Speakers
Keynote Speaker
Reflections on a 43-year SRP Water Resource Management Career
Charlie Ester, recently retired, will explore his 43-year career at the very center of SRP’s water resource operations and planning. He will share a variety of humorous stories, learning events, moments of extreme anxiety, and insights learned from over 4-decades of service. This will be an entertaining stroll down Memory Lane brought to life through a series of vignettes, pictures and graphs, and recollections. A common focus throughout Charlie’s career has been on the vast forested watersheds of central Arizona which are the source waters of the Salt and Verde rivers. While Charlie’s career may have ended at the Salt River Project, other professionals continue the efforts to safeguard the forests and water supplies of Arizona.
About Charlie Ester
Charlie Ester retired in May as the Director of Water Supply and Planning at the Salt River Project (SRP) after a 43-year rewarding career. SRP is a water and power utility founded in 1903 which serves major portions of the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Water Supply and Planning group is ground zero for assuring a reliable and sustainable water supply to SRP’s 250,000 acre water service territory in central Maricopa County. The group is responsible for weather forecasting in support of power and water operations, watershed monitoring, water resource measurement, runoff forecasting, reservoir operations planning, flood emergency reservoir operations, drought preparedness, and data archiving and analytics. Additionally, perhaps less visible but of equal importance, the group is responsible for aquifer management, including recharge activities, within the SRP service area and maintains a system of over 270 water supply wells which augment the surface water supply during times of shortage. During Charlie’s career he served as chair of the Oak Creek Watershed Council, was a member of the Healthy Headwaters Alliance leadership team, and promoted SRP’s watershed stewardship role by expanding monitoring efforts, supporting targeted research, and engaging with the Forest Service and other collaborators on forest and watershed restoration efforts. Charlie is a 1983 Hydrology graduate of the University of Arizona.
Plenary Panel
Working towards desired conditions: 25 years of 4FRI – where are we now?
Panelists will be announced soon.
Moderator: MaryLou Zimmerman
Most of my career was spent in the field as an -ologist, collecting data, supervising field crews, designing and implementing projects and completing environmental analyses. My career spans 25 years working in the western US for multiple agencies including the Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Land Management. I’ve spent the last three years as the Monitoring Coordinator for 4FRI in Flagstaff but I’ve worked as a Forester with the BLM in Butte MT, as a Biologist in the Lower Colorado River Multi Species Program BOR, Boulder City NV, was the Operations Lead on Hungry Horse, Glacier Vier, and Spotted Bear Districts, Flathead NF, MT, and an Ecologist at Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, Kanab, UT and with the Cordova District, Chugach NF, AK. I hold a Masters in Range Ecology from Colorado State, a Bachelors in Forestry from UMass Amherst, and an Associates in Forestry from Paul Smiths College.
Lunch Speaker
Our Thursday lunch speaker will be discussing:
Thirty Days Below the Rim: A Grand Canyon Whitewater Rafting Adventure
Thirty Days Below the Rim is Arizona author Jon Fuller’s sixth book. Written in the style of a daily trip log and based on Jon’s journals from his own nine Grand Canyon trips, Jon’s talk will describe exactly what’s it’s like to row your own raft through Grand Canyon. The author joins a crew of fourteen adventurers on a month-long whitewater rafting trip. Both poignant and humorous, the story describes the rapids, the wilderness, and the unique characters he encounters along the way. On a deeper level, the journey is a quest for peace in a world mired in political and social turmoil. If a Grand Canyon rafting trip is on your bucket list, this talk and book is for you.
Jon Fuller
Founder of JE Fuller/ Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc
Jon Fuller is the Founder of JE Fuller/ Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc. His specialties include applied fluvial geomorphology, sediment transport, erosion hazard analysis, alluvial fan flooding, and arid land hydrology. Jon earned a B.S. in Geology from Calvin College and a M.S. in Geomorphology from the University of Arizona. He is a Registered Engineer (Civil), and Professional Geologist. After a 44-year career, Jon is (almost) retired, and now spends most of his time long-distance hiking, whitewater rafting, biking, and writing about rivers and Arizona history.
