefore removes the discounted purchase benefit at the same time as it adds long-term plan participation.
- There is no disclosed grant matrix by band, no standard new-hire grant and no promotion grant schedule. Anyone below the executive layer should assume no equity unless an offer letter says otherwise.
Indicative annual grant value by band — Camden
| Band | Annual value (USD) | Median | Shares at $137.82 |
|---|---|---|---|
| E0 | $420K – $700K | $560K | ~3,047–5,079 |
| E1 | $852K – $1.42M | $1.14M | ~6,183–10,306 |
| E2 | $3.05M – $5.08M | $4.06M | ~22,097–36,828 |
| Board | $131K – $219K | $175K | ~952–1,587 |
Annualized planning value (±25%), not the face value of every new-hire grant. Share equivalents use the $137.82 reference price at 25 August 2026 reference and ignore plan valuation rules and PSU performance. Highlighted rows are disclosed grant-date stock awards.
Named executive target equity
| Executive | Target | Units / structure |
|---|---|---|
John Griffith President and Chief Executive Officer | 430% of base, a $4,093,733 aggregate target market value | 30 percent restricted stock units over three years and 70 percent performance stock units over 2025 to 2027. The 2025 grant-date fair value recorded in the Summary Compensation Table was $4,060,491. |
Susan Hardwick Former President and Chief Executive Officer | 435% of base, a $4,893,756 aggregate target market value | Granted before the May 2025 leadership transition, with a $4,817,643 grant-date fair value, the largest single 2025 award disclosed. |
Cheryl Norton Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer | 245% of base, a $1,826,416 aggregate target market value | A $1,798,012 grant-date fair value on the same 30 percent restricted and 70 percent performance split. |
David Bowler Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | 210% of base, a $1,270,555 aggregate target market value | A $1,250,794 grant-date fair value on the standard 2025 mix. |
Stacy Mitchell Executive Vice President and General Counsel | 165% of base, a $961,914 aggregate target market value | A $946,951 grant-date fair value on the standard 2025 mix. |
Maureen Duffy Executive Vice President, Communications and External Affairs | 120% of base, a $558,022 aggregate target market value | A $549,339 grant-date fair value, the smallest named-executive award and the floor of the disclosed executive equity range. |
Executive Compensation
2025 Summary Compensation Table values from the proxy statement filed on 24 March 2026. Stock awards are grant-date accounting values rather than cash received, and the pension-value change column is an actuarial movement that can swing a total by millions without any money moving.
Reading the package
Salary was about 14.5 percent of the chief executive's 2025 reported total and stock awards about 57.6 percent, with the annual cash incentive contributing a further 23.2 percent. That is a far more cash-weighted mix than a large technology employer, which is characteristic of a regulated utility where earnings are constrained by rate cases rather than driven by share-price expansion. It also means the reported figure tracks realizable pay more closely than at companies where equity is 85 percent or more of the package.
American Water's $7.06 million sits second in this set, above California Water Service and well above the smaller issuers, but below Essential Utilities at $9.21 million. Rank order in water-utility proxies is unusually sensitive to pension accounting: Essential's total includes a $1.84 million pension-value change and California Water's a $2.25 million change, neither of which is current cash. The American Water figure is also depressed by the partial-year chief executive transition, which is why the pay-ratio calculation uses an annualized $7,697,503 instead.
Named Executive Officers & Board
American Water changed chief executive during the year under review. M. Susan Hardwick stepped down and John C. Griffith became President and Chief Executive Officer on 14 May 2025 on a $1,050,000 base with a 120 percent annual plan target and a 430 percent long-term plan target. Melanie M. Kennedy left the Chief Human Resources Officer role and Lori Sutton was identified in the 2026 executive-officer disclosure as her successor.
Two lines in the 2025 table need reading carefully. Cheryl Norton's $6.34 million total is close to the chief executive's, but $2.78 million of it is a pension-value change rather than pay, and her cash and equity together come to $3.49 million. Susan Hardwick's $6.33 million includes a $4.82 million grant made before the transition and a zero annual incentive, because her award was forfeited under retirement treatment despite the company scorecard paying 141.5 percent. Melanie Kennedy's $111,098 salary is a partial-year figure alongside $833,032 of other compensation reflecting her departure terms.
