Jonathan Earl Jones, P.E., P.H., BC.WRE, F.ASCE, a water resources consulting engineer who serves as chief executive officer of Wright Water Engineers Inc., has been named a fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
After internships with the Environmental Protection Agency while in college, Jones began working at the firm he now leads, Colorado-based Wright Water Engineers, in 1981. Under the initial mentorship of founder Kenneth Wright, he has worked for more than 40 years on water resources engineering assignments throughout the United States. During his tenure at Wright Water Engineers, Jones has managed some of the firm’s largest assignments for public and private sector clients, such as the Mile High Flood District, Coors Brewing Company, and the United States Department of Justice.
Throughout his career, Jones has been active in the Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI), particularly the Urban Water Resources Research Council (UWRRC). His passion for the UWRRC began early, as he attended meetings with his father, one of UWRRC’s founders. Jones coauthored or served as chair of committees on multiple EWRI publications, and served four consecutive terms as UWRRC chairman, 1992-1996. In 2022, he was awarded the EWRI Lifetime Achievement Award and was a co-recipient of the EWRI UWRRC Founders Award.
Jones chaired a committee of more than 100 engineers who prepared the 1992 reference published by ASCE and the Water Environment Federation (WEF), Manual of Practice for the Design and Construction of Urban Stormwater Management Systems; he also served as editor-in-chief of the ASCE publication Great Works in Urban Water Resources (1962-2001). Along with Eric Strecker and Ben Urbonas, he is co-developer of the widely cited International Stormwater BMP Database (www.bmpdatabase.org). He served on the Blue Ribbon Panel that reviewed the WEF/ASCE Manual of Practice, Design of Urban Stormwater Controls and chaired the committee that wrote the ASCE-published Public Safety Guidance for Urban Stormwater Facilities.
Outside of ASCE, Jones served the water resources community in Colorado as a governor-appointed board member of the Cherry Creek Basin Water Quality Authority (2006-2010). He has served on the Board of Directors of several nonprofits, such as the Urban Watersheds Research Institute in Denver (2006-2021) and the Green Infrastructure Center in Charlottesville, Virginia (2018-2024). He was vice chair of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) Standards Committee that developed the AWWA G560 Standard–Stormwater Management for Water Utilities, the first guidance of its kind by AWWA. Jones currently chairs AWWA’s Committee on Stormwater Utility Management. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers, has reviewed articles for multiple technical journals, and is active in his community of Boulder, Colorado.
Jones earned his bachelor’s degree and an M.E., both in civil engineering, from the University of Virginia. He is a licensed professional engineer in 23 states and has been designated a professional hydrologist by the American Institute of Hydrology and a board-certified water resources engineer by the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers.
