In Remembrance of Bill Light

Bill earned an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Biomedical and Environmental Health Sciences, Chemical Engineering and Materials Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1977.  He also held a master's degree in Chemical Engineering from Berkeley and a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA.

Upon graduating from Berkeley in 1977, Bill began his career at Abcor (now Koch Membranes)  where he studied the advantages of RO for advanced wastewater treatment where RO membranes demonstrated their ability to remove dissolved organics from waste water reclamation treating secondary effluents.  In 1982, Bill joined Fluid Systems as Director of R&D and became the company president in 1995.

Bill was known for his extensive knowledge of membranes, systems and applications.

He helped develop new products that met emerging customer needs as the market moved towards ultra-low pressure, softening and nanofiltration membranes.  Bill’s expertise spanned the entire range of thin film composite membranes as he led the placement of TFC seawater spiral wound membranes at one of the first RO desalination plants in Saudi Arabia in 1986 as well as implementing the first series of softening RO membranes in treating municipal waters at Palm Beach County Florida in the early 90s.  Bill was a passionate pioneer of membranes and broke new ground for the reverse osmosis membrane industry.

Bill played an instrumental role in the successful defense of the Cadotte/FT30 patent infringement lawsuit.  This led to the issuance of the Cadotte patent to the US government thus opening the door for more industries to compete in the RO market.  Bill was an expert in membrane manufacturing and joined Osmonics in late 1998 as the general manager of the company’s Vista, CA facility.   He became President of Sepro Membranes in June, 2000.  We will sorely miss him, his passion for membranes and his many contributions to our industry.