Thomas Valachovics is a hydrogeologist with the Ohio Geological Survey. Specializing in glacial aquifer systems, his current projects include the statewide mapping of groundwater vulnerability in Ohio. Valachovics brings additional experience in geomorphology, geochronology, and geophysics to the survey, and has worked previously with the Indiana Geological and Water Survey. He earned a B.S. in geology from Grand Valley State University and an M.S. in geology from the University of Toledo.

Krista Hardin is with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey, in Columbus, Ohio, where her primary duties involve mapping groundwater vulnerability and assisting with Ohio’s Groundwater Observation Well Network. Originally from Cleveland, she holds a bachelor’s degree in geology from Kent State University and is currently working toward a master’s degree in geographic information science.

James Raab is a hydrogeologist at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey, in Columbus, Ohio. He earned a B.S. in geology from the University of Toledo and an M.S. in geology and Earth science from Michigan State University.

Karen Kinsella, Ph.D., is a biogeochemist at GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc. in Glastonbury, Connecticut. She has more than 40 years’ experience in the agricultural, analytical, construction, energy, environmental, and radionuclide sectors. Her consulting practice focuses on applying biochemical and geochemical processes for active remediation and natural attenuation of soil and groundwater contaminants. Kinsella has taught chemistry and environmental science at the secondary school level. She earned an M.S. in chemistry from Central Connecticut State University in 1996 and a Ph.D. in soil chemistry and microbiology from the University of Connecticut in 2009.

William M. Alley, Ph.D., is the NGWA director of science and technology. Previously, he served as chief, Office of Groundwater for the U.S. Geological Survey for almost two decades. Alley has published more 100 scientific publications and coauthored with his wife, Rosemarie, High and Dry: Meeting the Challenges of the World’s Growing Dependence on Groundwater. Among other awards, Alley received the USGS Shoemaker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Communication and the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award. He holds a B.S. in geological engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, an M.S. in hydrogeology from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University.

Edd T. Schofield has more than 40 years of field experience in water well and oil and gas drilling and well completion designs across the U.S. Southwest and Alaska. He began working in the oilfield as a summer hire with Getty Oil prior to graduation from college. Upon graduation, Schofield was recruited by BJ Hughes, an oilfield service company, as a regional sales engineer with operation responsibilities for the West Coast and Alaska. He then joined Johnson Screens as the district sales and marketing manager for the Southwest.

Schofield is a member of NGWA, AWWA, and the Society of Petroleum Engineers. In addition, he was the 2007 William A. McEllhiney Distinguished Lecturer in Water Well Technology. Schofield is a graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, with a B.S. degree in business administration with an engineering emphasis.

Thomas “Thom” M. Hanna, PG, is employed as a technical director for water well products/hydrogeologist for Johnson Screens where he works in areas of well design, construction, rehabilitation, and development. Before working for Johnson Screens, he worked for more than 20 years as a hydrogeologist for several groundwater consulting firms including Hydrologic Consultants Inc., S.S. Papadopulos & Associates Inc., and Golder Associates.

His experiences include hydrogeologic investigations, and design and optimization of well efficiencies for mine dewatering and water supply investigations. Hanna has authored or coauthored many publications including the Operational Stage of the Well, three chapters of the third edition of Groundwater & Wells, and numerous technical papers. He has been an instructor and invited lecturer for many groundwater organizations and universities.

Hanna received a B.S. in geology from Michigan State University and an M.S. in geology from Western Michigan University.

Christopher S. Johnson, PG, CHg, has nearly 40 years of applied industry experience in groundwater assessment, hydrogeology, well design and construction, well rehabilitation, groundwater aquifer testing, geochemistry, and hard rock aquifer assessments.

Key project experience ranges from deep water supply wells designed to avoid naturally occurring contaminants and project manager for groundwater monitoring at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco to the technical lead on the Deep Groundwater Monitoring Well Installation Program for the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico. Johnson has assessed aquifers for the source of naturally occurring arsenic and uranium, then successfully designed high-capacity municipal supply wells with little to no reportable concentrations of these constituents present. He has been the principal hydrogeologist on several large-scale groundwater assessments that included modeling and testing aquifer performance of deep, high-capacity test wells.

Knowledgeable of both technical and regulatory requirements, Johnson has significant experience in conducting cost-benefit analysis for new wells, new wellfields, well rehabilitation, and aquifer assessments. He is also well versed in dealing with regulatory requirements related to water quality, production, and basin yield.

