The Water Entrepreneur

Beth McDaniel Beth McDaniel (President Reactive Surfaces Partner at McDaniel and Associates, PC) received her BBA in finance from the University of Texas in 1988, and JD in law from South Texas College of Law in 1996. She has been with Reactive Surfaces since 2006, both as a director/advisor and officer of the company. Beth… More

Chris Kahn Director of Unmanned Ariel Systems at American Water Chris is a geospatial professional with over 22 years of progressive experience in large cross-functional organizations performing geospatial program development, GNSS spatial data workflow management, spatial analysis, terrestrial/aerial survey, UAS program development, interactive mapping, and GIS field mobility. More

Kim Patrick Kobza Kim Patrick Kobza is a cofounder of True Elements. Mr. Kobza is a technology and social impact entrepreneur with over 20 years of executive experience as a co-founder and CEO. He stewards True Elements’ strategic growth, finance, and cross-functional leadership.   Before True Elements, Mr. Kobza co-founded and was CEO of Neighborhood America (NA), a SaaS...

Jon Gribble Highly Regarded Entrepreneurial Business Executive / Growth Focused Business Visionary / Cultivator of High Caliber Teams that Achieve a Unified Vision ►Areas I Excel InBuilding and inspiring teams that not only achieve repeated double digit growth and innovation, but also train leaders within those organizations to achieve more today and in the future.… More

Sue Mecham and Judy S. Riffle Sue J. Mecham, Ph. D., is Co-Founder and CEO of NALA Membranes, a new-generation membrane company based in the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. NALA is developing new chlorine tolerant reverse osmosis membranes from new, chlorine-stable, polymers. Sue has over 25 years of experience building and leading technical and business… More

Johnny H Pujol Johnny Pujol, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of SimpleLab. To learn about SimpleLab home water test kits, visit Tap Score. Johnny Pujul is a water quality expert with a background in commercialization and development of electrochemical arsenic remediation, off-grid water treatment and UV LED technology for pathogen and pharmaceutical inactivation. Johnny has… More

Gregg Semler Gregg Semler is the CEO and Founder of InPipe Energy: a renewable energy and smart water technology company focused on generating renewable energy from water pipelines to improve resiliency and sustainability in cities and communities around the world. Gregg Semler is a veteran entrepreneur with extensive experience in the clean energy and water… More

Aaron Tartakovsky Aaron Tartakovsky is Co-Founder and CEO of Epic Cleantec, a leading water technology company based in San Francisco that deploys water reuse systems into the built environment. Prior to his career in sustainability, Aaron worked in federal politics and has remained active in affecting public policy on the local, state, and national levels. Aaron speaks frequently on urban…...

Ernie Harker Ernie Harker is an illustrator, author, consultant, and keynote speaker who helps his clients build world-class brands using a powerful but simple framework.  Career Highlights: Process Ernie has developed a process that helps business owners and brand managers create a killer brand strategy. The four steps are easier to remember when using the… More

Jessie Mahr Jessie is the Director of Technology at EPIC. Prior to joining EPIC, she led business development and strategy for Upstream Tech, a technology start-up that uses satellite imagery to monitor and evaluate natural resources. She has also worked on programs related to regional planning for wetlands restoration and urban climate change resilience for… More

Chris Desai Chrisna Jagdish Desai, known in the industry as ‘Chris Desai’ was born to a working classfamily in Leicester, United Kingdom in the year 1988, to an English Mother and a PoliticalRefuge, Ugandan Indian / Gujarati Father. He grew up in a multicultural working-class home being exposed to the Eastern and Western culture from… More

Bessie Schwarz At the nexus of big data & citizen empowerment l CEO & Co-founder of Floodbase l Strategist, Yale Program on Climate Change Communication | Echoing Green Climate Fellow Bessie Schwarz is the CEO and Co-founder of Floodbase. As Co-Founder, Bessie has helped build the most actionable, advanced, and cost-effective flood data platform on… More

Bruno Tume and Fareed Nazaryfar Bruno Tume. (Sales manager at ASTERRA) is a self-starting and results-driven leader with expertise in inside sales, outside sales, and account management. He is experienced in driving the full sales cycle and sales strategies across diverse markets. His additional experience includes selling over the phone, virtually, and face to face… More

James Workman James Workman (Founder of AquaShares Inc.) * Graduated Yale, studied abroad Oxford. Prize-winning investigative reporter in Washington, DC.* White House appointee to US Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on water, dams, climate, wildfire.* Senior advisor, communications, World Commission on Dams under Nelson Mandela.* Strategic communications consultant to global corporations, agencies...

