Anne Raup © Special to the Rocky Heavy fog is common during the premonsoon season in eastern Nepal. In some places, the fog is being "caught" to supplement scarce supplies of clean water.

MEET THE TEAM Meet Dr. Bialek and the student engineers, and hear what motivates them about the project. › The team OTHER STORIES A villager's wish: drinkable water, irrigated fields Water crisis a fact of life in Kathmandu Main story: Expedition to Nepal SLIDE SHOW Expedition to Nepal VIDEO Coloradans on engineering expedition in Nepal ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS - USA Founded: 2002 Headquarters: Longmont Chapters: 225 professional and student chapters in the United States Membership: 12,000 Projects: 45 countries To learn more: www.ewb-usa.org or call 303-772-2723 WHERE IN THE WORLD? Click on the map for a larger view.

Meet the Engineers Without Borders team

Dr. Barry Bialek
56, retired emergency room/family practice physician

Bialek fell under Nepal's spell for the first time in the 1970s, when he worked in Namsaling as a Peace Corps volunteer. Since then, he's returned again and again.

"When someone gets sick here, I can cure them. But they'll get sick again," Bialek said. "These engineers are here for only a few weeks. But if they do their work well, they will have an impact for years to come and all those diseases will have been prevented."

Frances Fierst
37, professional engineer

Fierst gave up a lucrative engineering job at Panasonic to pursue a master's degree in engineering for developing communities at the University of Colorado. A Minnesota native, Fierst said, "I quit a high-paying job because I hated it. "I didn't want to wake up every day for the rest of my life and be bored to tears. I have a house, a car and a motorcycle, but what else is there?

"I think this — challenging fulfillment — is it for me."

Sherelyn Jackson
45, professional engineer, consultant

While recovering from a near-fatal skiing accident, Jackson felt her perspective on work and life begin to shift. A Florida native, Jackson said she grew up almost as poor as the people of Namsaling.

"I wanted to do something more benevolent. I got an e-mail from EWB about Nepal and I felt as if Nepal was calling me."

David Dani
27, environmental engineer and doctoral student at the University of Colorado

"I'm an engineer who has never been interested in engineering. I'm here because this is the human part of it. It's fun because in a project like this you're working with Ph.D.s, with teachers, with anthropologists. Everyone cares about the people. They may have different politics, but when it comes to health and education, everyone agrees."

Sunil Ojha
29, business manager in Kathmandu

Ojha joined Engineers Without Borders Nepal after watching his country struggle to cope with political unrest and relentless poverty. "I wanted to interact with new people. I've never been to this place before."

Tyler Manchester
22, 2007 CU architecture graduate

Manchester, of Snowmass, signed on for a six-week stint in Namsaling after hearing Bernard Amadei speak about the role engineers can play in solving problems in poor countries. "I had been looking for an opportunity to do this in architecture, but architecture is only for the rich. They just don't do this. So when I heard Bernard speak, it sounded too good to be true. It was the opportunity I had been looking for."

Christie Chatterley
25, graduate engineering student at the University of Colorado

Chatterley worked with Engineers Without Borders in Rwanda before quitting her job in the aerospace industry to pursue a master's degree at the University of Colorado. She is a key organizer of the project in Namsaling, managing finances and travel. She's thinking of joining the CU team that will return next year. "I love this place.

Shrijana Joshi
19, studying public health at Nepal's National Academy for Medical Science

Joshi wants to learn more about how her country's water and sanitation issues affect the community's well-being. "All the work we're doing here is linked to public health."

Few nonprofits have grown as quickly as Engineers Without Borders-USA. Since it was founded in 2002 by University of Colorado civil engineering professor Bernard Amadei, its budget has grown from $20,000 to $2.5 million and its list of chapters has grown from one to over 225.

Amadei acts as an adviser to the group these days. Its day-to- day operations are run by Cathy Leslie, another community- minded engineer.

EWB specializes in working with small communities — 10,000 people or fewer — that have crafted their own work plans and need engineering expertise to implement them.

But Leslie said the nonprofit’s education mission is equally important. “We’re training the next generation of engineers to think globally and to think sustainably,” she said.

“In five years we’ve come a long way. I think it’s because the engineering profession as a whole has been struggling with why we do what we do. To me, EWB puts passion and humanity into engineering. It’s a very good example of why we do what we do.”