|
|
| |
Bios for Speakers and Panelists
PETER BINNEY
Aurora Water
Peter Binney is the Director of Aurora Water and has
responsibility for all water, wastewater and storm water
utility services in this city of 300,000 people in the
metropolitan area. Since joining the City in early 2002, he
has been responsible for implementing a benchmark water
conservation program that resulted in annual reductions of
water |
 |
deliveries of more than 30 percent. He has also instituted a
series of drought recovery programs including short-term leases of
agricultural water and cooperative agreements with other water
agencies to re-establish carryover storage levels. Under his
guidance, the City has identified a program that maximizes the use
of currently developed water resources and established a long-term
capital improvements program that will increase the water resources
available under severe drought conditions and for anticipated growth
in the coming decades. He is a Governor's appointee to the
Intrastate Basin Compact Commission and the domestic water provider
representative to the Metro Roundtable. He holds postgraduate
degrees in civil engineering and water resources engineering and is
a member of the American Water Works Association, American Society
of Civil Engineers and American Society of Military Engineers.
THOMAS CECH
Central Colorado Water Conservancy District
Tom Cech is Executive Director of the Central Colorado Water
Conservancy District in Greeley, and has been in that position since
1982. Tom received a bachelor’s degree in education from Kearney
State College, and a master’s degree in community and regional
planning from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He teaches an
undergraduate course in water resources at Colorado State
University, and previously taught a similar course at the University
of Northern Colorado in Greeley. He is author of a water resources
textbook, Principles of Water Resources: History, Development,
Management, and Policy (John Wiley & Sons, 2nd edition).
CHRISTOPHER GOEMANS
Western Water Assessment (WWA)
Christopher Goemans holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University
of Colorado. Dr. Goemans currently holds a post-doctoral research
position at CU sponsored by the Western Water Assessment (WWA). His
current work focuses on developing a better understanding of how
consumers respond to long and short-term conservation programs.
ALAN HAMEL
Board of Water Works in Pueblo, Colorado
Alan Hamel is the Executive Director of the Board of Water Works in
Pueblo, Colorado, a position he has held since 1982. Mr. Hamel has
been employed in the Board of Water Works for 46 years, holding
various positions.
Alan is affiliated and served in a number of different capacities
for a wide range of water-related entities. They include the
Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, Historic Arkansas
Riverwalk of Pueblo Authority, Statewide Water Supply Initiative,
Arkansas Basin Roundtable Committee, Interbasin Compact Committee,
Colorado Water Congress and the Pueblo Economic Development
Corporation.
BEN HARDING
Hydrosphere
Mr. Harding has more than 35 years of diverse experience in
water resources engineering. For more than 20 years, he has focused
his practice on the design, development and use of hydrologic and
river/reservoir system models, decision support systems, hydraulic
models, water-quality models, GIS and databases. This experience
includes over twenty years of project management, successfully
directing engineers, scientists and programmers in these areas. Mr.
Harding has longstanding interest in and experience with the water
resources of the Colorado River. He has been constructing and using
models of the Colorado River Basin since 1982. He directed the water
resources modeling for the Severe Sustained Drought project. Mr.
Harding currently leads Hydrosphere’s efforts in the areas of
forecasting, assessing climate change impacts, and the use of
paleohydrology. Mr. Harding has served as an expert witness in
original jurisdiction interstate compact litigation. In addition, he
has served as an expert witness regarding the fate of toxic
compounds in municipal water distribution systems and the estimation
of human intakes of contaminants. Mr. Harding received his B.S.
degree from the University of Colorado in 1971. He has been a
registered engineer in Colorado since 1979.
Eric Hecox
Colorado Department of Natural Resources
Eric Hecox is the manager of the office of Interbasin
Compact Negotiations. Prior to joining the Office of Interbasin
Compact Negotiations, he served as a Natural Resource Specialist to
the Bureau of Land Management’s National Science and Technology
Center under a Presidential Management Fellowship. Under the
Presidential Management Fellowship program, Eric worked on rotation
with DNR where he assisted Director George in researching and
developing the idea of interbasin compacts and provided a framework
for House Bill 05-1177 “Colorado Water for the 21st
Century Act.”
