Mike Gremillion Shares Alabama Water Institute’s Groundbreaking Work

Past President Gordon Martin and President Jeff Stone with Mike Gremillion

This week the Rotary Club of Birmingham welcomed Mike Gremillion, Director of the Global Water Security Center (GWSC) and Deputy Director of the Alabama Water Institute (AWI). He shared how AWI, an initiative of The University of Alabama, is leading local, national, and global efforts to advance water research, technology, and innovative solutions. He explained its goals are to build a more resilient and water-secure world by driving groundbreaking research, educating the next generation of leaders, and delivering innovations that benefit communities and ecosystems worldwide. Gremillion discussed the work he leads at GWSC to translate water and environmental science to help key global decision makers improve security at the intersection of water, energy, food, and health.

Bio for Mike Gremillion

For more than 27 years, Mike Gremillion, Colonel USAF (Ret) provided scientific leadership and expertise for national security environmental support under the U.S. Department of Defense. Mike came to the University of Alabama from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, where he was the senior meteorology and oceanography officer. Before joining NGA in March 2020, he worked nearly seven years at the U.S. Air Force Headquarters in the Pentagon, with his last assignment as Deputy Director of Weather. He held posts of increasing responsibility and influence within the Air Force since joining in 1993. He has engaged the White House, Congressional leaders and senior personnel within the national security, defense and intelligence communities on environmental policy issues throughout his career. Some of his career achievements include facilitating procurement of a $30 million high performance computer installed at Oak Ridge National Lab that improved numerical weather prediction and will operate the first-ever operational global hydrological model. He also initiated development of a climate analysis, monitoring and prediction system that provided strategic indications and warnings to prepare leaders for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions, security instability, disaster risk reduction and public health contingencies.

Gremillion earned a bachelor’s degree in atmospheric science from the University of Kansas, a master’s degree in meteorology from Texas A&M University and a master’s in business administration from Regis University.