Michael “Mike” Schnieders, PG, PH-GW, is the lead hydrogeologist and president of Water Systems Engineering Inc., a diagnostic laboratory and consulting firm in Ottawa, Kansas. He coauthored the Operational Stage of the Well with Thomas M. Hanna, PG, and John H. Schnieders, FAIC, CPC, and has also authored numerous technical papers on water resources, well fouling, and water testing. Schnieders was The Groundwater Foundation’s 2017 McEllhiney Distinguished Lecturer in Water Well Technology. He received a B.S. in geology from Kansas State University and an M.S. in geology from Wichita State University.

Tabatha Dellwo is currently a territory sales representative at Pentair Flow Technologies. For the three years she’s been with Pentair, she’s held sales positions focused on both commercial and residential pumping applications. Dellwo has more than 15 years of experience in the water industry and holds a B.B.A. degree from the ITT Technical Institute.

Richard A. Mest is president of Master Water Conditioning Corp., a manufacture of a variety of water treatment products, services, and technical support for residential, commercial, and industrial applications. His responsibilities include executive decision-making, product development, identifying new technology opportunities, educational program development, and customer training. He has worked at the company since 1978.

Mest is an active member in the Water Quality Association and is a past president. He is on the Water Quality Research Foundation Board of Directors, where he serves as vice president, and is a member of the Water Systems Council, where he serves on the board of directors as immediate past president. Mest is also a member of the Oregon Ground Water Association, where he serves on the board of directors, and Lifetime Wells International, where he serves on its board of directors. He previously served on the National Sanitation Foundation task force for the development of testing protocol for the water softener testing standard 44. He continues to serve on many water quality and water resource industry committees and task forces where he guides policy, government affairs, consumer outreach, and technical advancement.

In addition, Mest is an avid educator and has performed seminars for water treatment-related trade associations, health departments, and children’s programs. He has written many technical articles on water treatment technology, as well as seminar formats approved for state certification continued education. He recently received WQA’s “Award of Merit” and “Key Award” for his dedication to educating members of the water industry.

Fred Rothauge, CWD, is drilling fluids and well rehabilitation manager for Hydro Resources and past owner and president of Quality Drilling Fluids, a company he started and owned for 22 years. He has over 38 years’ experience in oil and gas, mining, water well drilling, and well rehabilitation.

Rothauge serves on the NGWA Contractors Board and served as president of the Colorado Water Well Contractors Association in 2019. He has coauthored papers on drilling fluid products and is a coauthor of Johnson Screen’s third edition of Groundwater & Wells. His primary interests are in groundwater resources development and well rehabilitation. Rothauge holds water well driller licenses in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. His NGWA certification includes air rotary drilling, mud rotary drilling, reverse circulation drilling, and well servicing and maintenance.

Todd Krause, PE, has 11 years of experience in the design and management of water systems, and currently sits on the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Technical Advisory Group for Well Construction.

Jeffrey “Jeff” Williams, MGWC, CVCLD, began his career in the groundwater industry with his first full-time job at Spafford & Sons in Jericho, Vermont, in June 1980. He and his father purchased that company in 1984. Williams’ experience has been varied both in water well supply and geothermal heat pump operations. Like all water well supply contractors and one involved in a family business, he understands firsthand the challenges of working with a resource that consumers can’t see until it is brought to the surface, the immediate business impacts of regional and national economic conditions, and the critical need to plan for all types of contingencies. Williams became active in NGWA in 2006 as a member of its Safety Subcommittee and as a director candidate. He has served on the NGWA board and was president in 2016.

Sarah R. Liljefelt is a partner and the managing attorney at Schroeder Law Offices’ Portland, Oregon office. She represents water users in the western United States, focusing on water rights review, evaluation, due diligence, permitting, transfer, cancellation, water-related real property issues and disputes, public records, meetings, and contracting compliance, administrative contested cases, and state and federal litigation.

Liljefelt is licensed to practice law in Oregon, California, and Utah. She volunteers as a law student mentor for Lewis & Clark Law School and a new lawyer mentor for the Oregon State Bar. She serves as the chair of the Oregon State Bar’s Environmental & Natural Resources Section and also chair of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association’s Water Committee. Liljefelt holds a B.S. degree from the University of Utah and graduated from Lewis & Clark Law School with an environmental and natural resources certificate.

Douglas Hunter has more than 30 years of experience in all phases of the exploration and development of both small- and large-capacity groundwater supplies. He has considerable experience in hydrogeology with emphasis on groundwater flow investigations and characterizations, aquifer test analysis and interpretation, groundwater and surface water interactions, groundwater-supply development and management, and design and installation of well systems.

