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board of directors
John R. D’Antonio Jr., PE
John D’Antonio, Jr. is a New Mexico native and a registered professional engineer in New Mexico with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of New Mexico.
He was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award for Civil, Construction & Environmental Engineering from UNM in 2021. Mr. D’Antonio spent 16 years with the NM Office of the State Engineer and was appointed Secretary of the Environmental Department and State Engineer by four different Governors over the past two decades. He also served for 22 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) working on significant national and regional water issues, as well as supporting military construction, international and interagency support projects as well as ecosystem, flood protection and other various civil works projects.
Mr. D’Antonio has a passion for water resources and a keen interest in helping to solve water resource challenges with his broad experience in water rights administration, water policy, water and drought planning, water infrastructure and funding, and additional engineering and policy expertise.
Bob Feinberg
Robert “Bob” Feinberg is Principal/Senior Vice President at Colliers New Mexico | El Paso and has been a top commercial real estate advisor in New Mexico for 35 years.
He specializes in site selection for retail and industrial Fortune 500 clients including Lowe’s, Home Depot, Amazon, Kroger, Staples, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Panera, McDonald’s, Bosch, Chick-Fil-A, and many others across New Mexico, West Texas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Virginia, and beyond.
In 2008, Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez invited Bob (on his second trip to Israel) to join a New Mexico delegation for the Sister Cities Proclamation with Rehovot, Israel. During the cultural and business exchanges, he attended the WATEC Conference, where he became passionate about desalination, wastewater treatment, and water reuse. He has since returned for another WATEC event and two WEFTEC conferences in the U.S. Bob co-founded the New Mexico Desalination Association with water expert Mike Hightower (a longtime friend) and today serves as its Treasurer. Currently, Bob is the only non-engineer on the Board and brings a practical “layman’s” perspective to desalination and reuse initiatives.
Mike Hightower, PE
Mike provides technical support on the use of desalination technologies to improve global and regional water stewardship. Locally, he supports the New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute, the New Mexico Desalination Association, and the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium on the fit-for-purpose treatment and use of brackish, industrial, and produced water.
Mike is retired from Sandia National Laboratories where he participated in aerospace, weapons, energy, and natural resource research and engineering. Mike holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in civil and environmental engineering from New Mexico State University, and for the past three decades has focused on improving global and regional energy, water, and natural resources security and stewardship through innovative technology research, testing, and implementation.
Keith Julian, PhD
Keith Julian earned a BA degree in Regional Economics and Natural Sciences from Harvard University, then completed master’s and doctoral work in Earth and Environmental Science at the University of California--Los Angeles in 1976, writing his dissertation on “The Environmental Economics of Geothermal Energy Systems.” He subsequently taught at UCLA, the University of Missouri, and at the UC--Santa Barbara Graduate School of Environmental Science, specializing in resource development and environmental protection of water and energy resources.
In addition to co-authoring a best-selling textbook (Physical Geography Today), Keith has written more than 75 published scientific reports and technical papers.
In addition to his academic career, Keith spent 27 years in the private sector as an environmental and earth science consultant based in California, working on environmental regulatory compliance projects throughout the U.S. and in Africa, Central America, and Asia. For five years he served as program manager for the Economic Planning and Development Department at Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), where he directed economic forecasting and development for a region of more than 15 million residents.
He retired as Vice President of Woodward-Clyde Environmental Services in 1996 before moving to New Mexico, where he continued teaching as an Adjunct Instructor of Energy Resources at San Juan College’s School of Energy. Keith also worked part-time from 2008 until 2020 consulting on energy and water development projects throughout New Mexico and the Southwest U.S.
Finally retiring in 2020, Keith has actively pursued multiple pro bono consulting and non-profit organization leadership roles. He has been involved with the New Mexico Desalination Association since 2018, focusing on economic and environmental issues raised by use of brackish and produced waters and reuse of wastewater resources, as well as serving on NMDA’s Board of Directors from 2020 to the present time.
Charlie Leder, PE
Charlie Leder is a licensed professional engineer in the states of New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado with over 49 years of experience in all phases of water supply, treatment, and distribution, wastewater treatment, effluent re-use, and residuals management for public utilities including planning, permitting, design, construction management, facilities commissioning and troubleshooting, and operator training.
His overall professional experience includes five years with a manufacturer of water and wastewater treatment equipment, 31 years as a consulting engineer, and 13 years of public utility management and operations. Mr. Leder served as NM Desal President from Jan 2020 – Jan 2024.
Andrea Penner, PhD
Andi Penner is a retired college educator and technical communications specialist who has lived in the Southwest for more than 60 years—California (1962-85), Arizona (1985-94), and New Mexico (1994-present).
After earning her PhD degree in English from the University of New Mexico, Andi became an Associate Professor at San Juan College (SJC) in Farmington, where she taught and collaborated with SJC’s School of Energy as an industry liaison to train natural gas and oil production technicians in the Four Corners states, TX, and WY). She returned to Albuquerque after being offered a position at Sandia National Labs, where she was a tech writer/editor for the renewable energy programs (solar, water, geothermal, wind) and the lab’s Office of Science from 2013-2022.
As a private writing and editing consultant, Andi has assisted area businesses, industry, non-profit entities, and individual clients with grant applications, report preparation, development of training materials, and creation of compelling media presentations. Currently focused on her own writing projects, Andi has a vested interest in New Mexico’s water-dependent economic development. Her “outsider” perspective as an educator and technical writer would help the NM Desal Association bridge gaps between its science, engineering, and research professionals and the concerned public regarding NM’s water future.
Zachary Stoll, PhD
Dr. Zachary Stoll is the Assistant Director of the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium at New Mexico State University, where he leads the Consortium’s stakeholder engagement, strategy, and education and outreach efforts, while providing technical support on certain efforts such as technoeconomic analyses.
Dr. Stoll has held leadership and technical roles across academia, national laboratories, and federal programs, including serving as a Research Program Manager for the National Alliance for Water Innovation at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he oversaw more than $60 million in desalination research projects. He previously worked as a Research Scientist at the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility and has extensive experience in pilot-scale testing, emerging contaminant removal, and water-energy systems.
Prior to his leadership role in the Consortium, he was a Research Professor at NMSU and his research focused on accelerating emerging technologies in the desalination field to reduce the cost of brine disposal and performing technoeconomic analyses to understand where research should be focused to reduce costs. He has led and contributed to numerous federally and industry-funded projects and has published on topics including membrane processes, green hydrogen, brine management and valorization, and technoeconomic optimization of water treatment systems.
Dr. Stoll holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from New Mexico State University, an M.S. in Environmental Engineering Science from the Colorado School of Mines, and a B.S. in Biochemistry from the State University of New York at Geneseo.