Josh Mackanic Josh Mackanic (CEO and Founder of Civil Grid) is a construction tech founder and infrastructure industry expert. Josh is experienced in organizing and leading multidisciplinary teams to implement large capital infrastructure programs and change initiatives. At PG&E, he developed solar power plants on the largest utility owned solar program in the nation, successfully… More

Eric Hoek Eric Hoek is a professor in UCLA’s Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Institute of the Environment & Sustainability and the California NanoSystems Institute. Dr. Hoek is also Faculty Director of the UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge, which is a campus wide initiative and partnership with the City of Los Angeles to help LA become the world’...

Alex Rappaport Alex Rappaport CEO & Co-Founder at ZwitterCo, Inc.; Forbes 30 under 30 Alex Rappaport, who studied environmental engineering and entrepreneurship at Tufts, is similarly focused on the environmental impact of production. He cofounded ZwitterCo to take advantage of breakthrough advances in filtration to help companies take more harmful stuff out of their wastewater.… More

Emily Hicks Emily Hicks (President & Co-Founder of FREDsense) is a motivated technology entrepreneur experienced in managing large teams and delivering complex products. Emily is a graduate from the University of Calgary with a degree in Biomedical Science. Winner of multiple awards, including being named as one of Corporate Knight’s top 30 under 30, the… More

Ashwin Madgavkar Ashwin Madgavkar is the Founder and CEO of Ceres Imaging. He grew up in Texas and early in his career worked as an electrical engineer and strategy consultant, primarily in the energy industry. In 2012, while working for a leading Brazilian sugarcane ethanol producer, Ash saw that large-scale agriculture operations often still make blanket decisions in… More

Greg Newbloom Greg Newbloom believes that if sustainability was simple, cheap & low-risk – it would be irresistible. Greg states that”Multi-dimensional innovation across technology, services, policy & business models is the path to frictionless & broad adoption of sustainable best practices, but even so we’re not moving fast enough to correct the past.” That’s why… Mo...

Matt Hurley Matt Hurley is the GM at McMullin Area Groundwater Sustainability Agency. Hurley leads MAGSA in the development, adoption, and implementation of a Groundwater Sustainability Plan for the sustainable management of groundwater within the MAGSA service area. As CEO of Water Management Professionals, Inc, Hurley has extensive SGMA knowledge and background having been heavily...

Sol Rosenbaum Sol Rosenbaum is a Licensed PE with 19+ years in the energy engineering world. He is the Founder of http://www. TheEngineeringMentor.com with a passion for mentoring younger engineers. He is a mechanical/energy engineer who enjoys helping building owners with financially viable energy savings projects. In Sol’s early positions, he worked on large ESPC projects… More

Jon McClean Dr. Jon McClean has worked in the field of water treatment since 1986. He is recognized as an expert in the field of Ultra Violet disinfection and has a particular interest in Advanced Oxidation Processes. He won the Queen’s Award in 2001 for innovation in UV light that now forms an integral part… More

George Demosthenous  George Demosthenous is the CEO of VODA.ai – an award-winning, software company, powered by artificial intelligence and focused on risk modeling. George co-founded VODA.ai in 2017 to help utilities leverage their data to assess risk and make infrastructure decisions quicker and with improved accuracy. Prior to VODA.ai, George worked at a public company,… More

Greg Quist and David Drake Greg Quist is one of the original inventors and co-founder of SmartCover. He served as President & CEO of SmartCover since founding for over 16 years. A long-time member of the water community, Greg was elected to the Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District Board of Directors in 1990, where… More