Board compensation framework
| Element | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Independent Board Chair | $200,000 cash | Plus an annual equity retainer of approximately $275,000 and no meeting fees. |
| Audit, Finance and Risk Committee chair | $145,000 cash | The highest committee chair retainer, plus an annual equity retainer of approximately $175,000. |
| Other committee chairs | $140,000 cash | Plus an annual equity retainer of approximately $175,000. |
| Other nonemployee directors | $120,000 cash | Plus an annual equity retainer of approximately $175,000, for a package near $295,000. |
| Meeting fees | None | No per-meeting fee is paid at any level, so the retainer structure is the whole cash package. |
Nine nonemployee directors held omnibus plan awards at 6 March 2026. The employee chief executive receives no director pay. Because there are no meeting fees, a standard director's package is close to a flat $295,000 of cash and equity, and the chair's near $475,000.
Regional heads and other officers
Lori Sutton as Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer and Melissa K. Wikle as Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer are executive officers who were not named executives for the 2025 table, so no compensation table exists for either. Wikle's pay is visible only through Section 16 filings, which show a 608-unit restricted stock grant and 1,064 performance units vesting in February 2026 alongside 543 shares withheld for tax. No compensation table exists for any vice president or state subsidiary president.
Insider Trades — SEC Forms 3/4/5
American Water is NYSE-listed, so the governing record is SEC Section 16 Forms 3, 4 and 5. Two Form 4 transaction codes carry most of the traffic. Code A is an acquisition, covering both a new restricted stock unit grant and a performance unit settling into shares; a zero transaction price on a code A line reflects the coding convention, not a worthless award. Code F is shares surrendered to the issuer to cover tax on a settlement, which is automatic and should never be read as an open-market sale.
| Date | Person | Transaction | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-02-17 | Cheryl Norton Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer | Settlement The 2023 performance stock unit cycle settling into shares; value derived at the $134 same-day reference price rather than reported on the form. | 5,901 | — | $791K |
| 2026-02-17 | Cheryl Norton Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer | Award The 2026 restricted stock unit grant, vesting in three approximately equal instalments on 31 January 2027, 2028 and 2029. | 4,258 | — | $571K |
| 2026-02-17 | Cheryl Norton Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer | Withholding Shares surrendered to the issuer to cover tax on the performance unit settlement, roughly half the settled shares. | 2,910 | $134.00 | $389K |
| 2026-02-17 | Melissa K. Wikle Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer | Settlement Performance stock units vesting for an officer who has no compensation table of her own. | 1,064 | — | $143K |
| 2026-02-17 | Melissa K. Wikle Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer | Award Time-vested restricted stock unit grant on the same February cycle as the named executives. | 608 | — | $81K |
| 2026-02-17 | Melissa K. Wikle Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer | Withholding Shares withheld for tax on the settlement. | 543 | $134.00 | $72K |
| 2026-01-31 | John C. Griffith President and Chief Executive Officer | Withholding Disposition to the issuer to satisfy taxes on a vesting event, not an open-market sale. | 3,226 | $129.00 | $417K |
| 2026-01-31 | Cheryl Norton Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer | Withholding Disposition to the issuer to satisfy taxes on the 31 January restricted unit vesting instalment. | 1,777 | $129.00 | $229K |
| 2026-01-31 | Stacy A. Mitchell Executive Vice President and General Counsel | Withholding Disposition to the issuer to satisfy taxes on the 31 January vesting instalment. | 729 | $129.00 | $94K |
Reading guide
Benefits & Perks
American Water describes a broad United States total-rewards package but publishes very little plan-level detail. The retirement figures below are the strongest evidence in the section because they come from filed offer-letter exhibits rather than a marketing page. Everything is a United States programme; there is no second region, because there are no employees outside the country.
