Bill was born in the small town of Glens Falls, in the southern Adirondacks of NY, and grew up between the tourist areas of Lake George and Saratoga Springs with two older and one younger sisters. His first venture west was to the State of NY College at Oswego where he got a BS in geology in May 1985. With a bust in the oil business in the mid-1980’s, Bill took a job as a professional ski patrol (Gore Mtn) while waited out a winter between undergrad and grad school
for his only 100+ day ski year to date.
Bill continued west to Grad school, this time leaving NY for the University of Missouri-Rolla where in fall of 1988 he graduated with BS and MS degrees in Geological Engineering. Bill’s goal to work on dams and tunnels got him a job with the large civil engineering firm – Black & Veatch and he continued west to Kansas City, KS. Bill got another opportunity to continue west when a 1-year field engineer assignment on a water tunnel project in Colorado Springs came up
in Dec 1989. After 6 years on field projects for Colorado Springs Utilities, bill took an assignment on a water tunnel in Las Vegas, NV for their “second straw” project in 1995. After 18 months the project was completed and Bill ended his westward migration and found his way back to Colorado. He founded a successful engineering firm in Salida, CO in 1999 and ran it for four years before moving his wife and infant daughter back to Colorado Springs.
In the fall of 2003, after 14 years in consulting, Bill was hired by the Colorado Division of Water Resources as a dam safety engineer (DSE) assigned to dams on the Upper South Platte and Arkansas River basins. Bill worked as a DSE in Colorado Springs until 2010 when his angling to get back to a Salida
home base finally paid off. In July of 2010 he was selected for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Dam Operations Engineer position, and successfully negotiated a Salida work location. After 15 months of statewide travel and dam owner experience with the CPW, the Chief of Dam Safety position for DWR came open. He was selected as Chief and allowed to keep the same Salida
office, simply changing the agency name on the lease.
Since October 2011, Bill has been Chief of an award winning team of 12 statewide dam safety engineers. Bill and his team have responsibility for developing and executing a comprehensive dam safety risk management program for all dams in the state of Colorado in the interest of public safety while maximizing water storage potential.
Bill thoroughly enjoys balancing his Colorado mountain lifestyle of challenging and fulfilling professional work on dam and water issues around the state, being an avid mountain biker, hiker, and skier and spending quality time with a beautiful family and friends.