Employee Profile: Chris Bobay, Manager of Water Quality and Compliance

Worked at Louisville Water since 2007

Louisville Water’s award-winning Louisville Pure Tap® is known for its crisp and refreshing taste, and Manager of Water Quality and Compliance Chris Bobay is responsible for making sure your drinking water is consistently fresh from the faucet.

“Our team works directly with our water quality and production teams to optimize water quality from source to tap to ensure compliance with drinking water regulations,” Bobay said. “Our laboratory team provides water testing for many customers (internal and external) to support a variety of different projects.”

Bobay has worked at Crescent Hill Water Treatment Plant for the past 18 years and credits his coworkers for his nearly twenty years on the job.

“Behind the Louisville Water brand is a solid team of professionals dedicated to the mission of quality and excellence. The work we get to do is pretty cool,” he said. “There’s never a dull moment!”

A few of those moments include daily monitoring of the Ohio River, the source of Louisville Pure Tap®.

“This year, we worked with the production team to respond to a severe river taste and odor season that required treatment for three consecutive months,” he said.

Bobay’s team also monitored the water quality following the catastrophic UPS plane crash in November.

“We were part of the incident response team,” he said. “I love that the water quality team gets to work on so many different projects.”

Bobay recently welcomed nearly 100 water professionals to tour Crescent Hill Water Treatment Plant as part of the Partnership for Safe Water Summit sponsored by the American Water Works Association.

“Louisville Water was a charter member of the Partnership for Safe Water back in 1995 when the organization was founded,” he said. “The partnership is a commitment to excellence and we have several resources that we make available to other water utilities.”

For someone interested in a career in water quality, Bobay offered the following advice:

“I studied biology and environmental science at Indiana University–go Hoosiers! At IU, I worked in a water lab and spent my summers collecting samples and testing water from lakes and streams all over Indiana. I never thought I would do that for an entire career. My advice to those entering this field is to be willing to learn new things—always. Water science and policy is ever changing. We have to be all about continuous learning and continuous improvement. You can’t teach tenacity.”

When he isn’t watching the river, Bobay likes watching collegiate and not-so collegiate sports.

“My wife Kristin and I have four kids. It’s a busy household. My hobbies are watching my four kids enjoy their hobbies: volleyball, swimming, baseball, football, and basketball,” he said. “Occasionally, I get to play a little golf for my mental health. I also enjoy IU football and basketball games as often as I can.”