Texas Tech University

Leadership

Rusty Smith, Executive Director

Rusty Smith, Director of Texas Produced Water Consortiumrusty.smith@ttu.edu

A native of West Texas, Rusty Smith brings a unique blend of experience in both the private and public sectors to the direction of the Consortium. Rusty comes to Texas Tech from the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance where he previously served as a project manager, focusing on recruiting new businesses and fostering innovation in the Lubbock region. 

Prior to moving back to Lubbock, Rusty spent several years in Austin working in public policy in both the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate, primarily focusing on natural resources, agriculture, and energy. Most notably, Rusty served as the Committee Director for the Texas Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water and Rural Affairs during the 85th Texas Legislature for Chairman Charles Perry. During that time he oversaw all legislation under the jurisdiction of the committee, including issues impacting water resources across the state. After the 85th session Rusty was hired to serve as the Director of Government & Regulatory Affairs for the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association, a statewide oil & gas trade association serving nearly 3,000 individual and corporate members. Rusty received a BS from Texas A&M University and an MBA from Texas Tech.

Dr. Eric Bernard, Faculty Co-DirectorDr. Eric Bernard

Professor and Chairperson
Landscape Architecture
College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources
eric.bernard@ttu.edu

Eric A. Bernard, is a licensed Landscape Architect and Chairperson and Professor of Landscape Architecture at Texas Tech. Teaching and research focus on holistic ecological planning and design integrating cutting edge GIS-GIScience, GeoDesign and LiDAR into multi-dimensional solutions spanning scales and system dynamics. Works are recognized by the American Society of Landscape Architects (Honor Award Ecology-Sustainability-Design Workshop, 2000), esri (2005 Special Achievement Award in GIS and 2013 GeoDesign Best Lightning Talk Award).

As GIS Manager at The Trust for Public Land he developed ParkServe™ and was chief designer/data architect of a Park Information Model. ParkServe is mapping US urban parks, analyze 10-minute walk to each, serving over 270 million Americans. Research projects on the High Plains-Ogallala Aquifer, Kansas River, Flint Hills Ecoregion have been awarded over $5.3 million by NSF and USDA. He served on the University Consortium of GIScience, and was Governor appointed to the Kansas GIS Policy Board.

He is privileged to have collaborated on research with over 50 colleagues across colleges, institutions and agencies focused on interactions between human and natural systems, and coupled modeling approaches to understand change and potential designed alternative futures.

Professor Bernard is honored to have advised over 40 graduate students and proud of their accomplishments as students and professionals including the first Dangermond Fellowship awardee, ASLA Honor and Merit Awards and numerous academic conference presentations and papers.

Most importantly he is blessed to have Jill, Allen and Katy and his extended family to grow and explore life with. 

Dr. Marshall Watson, P.E., Faculty Co-DirectorDr. Marshall Watson

Department Chair, Roy Butler Chair, and Associate Professor
Petroleum Engineering
Whitacre College of Engineering
marshall.watson@ttu.edu

Dr. Marshall C. Watson, Roy Butler Chair and Chair of the Texas Tech Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering, has been a professor at Texas Tech since 2006. He is a registered professional engineer in Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Wyoming.  Marshall has authored and co-authored several presentations, technical papers, and courses including SPEE Monograph 3, “Guidelines for the Practical Evaluation of Undeveloped Reserves in Resource Plays”.  He has been awarded numerous grants spanning the fields of petroleum reservoir and production engineering and energy economics.  Current research activities are wellbore integrity for CO2 storage/CCUS (DOE), CO2 storage capacity definitions for corporate/government reporting (SPE), hydrocarbon emissions testing (Industry), produced fluids handling (DOE-NMSU advisory board) and artificial lift (Industry).  As the recipient of multiple teaching awards, he teaches undergraduate introduction level, senior level design and graduate courses in Property Evaluation and Production.

Prior to arriving at Tech, his 30 year industry experience was with both major and independent oil companies, beginning with Shell Oil Company working as a production and reservoir engineer in the Wasson San Andres Denver Unit CO2 flood.    Marshall received a BS from Cornell University and his MS and PhD from Texas Tech. Marshall has three patents for horizontal drilling, artificial lift and hydraulic fracturing. 

Marshall is member of the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers (SPEE), Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), and the West Texas Geological Society.  He was the SPEE 2012 President and still serves as advisor and on various committees.  

Texas Produced Water Consortium