Bill Dressel

Bill has 19 years of experience in dam engineering—17 of which were gained in positions with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and Denver Water, where he worked on projects for over 100 different dams. Bill has extensive experience in the evaluation, design, and construction of embankment and concrete dams and appurtenant structures. Bill is a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)-approved Independent Consultant and Facilitator and has facilitated dozens of risk analyses. He completed the USBR Safety Evaluation of Existing Dams (SEED) training in 2005; the USBR Best Practices in Dam Safety Risk Analysis training in 2010; and the joint USBR/USACE Best Practices in Dam and Levee Safety Risk Analysis in 2015.

At the USBR, Bill served as a technical specialist and was part of the Dam Safety Advisory Team (DSAT) and a core Risk Cadre member. As a DSAT member, he regularly reviewed the adequacy of technical and risk assessments used to support USBR’s dam-safety program decisions. As a Risk Cadre member, he facilitated dozens of quantitative risk assessment systems (QRAs) and semi-quantitative risk analyses (SQRAs). Bill was responsible for developing consistent risk analysis methodology, training others to facilitate risk analyses, and working with USBR decision-makers to further the development of risk assessment processes. He co-authored several chapters of the most recent edition of the joint USBR/USACE Best Practices in Dam and Levee Safety Risk Analysis and was a peer reviewer for the 2022 USBR Dam Safety Public Protection Guidelines. He also regularly instructed technical dam-safety training classes (Best Practices, SEED, FEMA Dam Safety) for engineers and dam safety professionals from the USBR, USACE, and other federal and state agencies.