United States
- Retirement — 401(k) match of 100 percent on the first 3 percent plus 50 percent on the next 2 percent. A maximum employer match of 4 percent of pay when the employee contributes 5 percent. The figure comes from filed offer materials rather than a benefits page. Vesting terms were not re-established in the reviewed evidence. [official]
- Retirement — Separate defined contribution of 5.25 percent of base or hourly pay. Described in official offer materials as an employer contribution independent of the 401(k) match, which makes the combined employer retirement contribution up to about 9.25 percent of pay. Eligibility can vary by legacy group or bargaining unit. [official]
- Medical — Medical, prescription, dental and vision coverage with 88 percent enrolment. Employees paid about 16 percent of medical, dental and vision premiums in the disclosed snapshot, which is a low employee share by large-employer standards. Carrier names, deductibles and family coverage amounts are not public. [official]
- Insurance — Employer-paid life insurance up to 1.5 times base with a $200,000 cap. Disclosed in one plan description; treatment can vary by population. Short-term and long-term disability are included in total rewards but coverage percentages and waiting periods are not published. [official]
- Leave — Holidays, vacation and sick time. Confirmed as available in company disclosures and job postings, but the exact day counts by tenure and population are not published and vary by collective bargaining agreement. [official]
- Family — Six weeks of paid family leave. Increased from two weeks to six weeks in 2023 company reporting. How that interacts with maternity and paternity entitlements in the current plan year is not published. [official]
- Family — Fertility and family-building support. Included in the total-rewards disclosure. The provider and the dollar limits are not public. [official]
- Equity — Employee Stock Purchase Plan at a 15 percent discount. Roughly 7,000 employees eligible under the amended plan, purchasing quarterly with a 1 to 10 percent payroll election capped at $25,000 a year. Officers and directors are excluded. [official]
- Growth — Educational assistance and learning programmes. Disclosed in filings and job postings, but the annual reimbursement cap and the approved-provider list are not published. [official]
- Union — Collectively bargained benefits for about 44 percent of employees. Covered by 74 collective bargaining agreements with 14 unions. Wage schedules, progression steps and benefit terms vary by agreement and are not aggregated publicly. [official]
Global programs
- Support — Employee Assistance Program and wellness programmes. Disclosed across filings and job postings. The vendor and any session limits are not published. [official]
- Mobility — Internal mobility filled 34 percent of 1,439 positions in 2025. The remaining 66 percent were external hires. American Water does not disclose whether internal promotees and external hires are paid differently at the same level. [official]
- Working model — Hybrid working for corporate roles. Selected job postings describe hybrid arrangements, but no uniform remote-work policy is published and field and treatment roles are inherently site-based. [reported]
- Pay equity — Diversity representation carries 5 percent of the bonus scorecard. Representation of women and ethnic and racial diversity representation each carry 2.5 percent of the Annual Performance Plan scorecard. Job postings state a commitment to pay equity, but no adjusted pay-gap study is published. [official]
- Allowances — No published relocation, commuter or car allowance schedule. Executive offer letters may contain individual relocation or perquisite terms, but nothing in the record supports a workforce-wide allowance table. [npd]
Benefit fields not publicly quantified
Carrier names, plan-by-plan deductibles, family coverage amounts, 401(k) vesting terms, disability coverage percentages and waiting periods, exact paid-time-off days by tenure, the education reimbursement cap and the fertility benefit limits are all absent from the public record. Benefit terms for the roughly 44 percent of employees under a collective bargaining agreement are set agreement by agreement and are not published in aggregate. These are recorded as not publicly disclosed rather than estimated. No India, Australia or other non-United States benefit applies, because American Water reported no employees outside the country.
Performance Review & Pay Progression
American Water publishes an annual executive review cycle and a certified bonus scorecard, and publishes nothing at all about how ordinary employees are rated. There is no public rating scale, no calibration description and no merit matrix, so this report records the absence rather than filling it with a generic five-point scale.
