our Team

Our team is made up of a full and part time staff, plus graduate-level interns, and senior directors and advisers. We’re a mix of Mexicans and international residents, technologists and community organizers, researchers and educators — united by our dedication to public health and welfare.

In the field

Past team members

• Jennifer Ungemach, Operations Coordinator, 2012 - 2018

• Jeff Rottler, Operations Coordinator, Instructor, Ceramic Filter Production, 2011 - 2018

• Aaron Krupp, Research and Technology Development Coordinator, 2016 - 2019

• Chantal Kronenburg, Communications Coordinator, 2016 - 2019

• Billy Thurston, Water Quality Monitoring Coordinator, 2016 - 2019

• Paco Guajardo, Associate Director, 2018-2020

• Melissa Landman, Development Coordinator 2019-2021

• Filiberto Baltazar, Water Filter Production

• Ismael Rodriguez, Water Filter Production

Board of Directors

Bruce Janklow - President
Bruce Janklow had a forty-two year career in advertising, marketing and strategic planning. He was the Senior partner and/or CEO of three different organizations and in his last role served as an executive consultant and change agent for small and large clients including Dow 100 companies. Bruce has also been a board member of several 501(c)3 foundations including Big Brothers and Big Sisters of NY and the Audubon Society of Mexico. He was a founder and President of a foundation to assist the parents of teens at risk and was a senior advisor for Catskill Mountainkeeper (a regional environmental action group) and helped lead a successful campaign to achieve a ban on gas fracking in NY State. Bruce has been living in San Miguel since 2007 and also spends part of the year in the Catskill Mountain region of NY State where he is a member of the board of advisors for the Catskill Art Society. Bruce is also a fine arts photographer and has had both one man and group shows in the U.S. and Mexico.

Agustin Madrigal - Vice President
Agustin Madrigal, has been the Director of Salvemos el Rio Laja for 11 years and coordinates conservation, soil restoration, and water projects in local rural communities as part of the National Program in Watersheds and Cities, funded by the Fondo Mexicano para la Conservación de la Naturaleza, A.C.

Joshua Samson, Treasurer
Joshua is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and is currently the Director of Financial Reporting at Guggenheim Partners, a financial services institution. Prior to joining Guggenheim Partners, Joshua worked at Protiviti, an audit and consulting firm, performing IT security and compliance audits around the world. Joshua leads the Budget & Finance Committee for Caminos de Agua, and he works closely with the Executive Director to develop yearly budgets and consolidated financial reports for the organization.

George Terrell - Secretary
George Terrell has been a community organizer and social justice activist for 45 years. A lawyer by training, his current practice is limited to the pro bono representation of several non-profits. He is one of the founders of Caminos de Agua and has worked in Mexico since 2006, first with indigenous communities in Chiapas in capacity building programs teaching earthblock construction and later in Guanajuato with Caminos. Since the early 1980’s he has helped lead Project Neighbors (Neighbors Corp.) a grass roots community organization in Valparaiso, Indiana. Using local volunteers to help improve the lives of marginalized people, Project Neighbors has built a childcare center and a community center serving a diverse population, a health care center now serving the uninsured and under-insured in five counties, and has built over 70 homes and two women’s shelters and operates a community radio station - WVLP. George also serves on the Board of the Asset Based Community Development Institute. In his earlier years, he worked as a union organizer and in union democracy campaigns in the Steelworkers Union.

Charlie Sellers, Ph.D.
Charlie has a background in advanced materials (metals and ceramics) development – spending 10 years at a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory and +10 years in industry working at international manufacturing operations. He specializes in the development and deployment of appropriate technologies for emerging economies, in areas such as alternative energy, improved cooking appliances, clean water, and sanitation. Dr. Sellers is familiar with a very wide range of materials and technologies, using them to solve problems employing a human-centered design approach to engineering. He believes in the value of mentoring startup companies, using his experiences in the business world to encourage social entrepreneurs to commercialize new products that will make a difference. He has been with Catapult Design since it evolved from the San Francisco chapter of Engineers Without Borders and enjoys working in areas such as test development and data analysis, quality assurance and risk management, manufacturing in limited-resource settings, and field deployments for new product testing. He now resides in San Miguel de Allende and supports the Caminos de Agua Technology Development Team in a variety of areas but specifically with the production and commercialization of the Aguadapt water filter.

