The National Rural Water Association is excited to welcome Vern Steel and Steve Harper to the NRWA team. Vern Steel is joining NRWA as the Chief Operations Officer. He was previously the Deputy CEO for the Rural Water Association of Utah for 24 years and has experience in association management, financial operations, and public relations. With a degree in accounting from the University of Idaho, Vern has extensive experience in financial reporting, employee management relationship building, HR management, technical assistance and training programs, and funding procurement.

As Chief Operations Officer, Vern holds a key senior executive role at NRWA. He will focus on operationalizing strategy, managing operations of the Duncan office, special projects, and a host of other activities. Part of Vern’s role includes managing NRWA’s Director-level posts, and providing support and advice for Federal Programs, Resource Development and Information Technology teams.

Steve Harper is joining the NRWA team as the Federal Programs Director. Steve has more than 25 years of experience in different levels of management and industries. He has been involved with the water sector for the past 10 years. He got his start with water by running a small rural water system in southwest South Dakota before taking the reins of the largest rural water system in the state. For the past three and a half years, he was the Executive Director of Colorado Rural Water Association.

As the Federal Programs Director, Steve will supervise a wide range of technical assistance, training, workforce development, energy efficiency and other programs for the water and wastewater industry. Steve will work closely with NRWA’s Federal Program Managers as well as the Executive team to ensure the highest quality work is achieved through the programs.

NRWA looks forward to the great work Vern and Steve will do and to seeing everything they will accomplish for Rural Water. Welcome to the team!