Not publicly disclosed
Modeled promotion planning timeline
| Band | Years to next scope | Promotion hike | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| A0 | 0.5–2 years to O1 or P1 | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| O1 | 2–5 years to P1 or M1 | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| P1 | 2–4 years to P2 | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| P2 | 3–5 years to P3 | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| P3 | 3–6 years to P4 | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| P4 | Terminal technical level for most careers | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| M1 | 2–4 years to M2 | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| M2 | 3–5 years to M3 | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| M3 | 3–6 years to M4 | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| M4 | 4–8 years to E0 where a role exists | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| E0 | Role and succession dependent | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| E1 | Board and chief executive appointment | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| E2 | Board succession decision | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| Board | Annual re-election | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
The one visible calendar is the incentive calendar. The compensation committee certifies the prior year around February, restricted units vest on 31 January, new grants and prior performance-cycle settlements land in mid-February, and Annual Performance Plan cash is generally paid by 15 March following the performance year. Internal mobility is material: 34 percent of the 1,439 positions filled in 2025 went to internal candidates, though that is a mobility rate rather than a promotion rate.
Pay progression evidence
Modelled progression, not American Water policy: A0 to P1 or O1 typically takes 0.5 to 2 years; P1 to P2 takes 2 to 4 years; P2 to P3 takes 3 to 5 years; P3 to P4 takes 3 to 6 years; M1 to M2 takes 2 to 4 years; M2 to M3 takes 3 to 5 years; M3 to M4 takes 3 to 6 years; and M4 to a vice-president role takes 4 to 8 years where a role exists. The promotion increase attached to each of those steps is genuinely not disclosed, so this report quantifies none of them. What can be observed is the band-to-band gap in the anchor table, which runs about 22 percent from P2 to P3, 19 percent from P3 to P4 and 38 percent from M3 to M4.
H-1B / LCA Visa Footprint — United States
American Water is a very small H-1B sponsor, and its immigration footprint is concentrated entirely in enterprise technology roles at the Camden headquarters. Eight certified labour condition applications in 2025 is not a workforce benchmark; it is a narrow window onto SAP, cloud and software roles at the senior and principal levels. Labour condition application wages are offered base salary only.
Dataset summary
| Dataset | Result | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| MyVisaJobs employer profile | 8 certified 2025 applications, 0 denials, average proffered salary about $148,380 | Also the source for the 2024 and 2023 filing counts. The profile covers American Water Works Service Company rather than the parent holding company. |
| H1BData.info Camden 2025 extract | 8 records with a $147,244 median and a $146,271 mean | Extracted independently of MyVisaJobs and used as the primary source for the percentile figures, since the two agree closely. |
| MyVisaJobs 2024 | 6 certified applications and 0 denials | Consistent with a sponsor that files a handful of senior technology roles a year rather than running a programme. |
| MyVisaJobs 2023 | 6 certified applications, 0 denials and 2 certified-withdrawn | Certified-withdrawn filings inflate raw counts without corresponding to a hire. |
| USCIS employer-level petition data | Not established in this research package | Because no primary USCIS employer dataset was re-established, this report does not report an H-1B petition approval rate and does not substitute the labour condition application certification rate for one. |
City-level H-1B wage history
| City | P25 | Median | P75 | Records |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Camden, New Jersey The only worksite with 2025 records. Every filing is a senior or principal SAP, cloud or software engineering role at the corporate headquarters, which is why the distribution sits well above the median American Water employee at $104,956. | $134K | $147,244 | $159K | 8 |
All-years aggregates. P25/P75 are rounded reconstruction values marked modeled; medians and record counts are the stronger fields.
Selected title / worksite records
| Title | Worksite | Proffered wage | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Principal Solution Engineer, SAP ISU | Camden, New Jersey | $167,582 offered base | Tied for the highest 2025 filing and consistent with the top of the P4 principal band. |
| Senior Solutions Developer, SAP ISU | Camden, New Jersey | $167,582 offered base | The same wage as the principal solution engineer filing, suggesting a shared internal rate for SAP ISU expertise. |
| Principal Solution Engineer | Camden, New Jersey | $156,659 offered base | Sits above the $145,000 P4 anchor median, as expected for a headquarters technology specialism. |
| Principal Technologist | Camden, New Jersey | $156,000 offered base | Within $700 of the principal solution engineer filing, which is a useful check on the P4 band width. |
| Senior Technologist, Cloud Operations | Camden, New Jersey | $138,489 offered base | Between the P3 lead anchor of $122,000 and the P4 anchor of $145,000. |
| Principal Software Engineer | Camden, New Jersey | $135,000 offered base | Notably below the SAP-specialist filings despite the principal title, which shows the wage tracks skill scarcity rather than title alone. |
| Senior Solution Engineer, SAP ISU CRM | Camden, New Jersey | $130,000 offered base | The senior-tier equivalent of the principal SAP roles, roughly $37,000 below them. |
| Senior Technologist | Camden, New Jersey | $118,858 offered base | The lowest 2025 filing and the floor of the observed distribution, sitting just below the P3 to P4 boundary. |
Reading the data correctly
- Labour condition application wages are proffered base salary. They exclude the Annual Performance Plan bonus and any share purchase plan discount, so they are not comparable with a total compensation figure.
