Our People

Board of Directors

Biography:

Mr. O’dell was both a paid employee and a volunteer on the Mammoth Cave groundwater studies conducted by Dr. James F. Quinlan for 10 years. He went to get his formal education at Indiana University where he also worked for Geosciences Research Associates as a technician and later as a geologist doing mine permitting and groundwater studies which included karst studies. He started to work for the Kentucky Division of Water’s newly formed Groundwater Section in 1985 as a geologist and groundwater hydrologist. There he worked on contaminant and karst problems around the state which included assisting in the mapping of karst basins and working to help implement the Caveland Sanitation project which helped to protect Hidden River Cave and Mammoth Cave. He was also instrumental in using both state and federal law to get the underground waters at Mammoth Cave designated as Outstanding Resources Waters giving them much more needed federal protection. He was an active cave surveyor and NSS member starting in 1973 and is currently a member of the Blue Grass Grotto. He was a primary surveyor of Whigpistle cave, Hick’s Cave, and numerous other caves in the Mammoth region. He was one of the driving forces that constructed the WAR Entrance to Hick’s cave that is now owned by the ACCA. He is a member of the Blue Grass Grotto. He has been a member of the National Speleological Society for almost 50 years. He is a semi-retired Registered Professional Geologist and lives with his youngest son in Lexington, KY.