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Biosketches
| Wade Ponder, Branch Chief | |
| Wayne Fowler | Chris Pressley |
| Paul Groff | William Squier |
| William Mitchell | Shirley Wasson |
| Scott Moore | Robert Wright |
Wade H. Ponder
Mr. Ponder has been an employee of EPA since 1972. He has worked as a project officer, Special Assistant to the Laboratory Director, and branch chief. From 1985 through 1995, he was Chief of the Organics Control Branch, conducting research on prevention and control techniques for organic emissions. In conjunction with this research, Wade was awarded three U.S. and international patents, one for the corona destruction process for the control of organics emissions, one for a gas-enhanced woodstove for the control of emissions from residential wood combustion, and one for a gas-enhanced fireplace insert for the control of emissions from residential fireplaces. Since 1995, he has been Chief of the Technical Services Branch which provides quality assurance (QA), computer support, peer review of major technical programs in the Division, and technical support to the Division's air pollution research programs. Prior to leading the Organics Control Branch, Wade served as a Special Engineering Assistant to the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development in Washington, DC. He planned and directed the Agency's research and field study for the environmental assessment of conventional combustion systems. During EPA's development and demonstration of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) technologies in the 1970's and 1980's, Wade was a national expert in FGD, and he served nationwide as the Agency's spokesman in adjudicatory proceedings concerning the technical and economic status of FGD technology. He also served as EPA's project manager for three FGD development and demonstration projects, (1) the Wellman-Lord regenerable FGD process at Northern Indiana Public Service Company, (2) the Bahco process in conjunction with the US Air Force, and (3) the ammonia scrubbing process with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Prior to joining EPA, Wade obtained Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Chemical Engineering from Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. He also had advanced engineering training in Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University, Cryogenic Engineering at the University of Colorado, and Environmental Systems Engineering at Clemson University. He has worked as a research engineer with the Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, with the Celanese Corporation in Charlotte, North Carolina, and with the W.R. Grace Company in Simpsonville, South Carolina. From 1966 - 1971, he served as Chemical Engineering Technology Department Head at the Greenville Technical College in Greenville, South Carolina. He worked with the American Chemical Society as Associate Director of the ChemTec Project at the University of California, Berkeley, California, and produced a series of training manuals that have been used for training chemical technicians in several countries. In 1971, Wade was a National Finalist in the White House Fellows Program and was invited by the White House staff to interview with Citizens for Re-election of the President.
Wayne Fowler
Mr. Fowler joined EPA in 1972 as an Engineering Technician. Initially, he was responsible primarily for the operation of the mechanical shop which supports the various research programs of the Division. Currently, Wayne is assigned to the Technical Services Branch, and his duties include general support to many in-house and field research projects. In addition to assisting with the design, fabrication, maintenance, and operation of research equipment in the TSB Mechanical Shop, Wayne serves as the lead technician on field surveys being conducted by a post-doctoral employee who is examining the emission rates of nitrogen compounds from eastern North Carolina rivers and estuaries. He assisted in the design and fabrication of the automated sampling system which ensures uniformity and consistency of samples from one field trip to the next. Recently, Wayne was acknowledged by Dr. Robert S. Chapman of the National Health and Environmental Effects Laboratory in a peer-reviewed journal article published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 94, No. 11, June 5, 2002. The title of the article was "Household Stove Improvement and Risk of Lung Cancer in Xuanwei, China." The research study assessed whether lung cancer incidence decreased in Xuanwei County, Yunnan Province, China, after residents stopped using unvented, indoor firepits and started using stoves with chimneys. Wayne was acknowledged in the study for designing and building the particulate samplers used in the study. His skills and abilities are broad and diverse, as evidenced by the fact that one principal investigator made use of his expertise as a pilot to obtain aerial photographs of a forest in order to plan research studies to acquire emissions data from the forest.
Paul Groff
Mr. Groff received a B.S. in Physics from Duke University in 1988. He worked as a contractor for the EPA developing new pollution control technologies from 1988 to 1997 and became a federal employee in June 1997. He is the Division Quality Assurance Manager and team leader of the Quality Assurance (QA) team where he concentrates on providing advice and assistance to APPCD’s Air Pollution Technologies Branch. His duties include managing the APPCD metrology laboratory, assisting researchers with experimental design (focusing on accuracy of measurements), reviewing documents, and conducting audits.