As a Presidential Management Fellow with the Bureau of Land
Management, Eric provided expertise to federal, state, and field
offices on water rights, water quality, water management and water
policy. In this capacity he also taught water rights courses in
Montana and New Mexico, compiled state water quality law summaries
and developed an on-line Introduction to Water Law course.
Eric received his B.A. in biology from Lawrence University and prior
to graduate school was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of
Zimbabwe where he studied community-based natural resource
management. He earned an M.S. in environmental science and a Masters
of Public Affairs from Indiana University. As a graduate student,
Eric completed a thesis entitled
“Collaborative Water Resource Management: Stakeholder Participation in the
Colorado River Basin.”
Tom Iseman
The Nature Conservancy
Since January 2001, Tom Iseman has managed the water program for The
Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Colorado. In this capacity, Tom works on
projects to protect rivers and wetlands—and the plants and animals
they support—across Colorado and the American Southwest. Tom has
contributed to statewide and regional water supply planning and
river protection efforts, including Colorado’s Statewide Water
Supply Initiative and the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish
Recovery Program, hailed as a model effort to recover species while
protecting human water supplies. Tom has also worked at TNC’s
on-the-ground river and wetland projects across Colorado and the
American Southwest, applying new tools in partnership with local
stakeholders to protect rivers and streams directly. Prior to
working with TNC, Tom worked for the Department of the Interior in
Washington, D.C., focusing on water and hydropower issues for the
Office of Policy.
Tom grew up in Englewood, CO, and received a B.A. in history from
Princeton University (focusing on Western water issues) and an M.S.
in aquatic ecology from the University of Michigan.
Lyn Kathlene
Colorado Institute of Public Policy, Colorado State University
Lyn Kathlene is the director of the Colorado Institute of
Public Policy (CIPP) at Colorado State University, an
interdisciplinary research institute that addresses major policy
issues facing the Rocky Mountain West. It brings together local
practitioners and academic researchers to contribute to public
policy discourse involving interactions among the environment,
agriculture, and people. Specific approaches used by the CIPP to
promote access to information include: (1) White papers that bring
together academic knowledge and the community concerns; (2) Short
papers on pressing policy issues that translate academic research
into lay language for policymakers and communities; (3) Community
forums and conferences that facilitate dialogues and action planning
among academics, policymakers, and community stakeholders; and (4)
Facilitation of new project development by bringing affected
communities into partnerships with academics.
In addition to the Institute’s research projects, Dr. Kathlene has
worked extensively with communities, facilitated research-based
stakeholder dialogues, directed numerous community action projects
and published reports and articles on citizen participatory
planning, research methods and the impact of institutional culture
on policymaking. Her research examines the policy formulation
process with a focus on how people and groups that have typically
lacked political power can be effectively heard; how participatory
policymaking can change the process and outcomes of public policy;
and how community features affect democratic engagement.
Doug Kenney
Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado
Doug Kenney is senior research associate with the Natural
Resources Law Center, a member of the Core Faculty of CU’s
Environmental Studies program, and Deputy Director of the CU-CIRES/NOAA
Western Water Assessment, a consortium of researchers assisting
water managers and other stakeholders to address the challenges
associated with climate change and variability. His research and
publications are highly interdisciplinary, focused primarily on
issues of western water, public lands and natural resources
governance. He has a B.A. in biology from the University of
Colorado, an M.A. in natural resources policy and administration
from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in renewable natural
resource studies from the University of Arizona.
Eric Kuhn
Colorado River Water Conservation District
Eric Kuhn serves as the General Manager of the Colorado
River Water Conservation District. Prior to working for the River
District, he served as an engineer officer aboard nuclear submarines
in the U.S. Navy and worked as a nuclear start-up engineer for
Bechtel Power Corporation.
