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.

Art Becker, CPG, MGWC, NGWAF, holds drilling licenses in 11 states and is president of Drilling and Safety Consultants LLC, which provides consulting services to the groundwater and drilling industries. He has more than 40 years of drilling industry experience with specific knowledge of water well, mineral, environmental, and geotechnical drilling applications.

Becker is chairman of the New Jersey State Well Drillers and Pump Installers Licensing and Examining Advisory Board. He served as the 2011 president of NGWA. Becker is a geology graduate of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Jonathan “Jon” A. Zanders is currently a staff environmental scientist for Stone Environmental Engineering and Science Inc. He has more than 20 years of experience in the environmental field and is experienced in Phase I and Phase II environmental site assessments, UST closure and corrective actions, and sampling and analysis of soil, groundwater, building materials, sediments, surface water, and wastewater. Zanders also has extensive experience in project field management, site supervision, health and safety, report preparation, and data interpretation and management.

Throughout his career, he has worked for Barium & Chemicals Inc. of Steubenville, Ohio, a former Union Carbide facility in Ashtabula, Ohio, and ESAB Welding & Cutting Products of Taneytown, Maryland. From 2006-2010, Zanders participated in the Nielsen Field School North American Environmental Conference and Exposition (NAEFCon) with a groundwater focus. He also participated in the Ohio EPA Division of Environmental Response and Revitalization/Voluntary Action Program Ground Water Training, Well Development, and Ground Water Sampling in 2013.

Heather Martin, Ph.D., has taught writing and research at the University of Denver for more than 12 years in both the English Department and the University Writing Program. In addition to teaching, she facilitates writing workshops for students, faculty, and professionals in diverse fields. Martin received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Denver.

Brad Benz, Ph.D., teaches technical writing and argumentation courses at the University of Denver, where he is a lecturer in the writing program. A rhetorician and linguist, he received his Ph.D. in English language and rhetoric from the University of Washington.

Richard Thron, MGWC, is currently with Mantyla Well Drilling Inc. in Lakeland, Minnesota, where he began working full-time in 1966. He enjoyed limited ownership in the company from 1973 to 2000 when he became the sole owner.

Thron, an NGWA member since the 1980s, has served on numerous Association committees and taskforces. In addition, he was president in 2015 and is currently a director. Thron has also participated in several panel discussions and seminars as a speaker on DOT-OSHA, safety, air rotary drilling, public education, and other related topics.

Denis Crayon, CHST, is the director of Health and Safety for Summit Drilling Co. Inc. He began his career working for Aquifer Drilling/Testing in Queens, New York, as an apprentice/driller. He earned a journeyman license drilling for HRS/B&B Drilling in New Jersey and drilled at ADT/Diamond Drilling, also in New Jersey. Crayon moved to Summit Drilling in Bridgewater, New Jersey, as a driller and became fleet mechanic, purchasing manager, and director of health and safety. Equipment he operated included IR T-3/T-4, Gus Pech, Mobile, CME, and Acker. He received BCSP certification as a CHST in 2010. His credentials include OSHA 10/30 Hour Construction/General Industry Trainer, First Aid/CPR Trainer, and Defensive Driving Instructor. In addition, he provides other health and safety trainings. Crayon currently serves as a director on the NGWA Board of Directors and as the president of the New Jersey Ground Water Association.

Bill Deutsch, Geochemistry Services LLC, is a groundwater geochemist with more than 40 years of experience. He’s been involved with all aspects of contamination characterization, fate and transport modeling, and remediation. Deutsch’s project experience includes environmental assessments and investigations of landfills, manufacturing plants, refineries, pesticide plants/distributorships, military bases, mines and mills, federal weapons facilities, and a wide variety of additional industrial sites. He’s also participated in remedial designs of sites contaminated with metals, radionuclides, pesticides, solvents, petroleum hydrocarbons, and ordnance compounds. Deutsch worked as a research scientist for 13 years at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and as a consultant for more than 27 years. Since 1985, he has instructed more than 190 classes on groundwater geochemistry and geochemical modeling for professional organizations, federal/state agencies, and private companies. Deutsch is the author of Groundwater Geochemistry published by CRC Press in 1997.

David P. Gold, Ph.D., (B.S., M.S. geology, University of Natal, South Africa; Ph.D. geology, McGill University, Montreal) has conducted detailed geologic and structural mapping in Canada, Africa, and the United States, and has taught courses in photogeology, remote sensing, and structural geology at Penn State University since 1968.