- Eight records is a very small sample. The percentile figures are arithmetic on eight numbers, not a statistical distribution, and a single filing moves them materially.
- One worker can be associated with more than one filing, so certified applications overstate the number of people involved.
- Department of Labor certification of a labour condition application is not the same as USCIS approval of an H-1B petition. This report does not report an approval rate, because no primary USCIS employer-level dataset was established.
- These wages describe headquarters enterprise technology roles and say nothing about the pay of the field, treatment plant and customer operations employees who make up most of the American Water workforce.
Key Nuances & Insights
American Water reported 6,979 employees in the United States and none outside it at 31 December 2025. There is no India delivery centre, no Australian payroll and no offshore multiplier to calculate. Any table showing local salaries in those markets would be describing a different company.
The amended omnibus plan formally makes all employees eligible, and that language is easy to misread. Actual participation was about 324 employees plus nine nonemployee directors at 6 March 2026, out of roughly 7,000 people. Fewer than one employee in twenty holds a company-funded award.
Roughly 7,000 employees are eligible to buy shares quarterly at 85 percent of fair market value with a $25,000 annual cap. It is employee-funded rather than granted, so it is a discount rather than a gift, but it is the only equity most American Water employees will ever get.
American Water states that the Annual Performance Plan covers all employees, including represented employees where the agreement provides for it. That is broader than most large employers. Yet no target grid by band is published, so the plan reaches everyone while its economics are visible only for seven executives.
Adjusted earnings per share carries 50 percent of the 2025 scorecard. Customer satisfaction adds 15 percent, drinking-water quality 10 percent, the two safety rates 15 percent between them, compliance 5 percent and diversity representation 5 percent. A single financial metric therefore drives the payout more than everything operational combined.
Cheryl Norton's $6.34 million total is within $700,000 of the chief executive's, but $2.78 million of it is an actuarial pension-value change rather than pay. Strip it out and her cash plus equity is $3.49 million. The same effect inflates the Essential Utilities and California Water peer totals.
Stock awards were about 57.6 percent of John Griffith's 2025 total and salary about 14.5 percent. A technology chief executive is routinely 85 to 90 percent equity. Regulated utility earnings are set through rate cases rather than share-price expansion, and the pay design reflects that.
Most large-cap ratios mix a United States chief executive against a global median that includes lower-cost markets. American Water's 73:1 compares a United States chief executive with a United States median of $104,956, so it is one of the few ratios in this series that means what it appears to mean.
Associate, senior, lead, principal, supervisor, manager, senior manager and director are all observable in live postings with statutory salary ranges attached. The internal grade codes behind them are not published, and the only numeric references that ever appear in a filing are salary levels 80 and 90 in two historical offer letters.
About 44 percent of employees are represented under 74 collective bargaining agreements with 14 unions. Those agreements carry their own wage schedules and progression steps, which can differ substantially from the exempt professional bands modelled here and are not aggregated publicly.
All eight 2025 labour condition applications are senior or principal SAP, cloud and software roles in Camden, at $118,858 to $167,582. Reading them as a workforce benchmark would overstate typical American Water pay by roughly 40 percent against the $104,956 median.
The proposed stock-for-stock combination with Essential Utilities is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2027. A combined organisation would eventually have to harmonise grades, incentive targets and benefit plans across two workforces, and no post-close architecture is public.