Eric started employment with the River District in 1981 as Assistant
Secretary-Engineer. His responsibilities since then have included
technical management of River District activities such as Taylor
Draw Dam and Reservoir, Wolford Mountain Reservoir, water marketing,
interstate water issues and integrated project operations. He has
served on the Engineering Advisory Committee of the Upper Colorado
River Compact Commission since 1981.
In July 1996 Eric assumed his current duties as General Manager of
the Colorado River Water Conservation District. From 1994 through
2001, Eric represented the Colorado mainstem on the Colorado Water
Conservation Board. In 2006, Eric was appointed by Governor Owens as
an at-large representative on the Colorado Interbasin Compact
Commission.
James S. Lochhead
Brownstein Hyatt & Farber P.C.
James Lochhead is a shareholder in the Denver law firm of
Brownstein Hyatt & Farber P.C., with his office in Glenwood Springs,
Colorado. His practice emphasizes water rights, land use, real
estate, municipal and special district, federal administrative and
permitting and legislative law. He has represented public agencies
in interstate and river basin-level water rights matters, including
the state of New Mexico in facilitating a settlement of the basin
wide adjudication of the Pecos River, and the state of Colorado and
several major water districts in interstate and international
Colorado River issues. He also represents Idaho Power Company with
respect to Snake River water rights and endangered species.
From 1994 to 1998, Mr. Lochhead was executive director of the
Colorado Department of Natural Resources. He has held numerous
appointed and board and commission positions, including the Colorado
Conservation Trust; The Nature Conservancy Colorado Program;
Colorado Open Lands; the Colorado Water Trust; the Board of Great
Outdoors Colorado; the External Advisory Board of the Environment
and Natural Resources Policy Institute at Colorado State University;
the Advisory Board of the Natural Resources Law Center at the
University of Colorado School of Law; the Colorado Water
Conservation Board, the Upper Colorado River Basin Commission; and
the University of Colorado School of Law, Alumni Board of Directors.
Bill Lord
University of Arizona
William B. Lord is professor emeritus of agricultural and
resource economics, of hydrology and water resources and of
renewable natural resources in the University of Arizona. He was
Director of the Water Resources Research Center at Arizona and,
earlier, Director of the Center for Natural Resource Policy Studies
and Programs at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He was also
one-time President of Policy Sciences Associates in Boulder and a
Representative in Mexico for Resources for the Future. A Fellow of
the American Water Resources Association, he received the Boggess
award for the best paper published in the Water Resources
Bulletin in 1979, and was later the editor of that journal. He
served as economic advisor to the Assistant Secretary of the Army
for Civil Works, and received the Department of the Army's
Meritorious Civilian Service Award for his work there. Lord holds a
B.S. in forestry, an M.F. in forestry, and a Ph.D. in natural
resource economics and policy from the University of Michigan and an
M.S. in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin.
Jewlya Lynn
Colorado Institute of Public Policy, Colorado State University
Jewlya Lynn, B.A., (Ph.D. candidate) focuses on public policy
transformation through research and stakeholder participation at
both the state and local level. Her training and experience includes
a mixture of community engagement and analysis approaches including:
facilitation and multi-party mediation; policy analysis and
development; qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research
projects; organizational assessment; resource mapping; community
needs assessment; developing and implementing performance measures;
and participatory approaches to planning, implementation and
research. Ms. Lynn has worked across a broad range of substantive
areas including health, human services, education, criminal justice,
natural resources and urban planning. She is the Research Director
for the Center for Systems Integration, a public policy think tank
in Denver, and a Project Director at the Colorado Institute of
Public Policy.
Dennis M. Montgomery
Hill & Robbins, P.C.
Dennis Montgomery is a shareholder and director in the
Denver law firm of Hill & Robbins, P.C. His practice emphasizes
water rights and natural resources law. He has been in private
practice with Hill & Robbins, P.C., for the past 24 years. Prior to
that time, he was an assistant attorney general in the Natural
Resources Section of the Colorado Attorney General's Office, where
he served as head of the Water Unit. Mr. Montgomery was a member of
the Colorado Ground Water Commission from 1987 to 1994 and served as
chairman of the Commission in 1994. In 1985, Mr. Montgomery was
appointed as a special assistant attorney general, and since that
time has assisted in representing the State of Colorado in Kansas v.
