Larry W. Mays is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Arizona State University where he was the chair of the department. He was formerly Director of the Center for Research in Water Resources at the University of Texas at Austin where he also held an Engineering Foundation Endowed Professorship. A registered engineer in seven states and a professional hydrologist, he has served as a consultant to many organizations. Professor Mays is author of Water Resources Engineering (John Wily & Sons) and Optimal Control of Hydrosystems (Marcel Dekker), co-author of Applied Hydrology and Hydrosystems Engineering and Mangement (both from McGraw-Hill) and editor-in-chief of the Water Resources Handbook, Hydraulic Design Handbook, Water Distribution Systems Handbook, Stormwater Collection Systems Design Handbook, and the Urban Water Supply Handbook (all from McGraw-Hill). The Urban Water Supply Handbook received the 2002 Honorable Mention in Engineering Award given by the Association of American Publishers. He is also editor-in-chief of Reliability Analysis of Water Distribution Systems (ASCE) and co-editor of Computer Modeling of Free Surface and Pressurized Flow (Kluwer Academic Publishers). Among his honors is a distinguished alumnus award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999.