Mark Spindler
Mark co-leads the Safety and Occupational Health program for the Colorado Water Science Center’s (COWSC) hydrologic field studies and scientific support teams. His main duties are to provide policy guidance, develop and coordinate occupational safety training for field operations and equipment use, and conduct facility and site hazard recognition and mitigation.
Mark began his career with the USGS in the student employment programs as a field and lab assistant for the Alaska Science Center. In 2010, he became a full-time hydrologic technician stationed at the Anchorage Field Office, mentoring under decades worth of field-hardened technicians. He eventually co-led several field trips, collecting streamflow and water quality data throughout the remote areas of south central and western Alaska. In 2013, he transferred to the Southern Nevada Networks Unit, stationed near Las Vegas, where he revitalized a field trip in western Nevada and eastern California to provide critical data collection in remote areas of the Mojave Desert. Mark transferred to Colorado in 2014 and subsequently became a lead trainer of water quality records processing and surface water data collection techniques. He took on additional duties by becoming Western Colorado’s collateral duty safety program coordinator (CDSPC) in 2019. Beginning in FY2024, Mark waived his tenure as a hydrologic technician to join the COWSC’s safety program.