Research control
American Water's chief executive pay ranks second among the six water utilities compared here, at $7.06 million against Essential Utilities at $9.21 million and California Water Service at $6.88 million, but rank order in this sector is heavily distorted by pension accounting and by the partial-year transition in American Water's own 2025 figure. On the employee side the picture is different: a $104,956 median employee is a solid regulated-utility wage, and the 73:1 ratio is far lower than the 200:1 and above that is normal in large-cap technology, largely because the workforce is entirely domestic and the chief executive package is comparatively cash-weighted.
Evidence classification
| Label | Meaning | Examples and permitted use |
|---|---|---|
| Verified | An American Water SEC filing, plan document, offer-letter exhibit or official job posting with a statutory salary range. | Executive pay, equity plan design, bonus scorecard weights, headcount, turnover, board pay and the P2, P3, P4 and M4 band anchors. |
| Reported | A named third-party dataset with observable records: Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, PayScale, Comparably and the visa aggregators. | The O1 frontline band, cross-checks on the professional bands and the Camden labour condition application distribution. |
| Modeled | The Camden anchor multiplied by a city display factor, or a band envelope interpolated between two disclosed posting anchors, inside a planning envelope. | Every city other than Camden and Belleville, the A0, P1, M1, M2, M3 and E0 rows and every non-executive bonus target. |
| Not publicly disclosed | No source in the research bundle supports a figure. | Recorded as such rather than estimated, most importantly for the rating scale, the merit matrix and city-level headcount. |
Explicit “Not publicly disclosed” index
Known gaps and diligence before relying on a cell
- 1The reference share price differs between the two artefacts in the bundle: the research report uses a rounded $138 for its illustrative share-count arithmetic while the structured data file records $137.82. This report uses $137.82 and notes that the illustrative purchase-plan share count of about 213 shares was computed on the rounded figure.
- 2Headcount is quoted two ways. The 2025 pay-ratio population is 6,979 and the company also describes its workforce as about 7,000. Both appear in the same filing; the 6,979 figure is used here because it is the precise, dated population.
- 3The 2023 Annual Performance Plan company payout factor was not re-established to the standard applied elsewhere in the bundle, so the payout history covers 2024 and 2025 only and does not guess at 2023.
- 4No United States Citizenship and Immigration Services employer-level petition dataset was re-established, so no H-1B approval rate is reported and the labour condition application certification rate is not substituted for one.
- 5The city display factors are analytical, derived from sampled postings and broad geography. American Water publishes no geographic differential table, and the bundle explicitly warns that these are not company pay zones.
- 6Equity is shown as zero for every band from A0 through M4. That reflects the absence of any evidenced routine grant, not a finding that no employee at those levels holds equity; the bundle models selective ranges of $0 to $250,000 depending on band, and roughly 324 employees do participate.
- 7The E0 vice-president row is bracketed by two historical offer-letter exhibits at salary levels 80 and 90 rather than by any current rate table, and its equity value is the midpoint of a modelled $220,000 to $900,000 range.
- 8A three-year median employee compensation series could not be assembled on a consistent methodology, so only the 2025 figure of $104,956 is reported.
- 9Legacy grade labels L07 and ML1 through ML3 appear in older plan and severance documents. Nothing establishes whether they remain current, so they are excluded from the band architecture entirely.
- 10No companywide 2026 salary increase percentage, pay freeze, salary cut or off-cycle correction was located in any source covering the two-year review window.
