Rao Y. Surampalli, Ph.D.,
P.E., BCEE, D.WRE, F.ASCE, F.AAS

Rao Y. Surampalli

I have had a distinguished career for the past 33 years and have been an Engineer Director for the USEPA for the past twelve years. My career in private practice, government, university, and applied research has given me the opportunity to experience and appreciate the varied interests and challenges of the environmental engineering profession.

I am a prolific author and have added significantly to professional literature. I have authored more than 400 technical publications, including five books, 36 book chapters, and 124 refered (peer-reviewed) journal articles. I serve on several national and international committees, and review panels or advisory boards, including the ASCE National Committee on Energy, Environment and Water Policy. I have dedicated my services by holding positions within ASCE and EWRI such as Chair of the Environmental Council; Editor of the Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic and Radioactive Waste Management; and Chair of the Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management Committee. I have also chaired several task committees for the preparation of special book reports on current and advanced environmental engineering topics. In addition, I served as Conference Co-Chair for the 2000 EWRI National Conference on Environmental Engineering that was held in Kansas City.

I am very active internationally and contribute significant time to international humanitarian efforts. I have traveled extensively, frequently at great personal sacrifice, to many developing countries to share my environmental engineering expertise and to help improve the quality of their environment. At the request of host nations, I have provided technical assistance, facilitated technology transfer, and improved capacity building for numerous developing nations, including Brazil, Philippines, India, Kazakhstan, Korea, Japan, Ghana, China, Namibia, Nepal, Panama, Taiwan, and Thailand. I have conducted highly successful international workshops/short courses that are designed to assist technical professionals in developing nations and elsewhere better deal with their significant environmental problems.

I have received numerous awards and honors, but the following two are significant. I received the ASCE “National Government Engineer of the Year Award” in 2006. The citation reads “for his exemplary professional work, research, prolific contribution to technical literature, and voluntary activities around the world as a technical expert and advisor.” I also received the “Founders Gold Medal,” conferred by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) in 2001. As a result, I was designated the 22nd “National Federal Engineer of the Year” for 2001. I also received the Federal Executive Board’s “Distinguished Military Service Award” in 2007.

In summary, I contribute to the profession through teaching, research, committee work, publications, editorships, and international humanitarian work.

My vision for EWRI has five components:

• Make the Institute a worldwide leader in environmental and water resources;
• Make EWRI publications the best and most sought after in the world;
• Develop international cooperation for capacity building and technology exchange;
• Bring non-engineers into EWRI to broaden and increase EWRI membership; and
• Prepare the future environmental and water resources engineer for Global Leadership.

To accomplish the vision, I will empower and guide members to develop strategies and policies to provide excellent services and products, to develop national and international partnerships, and to provide innovative solutions for sound and sustainable infrastructure worldwide.

Rollin H. Hotchkiss, Ph.D.,
P.E., D.WRE, M.ASCE

Rollin H. Hotchkiss

I will (1) explain why I am a petition candidate; (2) review recent progress and changes within EWRI of which I have been a part, and (3) share a two-part vision of what we can accomplish together in our EWRI future.

Why a petition candidate? I am a petition candidate ultimately because more than 200 of you encouraged me to become so by signing a petition in accordance with EWRI bylaws. I appreciate your efforts and your personal statements of support. I decided to follow the petition route this year for three reasons. First, I have been able to help make some positive changes within EWRI that help us, the members, and I would like to continue to do so as one of your leaders. Second, you deserve a choice. EWRI has outgrown its beginnings of eight years ago, when vice-presidential candidates were selected in order to establish a strong foundation for growth. We are now a mature organization, and a leading Institute within ASCE. Our membership (you) should now be able to choose who leads you. And third, and quite practically, our past, current, and next two EWRI Presidents practice professionally in the environmental arena. With a career in water resources, I believe it’s time to reflect that part of our practice in the leadership of your Governing Board.

I have worked within EWRI from its inception, serving as a member, then secretary, vice-chair, chair, and then past chair of the Surface Water Hydrology Committee. At each step I have always asked, “Why do we do things this way and how can we make it better?” I was then asked to work with the Watershed Council, where I served as the Vice Chair, Chair, and past Chair, still asking the same question, but now seeking to assist each Technical Committee to realize their own potential. My questions about how we can make positive changes continued, accompanied by some frustrations about disconnects between our leadership and our Councils. I currently work with the Technical Executive Committee, and under the leadership of Dan Thomas, I’ve been given the freedom to aggressively pursue my concerns. I’ve been gratified to see some recent progress.

Recent Progress. It has been a pleasure to be a part of some recent positive changes for us. For example, I’ve been allowed to help reshape Council Weekends to provide more specific training and guidance for all Councils and Committees. I’ve also been a part of the Governing Documents Committee. Along with Phil Burgi, Mark Kilgore, Tom Rachford and Autumn Richter from EWRI staff, we have gone over every line of our operations manual asking, “why do we do things this way and how can we make it better?” Just one result of that work has been the creation of online forms for almost all aspects of Committee work. I’ve also been a vocal part of our concerns about publication delays in our journals, and I’ve worked with Dan and ASCE publications to push for additional journal pages and for a timeline for publishing accepted papers electronically before hard copy printing. Finally, almost a year ago, our current President, Kyle Schilling, afforded me the opportunity to work as your Treasurer on the Governing Board. I have enjoyed that work thus far, asking the same question but now working with Brian Parsons, our Executive Director, to find answers and make improvements. For example, we are reshaping our annual budget to allow more freedom for you to pursue activities that will help us realize our top priority goals within the EWRI strategic plan.

Two-Part Vision for our Future Work. We must (1) be creative in facilitating the professional development of our members, and (2) extend our expertise more widely beyond our EWRI borders. I have and will always be a working member of EWRI. I will continue to actively publish in both our Congress Proceedings or Journals as I have for almost every year since 1988. I will continue to ask how we can make things better for us as EWRI members.

The first part of my vision for EWRI is to make participation in Committees, Councils, Congresses, and Publications more fulfilling for our members. This will require work on all of our parts, but you can be assured I will be asking my favorite question over and over again to ASCE as I represent our interests. For example, we need to create a way for all to selectively purchase journal articles from all ASCE journals, and we also need to create an online journal for all of EWRI to begin with and proceed from there. We need to retain our mature members by involving them to remove frustrating barriers to their EWRI work, and we need attract younger members by demonstrating that we are flexible, open to new ideas, and prepared to change for the better.

The second part of my vision is, by our combined effort, to extend our expertise beyond our EWRI borders amongst our peer institutions and governing bodies in both the United States and abroad. We are already ably led in our International efforts by our Operations Council, and with their wise leadership and guidance by the Governing Board, we will appropriately invite all interested individuals worldwide to join our work. We also exist in a sea of other valuable organizations such as AWWA, WEF, AWRA, IAHR, and many others. I will work with our Executive Committees to create multi-society Committees and to extend our participation in more national review panels through our standards work.

Thank you.