Stuart Smith , MS, CGWP

Stuart Smith’s interest in ground water (groundwater) dates back to his teenage years when, while pulling and setting pumps for his father’s rural Ohio plumbing business, he literally had the black and brown products of well microorganisms on his hands. Later, that experience led to his pioneering work in the application of biofouling testing methods in groundwater system analysis. He also listened to the water cascading in the rock wells of his Ohio home country and wondered about the flow of water underground. Today, Mr. Smith is one the nation’s foremost experts on the diagnosis and treatment of well problems and performance deterioration, and well and wellfield asset management. He is a Certified Ground Water Professional (CGWP) by the National Ground Water Association, a Registered Geologist with the Commonwealth of Kentucky (he would have an Ohio registration if there were one), and has been consulting in the ground water field since 1983. In addition to his consulting career, he has also worked for the National Water Well Association (now NGWA), developed the curriculum and instructed ground water science and technology at Wright State University (where he developed portions of the WSU IRIS distance-learning hydrogeology training program), and taught biology courses and advised hydrogeological engineering projects at Ohio Northern University. He has spoken on well maintenance and asset management, rehabilitation, and microbiology topics in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, England, Tanzania, Slovenia, Jordan, and throughout North America. In recent years, he has become active in the effort to equip professional water sector capabilities and to develop water supplies in Tanzania and other developing countries. He is currently also a partner in a water management and construction company, Ground+Water Tanzania Ltd. and its Ohio-corporation affiliate Earth Water Services Africa LLC. He is the author or co-author of numerous works, including contributions to well maintenance and rehabilitation practice, most recently in book form, he and Allen Comeskey have contributed Sustainable Wells: Maintenance, Problem Prevention, and Rehabilitation (CRC Press). He is also a coauthor of both the 1992 Australian Drilling Manual and the 1997 edition of its successor, Drilling (CRC Press), a major contributor to AWWA’s Manual M21, Groundwater (two editions) and ASCE’s recent Hydraulics of Wells text, and a principal author-editor of NGWA’s Manual of Water Well Construction Practices, as well as contributing to the Water Well Journal, National Driller, GeoDrilling International and other publications. Mr. Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree with majors in Biology and Earth Science from Wittenberg University in 1977 and a Master of Science (MS) degree from The Ohio State University in 1984.