Gold also served on the MLA-MRS Advisory Group (NASA) on remote sensing and space technology in the 1980s. Gold has written and presented many papers involving the use of remote sensing for natural resources and environmental problems and investigations, with emphasis on lineament and fracture relationships and geologic and structural mapping, and authored chapters on the applications of remote sensing to structural geology in both the Manual of Remote Sensing and Remote Sensing in Geology texts.

Chuck Job, NGWA regulatory affairs manager, also addresses groundwater resource sustainability. He previously worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for more than 29 years, having served since 2000 as its infrastructure branch chief. While there, he worked with states to utilize a backlog of more than $1 billion in infrastructure financial assistance, and also led critical work in standards and risk management, underground injection control, regulatory coordination, and information collection. During part of his agency tenure, Job worked in EPA Region 5 in Chicago in groundwater protection and water quality standards planning.

Previously, Job worked as a planner for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Great Lakes Basin Commission, and as a financial analyst for Fortune 500 companies. He also was a charter participant in the development of the National Ground-Water Monitoring Network, a multiagency, private sector data sharing project. Job earned master’s degrees in environmental science (Miami University) and applied economics (University of Michigan). He holds credentials as a sustainability professional with both the U.S. Green Building Council and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.

Jeffrey A. Johnson, Ph.D., CPG, LRS, is currently working as a geologist with NewFields. Having more than 25 years of professional experience in natural resource assessment, site characterization, remedial operations, and technical analyses, he’s worked on various projects throughout North America for major petroleum corporations, legal firms, manufacturing companies, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Johnson has worked on groundwater/surface water issues for more than 20 years. For the past 10 years, he has worked extensively in the characterization and remediation of LNAPL and DNAPL sites, and is actively working on NAPL impacts to sediments and characterizing the differences between groundwater and in situ NAPL emplacement. Johnson holds a Ph.D. in geology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Meng Ling, Ph.D., PE, with AME Inc., has 20 years of experience in environmental and municipal engineering. His professional expertise includes site characterization and remediation, groundwater and NAPL modeling, visualization and litigation support, statistical and geostatistical analysis, monitoring optimization, water and wastewater engineering, and environmental software development. Ling’s authored a variety of publications regarding groundwater modeling and monitoring, NAPL characterization and assessment, litigation support, and other technical issues. He is also a coauthor of the Monitoring and Remediation Optimization System, or MAROS, decision-support software developed by the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence. In addition, Johnson is a frequent presenter at environmental conferences and workshops. He holds a B.S in civil engineering, an M.S. in municipal engineering, and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering.

Richard R. Parizek received a B.A. in geology from the University of Connecticut, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Illinois. He has been involved in educational aspects of groundwater science for more than 43 years. Since 1961, he has taught hydrogeology, geomorphology, glacial geology, and environmental geology courses at Pennsylvania State University, as well as conducting various workshops and short courses in hydrogeology and remote sensing.

Parizek formerly conducted research at the Ground Water Geology and Geophysical Exploration Section of the Illinois State Geological Survey and the Saskatchewan Research Council, Saskatchewan, Canada. He is a codeveloper with L.A. Lattman of the fracture trace method of groundwater exploration.

Parizek has authored and presented numerous papers on the application of remote sensing and fracture trace techniques for the solution of various hydrogeological, geotechnical, and environmental problems including water well location, lineament mapping, contaminant migration, monitoring and cleanup, flow in karst terrains, and the siting of radioactive waste repositories.

In addition to receiving the M. King-Hubbard Science Award for 1993, the Hydrogeology Division Distinguished Service Award from the Geological Society of America, the 2001 C.V. Theis Award, American Institute of Hydrology, and other awards, he has served for more than eight years on the Nuclear Waste Review Board, which is charged with the review and analysis of the U.S. DOE Yucca Mountain Project.

Roger E. Renner, MGWC, NGWAF, is president of E.H. Renner & Sons Inc. He is the fourth of five generations of this family-owned business located in Elk River, Minnesota. Aside from the overall operation of this business, he is specifically responsible for the municipal, large well sealing, and monitoring markets.

Renner is a long-time member of NGWA. He is also a past president of NGWA, past president of the Minnesota Water Well Association, and a member and chair of the Minnesota Department of Health Advisory Council on Wells and Borings.