School of Engineering

Back in the early 1980s, when I was starting to think about what I wanted to do when I grew up, I encountered an article with a title along the lines of “Lesser Known Colleges and Universities of Higher Quality.” One of the institutions mentioned was Humboldt State University. That article planted a seed in me that would reach fruition a few years later.

I started out at a junior college in my home state of New Jersey, and after three semesters decided that I wanted to make the jump to a university. I had the notion at that time that I wanted to get a degree in environmental engineering, and when I looked for programs with similar sounding titles, sure enough, there was Humboldt again. Unfortunately, moving to California and paying out-of-state tuition was beyond my means, so I stayed in New Jersey and enrolled at Rutgers University in Piscataway.

Suffice it to say, Rutgers was definitely not an ideal institution for me: huge class sizes, professors who didn’t care about teaching, and a geographic setting that was the furthest thing from being worthy of postcard status—exactly the opposite of HSU. As I tried to plan my escape, I stumbled on a program called the National Student Exchange, which allowed students to go out of state for a year without paying out-of-state tuition. At that time, there were three participating universities claiming to have environmental engineering programs, and Humboldt was one of these. I concluded at that point that attending the ERE program at HSU was my destiny. There was simply no other possible interpretation.

I signed up to make the jump to HSU, and in August 1986, I arrived in Arcata, sight unseen. It was a leap of faith, and one that I have never regretted. Technically, the intent of the National Student Exchange was for students to return to their school of origin after one year, but I had no intention of leaving Humboldt that quickly. I took the requisite steps to establish California residency, and I settled in for the long haul.

My time at Humboldt was punctuated with high points, struggles, and life lessons—all in all, a typical collegiate story. At no point did I ever second guess my decision. Life in Arcata in general, and the ERE program in particular, were formative experiences for me, and when I moved away to start my career, a big part of me regretted leaving Humboldt County.

Since then, I’ve managed to carve out a niche in the water resources engineering consulting world, while largely managing to steer clear of marketing and management, two topics that most engineering schools don’t warn you about.

For my first several years after graduation, I worked at Larry Walker Associates, a water quality consulting firm in Davis, California. In the middle of my tenure there, I took an 8-month trans-continental travel sabbatical to explore some national parks and other attractions that I had never seen—places like Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Tetons, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, Zion, etc., plus points east. I enjoyed the trip so much, I did another one four years later that was even more extensive. I opted to change jobs after that trip, and ever since then I have been with West Yost Associates, a water resources engineering firm headquartered in Davis.

One of the more interesting projects I’ve worked on in my career was the Davis Woodland Water Supply Project, which involved the cities of Woodland and Davis converting their longstanding shallow and intermediate-depth groundwater supplies to a surface water supply from the Sacramento River. A large part of my role on that project was planning and structuring the water supply portfolios of both cities to be resilient against severe, prolonged drought conditions. After a great deal of initial political resistance (mostly in Davis), the project has now been fully operational for two years, and as far as I know, no one is complaining. The project wasn’t cheap, but the water quality benefits were immediate and very significant. I still have a role on some of the routine technical management activities of the project.

In my spare time, I like hiking and making music. I play drums in a Tom Petty tribute band, Great Wide Open, which my old ERE pal Mike Anderson (aka “Professor Mike”) and his wife Leslie recently came to see. I am also in two variety cover bands, and one of these, Water Hammer, is the house band at work.

And, of course, I try to make it back to my old HSU stomping grounds whenever I get a chance.