William Mitchell
Mr. Mitchell worked as a contractor for EPA for seven years before becoming a federal employee in 1999. He works in TSB's electronics shop where he is an Information Transfer (IT) specialist. One of his duties is to assist with APPCD's desk-top computer support and networking, and this duty often involves providing solutions to difficult hardware problems. William also designs, builds, and maintains comprehensive data acquisition and data processing systems for APPCD's research programs. In this capacity, he designs, constructs, installs, and troubleshoots signal conditioning and sensor equipment to computer interface circuits. Due to the varied nature of APPCD's research projects, William has had the opportunity to design unique circuits, circuit boards, and electronic systems used in a broad range of research programs, including automation and remote control, reactor furnaces, plume sampling, particulate matter sampling, ignition measurement and control, and many others.
William grew up in the suburb of an Ohio steel town. He attended Youngstown State University but transferred to Ohio State University during his freshman year. At Ohio State, he was employed in the High Energy Physics Department's electronics laboratory. He worked for eight years in physics research at Ohio State, initially as a student assistant, then as a full faculty member. William and his family moved to North Carolina in 1991.
Chris Pressley
Mr. Pressley worked as a contractor for over 20 years before joining the EPA in 1999. His duties in TSB's fabrication, machine and electronics shops include programming, designing, and maintaining electronic equipment. He began his career in electronics while in the U.S. Army. Chris was born in Gastonia, NC and graduated from Gaston College in 1975. He and his wife enjoy coin collecting, aviation, and family life.
William Squier
Mr. Squier worked as a contractor to EPA for 13 years prior to becoming a federal employee in 1999. William is a member of the shop support team. He has an Associates Degree in mechanical engineering and a diploma in machine shop technology from Wake Technical College. He also has over 10 years of experience in designing and fabricating APPCD's research equipment. Prior to working in the machine shop, William worked on APPCD's pilot-scale electrostatic precipitator project.
Shirley Wasson
Shirley Wasson is a chemist with Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Physical Sciences from the University of Missouri, and a Masters degree in Physical Chemistry from the University of Kentucky. She has taught chemistry at the college level, worked as an analytical chemist in university medical research laboratories, worked as the technical director of a small manufacturer of chemical formulations for home repair, and worked as a quality assurance (QA) contractor for EPA before joining EPA in 1995.
The subject of Shirley's Master's thesis was the crystal structure of a rare earth compound; therefore, it was natural that she would become involved in the analytical x-ray work of the laboratory. She currently supervises the work of the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) laboratory, and the work of the X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectrometer and the X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD). She is part of TSB's QA staff, and her duties involve work on the Environmental Technology Verification team, as well as providing technical support to APPCD's Indoor Environment Technology Branch. She performs reviews and audits and provides assistance with facility manuals and standard operating procedures for APPCD’s in-house research facilities.
Robert Wright
Mr. Wright is a member of the quality assurance team in the Technical Services Branch, which he joined in 2003. He provides quality assurance support to APPCD's researchers, including document reviews and assessments of technical and quality systems. He also participates in the EPA/NIST audit program for EPA Protocol Gases and in the revisions of the traceability protocol for these standards. He has 31 years' experience in a variety of technical areas relating to environmental science. His experience in quality assurance ranges from preparing quality assurance guidance documents to conducting accuracy assessments of gaseous calibration standards. He is the coauthor of EPA's guidance for technical audits of environmental data operations, for assessing quality systems, and for developing quality systems for environmental programs. Prior to coming to US EPA, he was an environmental scientist at RTI International where he conducted contract research involving quality assurance, instrument evaluation, environmental measurements, hazardous wastes, and atmospheric chemistry. He was an engineering technician at the Ohio EPA where he worked with ambient air quality monitors. Additionally, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana where he taught integrated science and mathematics in a junior secondary school.
Mr. Wright earned his B.S. degree in physics from the University of Dayton in 1971. He also earned a M.S. degree in environmental science and engineering from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1980. His master's research was a feasibility study for the use of a long-path, Fourier-transform, infrared spectrometer in an outdoor smog chamber.