Douglas M. Owen

"Choose a job that you love and you will never work a day in your life."

Upon receiving a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Purdue University, Doug Owen earned a Master of Science in Environmental Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Upon graduation, he started his professional career with a private environmental consulting firm where he remained for 34 years.

Starting as a water process engineer, Doug grew through increasingly responsible positions to become a Vice President, Managing Director, and Chief Technical Officer for the Water Business Line in North America with 1,000 employees. After spending seven years helping to navigate the firm through a global merger, he started his own company to provide strategic water services to municipal and industrial clients.

For the past seven years, Doug has served in a role for Stantec as the Consultant Program Manager for Pure Water San Diego, a groundbreaking potable reuse program that creates a drinking water source from wastewater for the water-challenged region. The first phase includes a $1.5 billion capital improvement program to provide 30 million gallons per day of purified water as a drinking water supply. When completed, the program will provide half of the water supply for San Diego.

A professional engineer in three states and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, Doug has consulted with utilities on drinking water, wastewater, and water reuse treatment and facility planning for over 7 billion gallons per day of treatment capacity in metropolitan areas throughout North America. He has held many professional board positions and recently served on the Executive Committees of the Water Research Foundation and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering. He served two terms on USEPA’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council and on advisory boards for the Universities of Texas, New Hampshire, and North Carolina School of Public Health. He currently is the Chair of the Advisory Board for the Water Reuse Program at the University of Colorado.

Doug resides in San Diego with his wife of 38 years, Cindy, who is also a Purdue engineering graduate. His two grown children enjoy careers on the West Coast; one in San Diego and another in Portland.