Mr. Ayers is one of the founders of Watershed Geo. His role as CEO is focused on carrying out the company’s core mission to be an innovator and leader in civil and environmental infrastructure protection and resiliency. This involves the development of strategic growth plans, commercialization of new patents, evaluation of new market offerings, establishing key partnerships and international expansion. Mr. Ayers has over 25 years of design experience using a variety of geosynthetics for stability, erosion control and environmental containment. Mr. Ayers has a long history working as a licensed professional engineer and contractor on heavy civil and environmental infrastructure projects across the US and abroad. He has also performed a multitude of due diligence programs for risk and financial assessments for large corporations’ acquisitions and sureties’ insurance and bonding programs.
Mr. Urrutia has a Master’s Degree in geotechnical engineering and 26 years of experience in both federal government service and private practice. His particular area of experience is in the solid waste industry for the design and construction of landfills and associated storm water management systems. He served as the engineering manager for the Southern U.S. operations of Waste Management and has provided his expertise on some of the largest landfills in the country. Mr. Urrutia holds an engineering license in multiple states and is actively involved in SWANA and National Association of Professional Engineers. He is the co-founder of Watershed Geo® along with Mr. Ayers.
Mr. Ehman joined Watershed Geo in 2011 as a Board Member and was named President in 2019 to oversee the company’s operations, sales, and administration. He has extensive experience in new business development and strategic planning and will drive efforts to grow sales through various distribution channels. He has been heavily involved in the evolution of Watershed’s growth and product expansion as the standing Board Manager representing Shaw Industries Group, Inc., the exclusive supplier of Watershed Geo’s engineered synthetic turf. Shaw Industries, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., is a shareholder in the company. Ehman served as President of Southwest Greens International for over 11 years, a company that Shaw Industries acquired in 2011. Ehman will remain on the Board of Southwest Greens International.
As Senior Vice President, Mr. Cooley is responsible for all sales and marketing related Watershed’s complete line of environmental and civil product offerings for waste containment, erosion control and stabilization. He brings over 20 years of experience working on innovative solutions for multi-disciplinary projects within the heavy infrastructure space. This experience includes levees/embankments, hydraulic and storm water structures, erosion control and slope stabilization, low impact site development, and solid and hazardous waste containment. He has successfully worked with owners, municipalities, engineers, contractors and large, complex government agencies in the residential, commercial, industrial, federal and environmental sectors. He is a registered Professional Engineer and a licensed General Contractor who earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Bucknell University and his Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.
In 2020, Mr. Hughes joined the Watershed Geo team as Vice President of Renewable Energy. His main focus is growing the market for Watershed’s patented PowerCap™ solar array system. Hughes brings over ten years of experience in the renewable power industry. He has been involved with nearly a gigawatt of installed solar projects and directly overseen operations and maintenance teams that managed almost 100MW of solar assets. He has worked in a variety of advisory roles with many companies, including the EPA, and spent 15 years in heavy civil construction before entering the solar market.
Vice President of International Markets, Kevin Holinaty, leads Watershed’s global efforts to continue rapid growth of the business. Mr. Holinaty, a business leader with extensive experience in expanding a U.S. brand into international markets, is responsible for overseeing all operational departments for Watershed. He spent 20 years with Southwest Greens International (SWG) – a premium golf green installation brand and sister company of Watershed Geo – successfully leading the development of a distribution network that spanned throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
As Vice President of the Utility/Power Market, Mr. Lang leads our CCR market development. He has over 28 years of consulting engineering and construction experience and is a licensed professional civil engineer. He has spent the past 15 years solely focused on this market and the closure, beneficiation and repurposing of CCR Projects including the use of WG innovative technologies such as ClosureTurf, HydroTurf and PowerCap. He has presented on numerous CCR/solid waste-related applications and technologies and was a significant contributor to the ACEC award-winning projects at the TVA Gallatin and Kingston Plants.