Source register — 12 sources
| DEF 14A 2026 | American Water Works 2026 Definitive Proxy Statement · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-03-24. Executive and director compensation, pay ratio, bonus scorecard weights and payout factor, long-term plan design and targets, equity plan participation counts and share purchase plan terms. |
| 10-K 2025 | American Water Works Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2025 · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02. Headcount, workforce geography, turnover, internal mobility, union coverage, benefit enrolment and equity plan share balances. |
| Offer exhibit L80 | SEC exhibit showing a senior leadership offer at salary level 80 · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2020-11. The lower vice-president anchor: $385,000 base with a 50 percent annual plan target and a 100 percent long-term plan target. |
| Offer exhibit L90 | SEC exhibit showing a senior leadership offer at salary level 90 · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2022-05. The upper vice-president anchor: $600,000 base with a 75 percent annual plan target and a 160 percent long-term plan target, plus the 401(k) match and defined contribution percentages. |
| Job postings | American Water careers postings for Director Operational Training, New Connection Project Manager, Lead Project Delivery Engineer and Principal Project Delivery Engineer · American Water Works Company, Inc. · 2026-08. The statutory salary ranges that anchor the P2, P3, P4 and M4 bands and the Camden and Belleville city evidence. |
| Forms 4 | Section 16 filings for Griffith, Norton, Mitchell and Wikle · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02-18. Restricted stock unit grants, performance stock unit settlements and tax withholding in the February 2026 cycle. |
| Levels.fyi | Levels.fyi American Water compensation records · Levels.fyi · 2026-08-26. Technology-role total compensation cross-check at roughly $128,600 to $191,000 with a median near $169,200. |
| Glassdoor | Glassdoor American Water salary observations · Glassdoor · 2026-08-26. The frontline and professional cross-checks, including customer service representatives at $38,000 to $53,000 and software engineers at $101,000 to $144,000. |
| PayScale and Comparably | PayScale and Comparably American Water salary estimates · PayScale and Comparably · 2026-08-26. Directional cross-checks only: an average base near $88,000 with a $5,000 average bonus, and an estimated average base plus bonus near $122,600. |
| MyVisaJobs | MyVisaJobs American Water Works Service Company profile · MyVisaJobs · 2026-08-26. Certified labour condition application counts for 2023 through 2025 and the average proffered salary. |
| H1BData | H1BData.info Camden 2025 wage extract · H1BData.info · 2026-08-26. The eight individual offered base wages and the percentile statistics derived from them. |
| Peer proxies | Essential Utilities, California Water Service, American States Water, Middlesex Water and SJW Group proxy statements · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-04. Peer chief executive compensation comparison and the pension-value change caveats attached to it. |
Recent News & Workforce Trend
American Water's compensation year has been shaped by a chief executive transition that completed in May 2025, a shareholder vote in May 2026 that extended both equity plans into the next decade, and a pending merger with Essential Utilities that is the largest unresolved variable in the company's future pay architecture.
Headcount has grown by roughly 3 to 4 percent a year while turnover has stayed in a narrow 10.5 to 11.5 percent band, which is a stable picture by any standard and a very stable one for a company hiring into field and treatment roles. Every employee in every year of this series is located in the United States. American Water publishes no city-level headcount, so Camden is identified as the headquarters rather than as the largest site.
The proposed stock-for-stock combination is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2027, subject to conditions. Integration would eventually touch grade design, incentive targets and benefit plans across both workforces, but no combined compensation architecture is public.
The omnibus plan takes effect on 1 January 2027 with a 7,180,623-share aggregate limit, and the share purchase plan takes effect on 5 February 2027 and runs to 2037. Broad purchase access continues while company-funded grants remain selective.
John Griffith's Summary Compensation Table total was $7,055,667 against an annualized pay-ratio figure of $7,697,503 and a median employee total of $104,956, a ratio of 73 to 1.
Forms 4 show the 2026 restricted stock unit grants, the 2023 performance stock unit cycle settling into shares and the associated tax withholding for Cheryl Norton and Melissa Wikle.
The amendment formally extends eligibility to all employees while leaving every award discretionary, and sets an individual annual maximum of 300,000 shares.
The chief executive, chief operating officer and general counsel each surrendered shares to the issuer to cover tax at a $129 reference price. None of the January dispositions was an open-market sale.
Up from 10.5 percent in 2024, with internal candidates filling 34 percent of the 1,439 positions filled during the year. No employees were located outside the United States.
The certified company scorecard finished above target for a second consecutive year, after 157.32 percent for 2024. The plan covers all employees, so the factor reaches well beyond the executive population.
His terms were set at a $1,050,000 base with a 120 percent annual plan target and a 430 percent long-term plan target. The off-cycle timing is why his 2025 salary line reads $1,026,418 and the pay ratio uses an annualized figure instead.