Colorado, No. 105 Original (U.S. Supreme Court). Mr. Montgomery
obtained his B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1967 and his
J.D. from the University of Colorado in 1974.
Susan Morea
CDM
Susan Morea is a Vice President for CDM and the water resource
practice leader for the western United States. She has been involved
in the analysis, planning and report phases for a broad range of
projects for the federal, state, municipal and private sectors. Her
experience has included a position as program manager for the
Colorado Statewide Water Supply Initiative. Ms. Morea holds a B.A.
in biology from the University of Colorado and an M.S. in
environmental engineering from Colorado State University.
Mark Pifher
Water Resources - Aurora, Colorado
Mark Pifher is currently the Deputy Director for Water
Resources in the City of Aurora, Colorado. Immediately prior to
joining the City, he served as the Director of the Colorado Water
Quality Control Division, where he was responsible for implementing
all aspects of the state Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act
programs.
He served for five years as the chairman of the Colorado Water
Congress state affairs committee, is a past vice-president of the
Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Agencies
and has been an active member of the National Water Resources
Association and the Western Coalition of Arid States.
Dan Smith
Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Colorado State University
Dan Smith is currently a professor in the department of
soil and crop sciences at Colorado State University. He teaches
courses in forage and range management and microclimatology.
His research explores simplified methods of estimating consumptive
water use in irrigated mountain meadows.
MaryLou Smith
Aqua Engineering
MaryLou Smith is the co-founder of Aqua Engineering, a Fort Collins
irrigation engineering firm. For 30 years, MaryLou Smith has managed
people and profits. Today, she is building on her master’s degree in
educational psychology and training from CDR Associates in Boulder
to take Aqua Engineering into the arena of water policy/water
conflict facilitation and mediation. MaryLou served for 12 years on
the City of Fort Collins Water Board and is currently facilitating
the Public Education, Participation & Outreach Work Group of the
House Bill 05-1177 Process’s Interbasin Compact Committee. She is a
member of Colorado State University’s Water Resource Archives
Advisory Board.
Bill Trampe
Bill Trampe is a third-generation rancher in the
Gunnison-Crested Butte area of Gunnison County.
He is a graduate of Gunnison High School and attended Colorado State
University from 1964–1967. He has managed a family ranching business
since 1967. He served on the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy
District Board of Directors 1976–2002, and has represented Gunnison
County on the Colorado River Water Conservation District Board of
Directors 1997–2000 and 2003–present. Bill has a strong interest in
natural resource use and issues pertaining to renewable resource
management.
Reagan Waskom
Colorado Water Resources Research Institute, Colorado State
University
Reagan Waskom currently serves as the Interim Director of
the Colorado Water Resources Research Institute and Colorado State
University Water Center.
Dr. Waskom is a member of the department of soil & crop sciences
faculty and serves as the Cooperative Extension Water Resource
Specialist at CSU. He has worked on various water related research
and outreach programs in Colorado for the past 15 years.
Jim Westkott
Colorado Demography Office, Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Jim Westkott currently serves as the Senior Demographer
in the Colorado Demography Office, Colorado Department of Local
Affairs, Division of Local Government. He has been with the
Demography Section for 23 years: 12 years as the Projections
Demographer, and 10 years as the Director. Prior to his time with
the Demography Office, Jim was an assistant professor in the College
of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado – Denver
and served as Director of Comprehensive Planning for the
Philadelphia Metropolitan Planning Organization. Jim holds a
master’s in business administration from the University of Colorado,
Colorado Springs, a master’s in regional science/economics from the
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a master’s in city
and regional planning from the School of Fine Arts, University of
Pennsylvania.
|
|
| |
|
|