Dave Barrett
Dave Barrett is a retired nonprofit fundraising and management professional living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Formerly based in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts and the San Francisco Bay Area, he raised tens of millions of dollars in operating, capital and endowment funds over a 30 plus-year career as a consultant and Director of Development for a wide range of cultural, educational, and health-related nonprofits. He has served on the Boards of several community organizations in both parts of the country, and in 2015, was named one of the top 25 most “dedicated, creative and influential Berkshire County residents” by Berkshire Magazine. Barrett also had a concurrent career as a professional musician, and is now devoting the bulk of his time to creating visual art.

Hardy Holland
Born in east North Carolina, Hardy attended the University of North Carolina graduating with a BS in Business Administration. He spent just under 40 years working in the Wealth Management sector before retiring from Morgan Stanley in 2019. During his working career, Hardy served in various nonprofit organizations: The High Museum of Art of Atlanta, Project Open Hand of Atlanta, Asheville City Schools Foundation, and The Wortham Center for The Performing Arts of Asheville. Hardy and his husband John now live full-time in San Miguel de Allende. At Caminos de Agua, Hardy fulfills a range of responsibilities encompassing fundraising support, managing donor relationships, and conducting outreach.

Ilan Adler, Ph.D.
Dr. Adler is a teaching fellow at University College of London, one of Caminos de Agua's main University partners, in the Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering, and he is also the founder of IRRI-Mexico. Dr. Adler has worked in the Independence Watershed region for years; he was involved with an early water quality study of the region in 2005-2006 and ultimately installed numerous rainwater harvesting systems in rural community elementary schools to combat the high arsenic and fluoride contamination they were encountering. He received his Ph.D. in 2014; his thesis entitled: Application of filtration and silver-ion based disinfection to purify rainwater for potable uses in rural communities of Mexico. These rainwater systems are now maintained by Caminos de Agua. 

Dr. Isabel García Bastida Germán
Dr. Isabel Garcia, M.D. is an expert on many of the public health challenges of children who are exposed to excessive levels of arsenic and fluoride in the water, namely the impacts of kidney damage and kidney failure. Dr. Garcia is originally from Mexico City and received her professional education in Medicine at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), and received a specialist in Clinical Pediatrics from Hospital Español de México. Dr. Garcia lived in Guadalajara, Jalisco for 30 years where she practiced pediatrics and was later invited to be the Head of operating rooms at Hospital Ángeles. In San Miguel de Allende, Dr. Garcia worked at the Tec 100 Clinic and the hemodialysis unit group of Médica Santa Carmen.

Javier Angel, MSc, MArch
Javier is an active architect with over 18 years of experience with a keen focus on Water Sustainability. He has completed a wide variety of projects in several parts of the world including Germany, the US, Dubai, and Mexico (www.toniclab.mx). Born and raised in San Miguel de Allende, Javier has always been aware of the issues but most importantly the opportunities that the water crisis in our region represents in our society. His Master thesis “Cachinches Green Corridor” has been considered by Adaptur and GIZ Germany as one of 3 projects that have the potential to stop the effects of climate change in our watershed. This lifetime project is a proposal to regenerate the ecological corridor and create a Linear Park on the Cachinches Stream in San Miguel de Allende; restoring its perennial flow and reactivating the environmental services of this important body of water for the benefit of the entire community.

Lyn Knox
Lyn Knox worked at the Francis Family Foundation for 20 years as a Program Officer for their grant-making program before retiring and moving to San Miguel de Allende in 2017. Previously, Lyn worked as the Director of Private and Family Foundations of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. Lyn has “worked in philanthropy in one form or another for 30 years. From the Peace Corps in Africa, to six years with the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, through experiences on the staff of two California non-profits and as a consultant grant writer before returning to Kansas City.” Lyn began volunteering with Caminos de Agua in 2017 before joining the board in 2019. She is the founder of the organization’s Institutional Funding Committee, and she works closely with the Executive Director on grant opportunities.

Robert Lerner
Robert Lerner is a biologist, technologist and serial entrepreneur. A veteran of start-ups in renewable energy, outdoor gear, and technology development, his business experience spans start-ups, fundraising, product development (multiple patents), sales and marketing, and full-charge financial responsibility. Rob advises on biochar and bioenergy in Costa Rica, Panama, and Mexico, where he has resided since 1996. Rob is the former Board President of Caminos de Agua from 2016-2019 and recently took on the role of CEO of Aguadapt Inc.

Advisory Teams & Committees

volunteers & Fellows