My association with Waterborne started when Pat and Marty founded the company in 1993. I was a project leader managing environmental contract studies for CIBA-GEIGY (later became Novartis and now Syngenta). We initiated a major large-scale retrospective; groundwater monitoring study for a major herbicide to address groundwater issues with USEPA. This study was conducted by Waterborne involving 2000 rural wells in 20 major agricultural states in the USA. This study also involved interaction with several State Agencies. This major study was successfully completed by Pat Holden and other staff at Waterborne, with credit going to the excellent talents available at Waterborne.

I continued to work with Waterborne with a few prospective groundwater (PGW) monitoring studies to meet the requirements of new product registration for CIBA-GEIGY. USEPA guidelines for this highest-tier study (PGW) were in the early stages of development. With the great talents available at Waterborne and the leadership of Pat, we were able to complete these registration requirements with USEPA. With the successful completion of these major projects, Waterborne became the preferred contractor for the new Novartis and Syngenta in several areas, including large-scale river monitoring of the major herbicide, ecological risk assessment, and environmental field studies. In my opinion, staff at Waterborne showed great talents, good planning, sincere efforts, attention to details, good customer relationship and other qualities that are the unique qualities of Waterborne.

As mentioned above, Waterborne initially started as a company involved in monitoring studies. As additional needs of USEPA and others are required, Waterborne, with Marty and other colleagues, developed expertise as a world leader in many other areas, including environmental risk assessment, environmental modeling, and GIS. In the 30 years following its inception, Waterborne has grown tremendously in many areas of expertise. The credit goes to the leadership of Pat and Marty and the talented staff at Waterborne. My best wishes to the staff of Waterborne for great success in the years to come.

K. Balu worked as a Senior Group Leader for environmental studies at CIBA- GEIGY R&D department with responsibility for meeting the requirements of new and existing products registration and reregistration with expertise in monitoring, and environmental fate assessment.