Profile: A quiet protector for Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS - Behind the scenes, Mark Ultis quietly has been protecting Cedar Rapids for 35 years.

He's not a vigilante. Just a water tester.

Ultis has been a key force in ensuring water in Cedar Rapids is safe to drink, and contaminants in wastewater coming from the city's biggest industries don't exceed toxicity levels.

Since starting as a temporary analyst in 1982, the job of water testing has gotten only more complex and wide-ranging, he said.

'The list never gets smaller,” Ultis said of the tests required of his unit. 'There's more regulations, more contaminants of concerns.”

Ultis, 59, retired Friday as laboratory services manager, overseeing seven analysts and two chemists who test water and wastewater samples. A replacement has not yet been named.

The division has been recognized numerous times over the years, such as a 2016 'Utility of the Future Today” award by the nonprofit Water Environment Federation; several years of 'gold Peak Performance awards” for water pollution control; and multiple 'best tasting water” awards.

Ultis was a local guy who left and returned. He attended Kennedy High and then Coe College for biology, and later earned an advanced degree at Michigan State University. He thought he was coming back to Cedar Rapids just as a stopover. 'I came back and I never left,” he said.

His big break came courtesy of a colleague's bad break - a broken leg on a skiing trip. Ultis took on more responsibility. His temporary position became full time.

In the early days, he helped modernize the lab, arguing for its first computer - an IBM PS/2 model - disguising the purchase as a new instrument to aid in testing, which it was.

He climbed the ranks over the next three decades to chemist, quality assurance specialist, quality assurance officer and then manager.

Ultis spent many of his years in the lab analyzing for copper, lead, nitrates and more. He helped optimize water treatment to reduce the corrosiveness of water that can cause pipes to leach toxins. The effort helped prevent the kind of breakdown that led to toxic drinking water in Flint, Mich., in 2015.

His lab conducts 1,400 tests on drinking water and 100 bacteria samples each month. The staff monitors for nitrates, phosphates, microsystins found in blue green algae and the cryptosporidium parasite, which hasn't been detected in two years.

In some cases, such as nitrates, analysts must run treatments to ensure the contaminant doesn't exceed a maximum potency. In other cases, the tests are required simply to monitor and collect data.

Ultis said he will miss his time in the lab, but not the scheduling. He has no major plans for retirement other than to spend more time with his wife, Karen, go fishing and play golf.

l Comments: (319) 339-3177; brian.morelli@thegazette.com