Charles Fetter:
He wrote the book, now he lives it

Specializing in ground water contamination, he has been retained as an expert witness in cases throughout the United States. He specializes in ground water exploration, water quality problems, well field layout, pumping tests, environmental impact analysis, and computer models of ground water systems.

"Consulting gives me the freedom to do what I want to do with my day," he said. That's the same reason, he said, he became a teacher. "In industry, they control what you do. In teaching, you are in charge of your day." He said he also thought teaching would help him understand hydrogeology better: "I'd have to learn it well enough to teach it as opposed to going through as a student once."

At the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, he developed an undergraduate major in hydrogeology. In part with an equipment grant from the National Science Foundation, he turned the university campus into an outdoor hydrogeology laboratory with eight ground water monitoring wells at four different locations. "One of the wells is a 756-foot deep open borehole which is used to teach the use of borehole logging instruments," Fetter said. "There's not many places where you can walk right outside the building and collect water samples."

In 1980, Fetter wrote the first edition of his best-selling Applied Hydrogeology, in its third edition in 1994. "I tried to write the book from a student's perspective using clear language and clear thinking," he said. "I tried to lay out each idea step-by-step rather than leaving it to the students to make intuitive leaps." Fetter said he made extensive use of solved example problems: "When I present an equation, I show in general where it came from and how to use it. I show this by going through an solved problem step-by-step to show how to come up with the answer." In the third edition, he said, he presented the equations in universal form so students can use metric or English to solve equations. "As each edition went on, I found ways to make it more understandable for students," he said. Fetter is especially pleased with the crisp graphics and line drawings in the third edition of Applied. It also has practical applications to the theories presented.

Fetter wrote Contaminant Hydrogeology in 1993. The second edition was published in July 1998. "I wrote Applied Hydrogeology because I really knew the material, but I wrote Contaminant Hydrogeology because I didn't know anything about it and wanted to learn," he said. "It seemed to work in this case."

In the second edition of Contaminant Hydrogeology, Fetter added end of chapter problems, upgraded it to include new techniques in the field, and put in more solved example problems and more case histories.

"The nice thing about writing textbooks is you can do it anywhere and at your own pace," Fetter said. "For somebody who is retired, textbook writing would be a good life change. A lot of people when teaching set out to write a textbook but don't finish it because they can't find the time. If I ever retire from consulting, I may write more."

Fetter said if someone thinks he or she has a better idea to approach students, in a way that makes learning meaningful and understandable, that's a good reason to write a textbook, but " have an idea about how it's going to be different."

When Fetter isn't working, he likes to travel, go boating and play golf and tennis.

— reported by Kim Pawlak, 1998