Hunter has evaluated critical issues such as natural recharge limitations, groundwater and surface water interactions, interferences with existing pumping centers, and water balance computations to estimate long-term groundwater yields. His unique capabilities include experience in evaluating the design, performance, and utility of both conventional vertical wells and horizontal radial collector wells. Projects have included wellfield siting and expansion studies for both vertical and horizontal collector wells, safe yield determinations, well rehabilitation and maintenance evaluations, wellfield management strategies and plans, water quality investigations, and source water protection studies.

In addition, Hunter has provided project management of hydrogeological investigations for groundwater-supply development, wellfield management, source water protection studies, production well design and installation, and aquifer and wellfield performance testing. This has involved the preparation of detailed specifications for new well installations and assistance with bidding and construction oversight, while responsibilities have encompassed the supervision and coordination of field activities associated with geologic and hydrologic site investigations, including drilling operations, geophysical surveys, variable rate and constant rate pumping tests, and the collection and interpretation of data.

Raymond H. Johnson, Ph.D., has more than 20 years’ experience in groundwater geochemistry and hydrogeology. For the past five years, he has been providing uranium geochemistry, reactive transport modeling, and hydrogeology expertise at legacy uranium mill sites as a contractor (currently Navarro Research and Engineering Inc.) for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management.

Prior to this, Johnson worked for 12 years with the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado, conducting research using reactive transport models to better understand potential groundwater impacts related to abandoned and future metal mines. This included abandoned hard-rock mines in Silverton, Colorado, and a proposed in situ leach uranium mine in South Dakota.

While at the USGS, Johnson cotaught several geochemical modeling classes with other USGS geochemistry experts, including David Parkhurst, the main author of PHREEQC. He has also taught several geochemical and reactive transport modeling classes in Finland and South Africa. In addition, Johnson has cotaught several workshops on geochemical reaction modeling with Bill Deutsch, Ph.D., for government agencies and professional development organizations, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy, and NGWA.

Johnson holds a master’s degree from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, which involved research on the geochemistry and hydrogeology of abandoned nickel tailings in Sudbury, Ontario. He obtained his Ph.D. at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, where his research involved the use of ground-penetrating radar to calibrate multiphase flow models of dense non-aqueous phase liquid spills.

Randy Hunt has worked in the groundwater industry for more than 30 years. His experience includes extensive acquisition and processing of field data, and construction, calibration, and uncertainty analysis of groundwater and surface water models. Hunt currently works for the U.S. Geological Survey; prior to that he served in the private sector. He also conducts courses in groundwater modeling through the University of Wisconsin, Madison, as well as the USGS. Hunt has been an associate editor for the journal Groundwater® since 1997 and currently serves as an advisor to the editor-in-chief. He is coauthor of the popular textbook Applied Groundwater Modeling and is a contributor to the public domain PEST++ software.

John Doherty, Ph.D., is the 2019 Groundwater Foundation Darcy Lecturer. He is also the author of the PEST suite of software. Doherty has worked in the water industry as both a geophysicist and a modeler in a career spanning more than 40 years. He has been employed by government, academic, and consulting institutions, and presently runs his own company, Watermark Numerical Computing of which he is the sole employee.

Marvin F. Glotfelty, RG, cofounder and principal hydrogelogist with Clear Creek Associates, a groundwater consulting firm with offices in Arizona, California, and Virginia, is a licensed well driller in Arizona and has served as the technical director of the Arizona Water Well Association since 1990. He is a registered geologist in Arizona and California.

During his professional career spanning nearly three decades, Glotfelty has participated in almost every aspect of the hydrogeologic sciences including recharge projects, water supply studies, water rights issues, groundwater quality, well installation programs, and well rehabilitation projects. He’s been involved with the design, installation, rehabilitation, or abandonment of more than 800 water wells in the southwestern United States.

Glotfelty has given more than 100 presentations on hydrogeologic and water well topics in 17 U.S. states and five other countries — Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, and Mexico. He’s authored more than 20 publications, served as a senior editor for the Illustrated Glossary of Driller’s Terms published by NGWA Press in 2003, and provided editorial review for a chapter in the third edition of Groundwater & Wells published by Johnson Screens in 2008. In 1995, Glotfelty received the City of Phoenix Mayor’s Environmental Award for his work with rehabilitation of municipal wells to improve their water quality, and, in 2012, Glotfelty served as the McEllhiney Lecturer. Glotfelty holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology from Northern Arizona University.