Water Management Certificate Program FACILITATORS

Glen Vortherms is the General Manager of the Maricopa Water District (MWD) which was formally organized in 1925, as a political subdivision and an irrigation and water conservation district under Arizona state statutes and was successfully completed in 1927. MWD is the only privately financed reclamation project of its kind. MWD provides water and power to service an area of approximately 60 square miles. The lands within MWD which are still in agricultural are cropped with cotton, vegetables, fruits, citrus, grapes, and grain. There are, however, other markets which are served by MWD including trees, flowers, grass, hobby farms, and golf courses in those areas which urbanized and developed. 

Glen serves as treasurer of the Agribusiness & Water Council of Arizona and Coordinator of the Water Management Certificate Program. 

 Dr. Troy Schmitz is a professor and director of the Morrison School of Agribusiness at Arizona State University. He is also a Senior Global Futures Scholar in the ASU Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation and is an affiliated faculty in the ASU Center for Environmental Economics and Sustainability Policy. Professor Schmitz is co-author of a textbook on Agricultural Policy, Agribusiness, and Rent-Seeking Behavior, three edited volumes on global food security, and an edited volume on North American agricultural trade disputes. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles in over 25 different academic journals and has been an investigator on over $25 million worth of grant proposals, securing $2 million in externally funded research and teaching related grants as principal investigator. He has done research on a wide variety of subjects, including global agricultural trade, food and agricultural policy analysis, food security, regulation of biotechnology, benefit-cost analysis, and the economics of water subsidies. Portions of his work have been translated into French, Turkish, German, and Spanish. He has been an economic consultant for DuPont de Nemours, Hartford Insurance, Deloitte & Touche, American Sugar Alliance, the Arizona Golf Industry Association, and the National Golf Foundation. He has also been an expert or consulting witness on agribusiness-related issues for law firms on behalf of various U.S. farm groups and is a member of the Arizona Food Marketing Alliance Board of Directors. 

Dr. KIRIL D. HRISTOVSKI is the Program Chair of the Environmental and Resource Management (ERM) Program and an Associate Professor of Engineering and Environmental & Resource Management Programs in the Polytechnic School, one of the six Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU). He also serves as the Director of the ERM professional development program at the Polytechnic School. Dr. Hristovski holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering (2007) and an MS in Technology (Environmental) (2003) from Arizona State University, and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sts. Cyril and Methody in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia (1998). 

His research focuses on topics related to environmental applications and implications of engineered nanomaterials, water and wastewater treatment and management, solid and hazardous waste, and international environmental management issues. He is actively engaged in researching the environmental challenges of the developing world and translating fundamental knowledge into simple and inexpensive solutions to address these challenges. 

Since 2007, he has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and over 100 conference papers/presentations in his areas expertise. He is an editorial board member of the Science of the Total Environment, Trends in Analytical Chemistry, and Environmental Nanotechnology, Monitoring and Management Journals. He also serves as a section editor of the Macedonian Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. He has served as an external advisor for environment, science, and education to the President of Republic of Macedonia, HE Dr. Ivan Ivanov. Dr. Hristovski is a recipient of a Presidential Medal of Merit for Macedonia (2016), Fulbright Fellowship (2012), the College award for outstanding faculty mentor (2011), and a U.S. Presidential Academic Award (1991). He is affiliated with the School of Sustainability and Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University as a Senior Sustainability Scientist, Global Security Initiative, School for Future of Innovation in Society, Global Security Initiative, Center for the Future of War, and the School for Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. He also serves as Principal Investigator/co-Principal Investigator on several multi‑university centers/networks such as NSF Engineering Research Center Nano-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT - Rice, ASU, Yale, UTEP), US EPA Life Cycle Nano (LCNano), and US EPA Design of Risk-reducing, Innovative-implementable Small-system Knowledge (DeRISK), which are related to environmental applications and implications of nanomaterials.