I was born on June 2, 1962, in Reading, Pennsylvania. I grew up on a small farm near Fleetwood, Pennsylvania. I graduated from Lancaster Mennonite High School in 1980. From 1982 to 1983, I was a volunteer with the Mennonite Central Committee in the Salvadoran refugee camps of western Honduras where I worked as a technical assistant. This assignment convinced me of the need for appropriate water supply and sanitation technologies. After returning from Honduras I studied at Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana where I graduated with a B. A. in physics in May 1985. I married Juanita J. Shirk in the summer of 1985.
In the fall of 1985 I entered the M. S. program at Cornell University in Agricultural Engineering. I became interested in slow sand filtration and conducted research on filter medium size effects for my Masters degree. After graduating May 1987 with a Master of Science degree, I returned to Honduras with Mennonite Central Committee. I returned to Cornell in the fall of 1988, this time as a doctoral candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Under the guidance of Dr. Richard Dick, I studied slow sand filter particle removal mechanisms.
Since graduating from Cornell in 1992, I have continued to research particle removal mechanisms in slow sand filters. I also investigated particle fate and transport in estuarine environments using a differential turbulence column in the DeFrees Hydraulics lab. Starting in 1995, I worked with Len Lion to develop a new Environmental Engineering Laboratory course for juniors and seniors and to oversee the renovation of the environmental engineering laboratory.