Douglas M. Owen (BSCE '80), senior principal at Stantec, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to drinking water quality, expansion of potable reuse and integration of sustainability in water treatment plant design.

Mr. Owen serves as the consultant Program Manager for the City of San Diego's PURE program. The program will provide 30 mgd of potable reuse through surface water augmentation by 2025 and a total of 83 mgd by 2035. Major infrastructure improvements include expanding the existing non-potable water reclamation and biosolids processing facilities, constructing a new purified water facility, and construction of associated pump stations and pipelines to enable purified water release to a surface water reservoir.

Prior to this position, Mr. Owen was an Executive Vice President at Arcadis and was the Chief Technical Officer for the Water Business Line.  In that role, Mr. Owen was responsible for the application and distribution of technology in client solutions, for applied research, for outreach to the academic community in technical areas, and for maintaining technical perspectives in the firm’s executive level decision-making. Mr. Owen was also responsible for the North America Region’s sustainability approach, integrating sustainable practices into client services and evaluating adaptation strategies for climate change.  Prior to that position, Mr. Owen had increasingly responsible roles in project execution and senior management with Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., including serving as the President for a $250M water environment business unit and serving on that firm’s Board of Directors.

Mr. Owen has specialized in water treatment, planning, and policy since he completed his Bachelors in Science in Civil Engineering from Purdue University in 1980 and his Masters of Science in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1982.  He has led applied research projects on advanced technologies, consulted with utilities on treatment and facility improvements for over 7 billion gallons per day of treatment capacity throughout the United States, and has provided technical and facilitation support to USEPA and AWWA on a range of policy issues since 1990, including drinking water regulatory development, advanced technology implementation, and utility compliance.  Mr. Owen served on the Executive Committee for the Water Research Foundation Board of Directors, as the Co-Chair of the Board of Directors for Water Environment & Reuse Foundation and as the Board Chair for the WateReuse Research Foundation.  He has served two terms on USEPA’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC), as the Chair of the Editorial Advisory Board for Journal AWWA, as a Trustee for AWWA’s Water Science and Research Division, on advisory boards for the universities of Texas, New Hampshire, Colorado, and the North Carolina School of Public Health, on the board of the Zofnass Sustainability Institute at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and on the Executive Committee of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME).  He has published and presented widely on water treatment and planning topics in books, peer-reviewed journals, and at national and international conferences.

Mr. Owen is also President of Owen Water Consulting LLC, providing advice on technology, regulatory, and strategic issues to public and private water agencies.