Global Water Resources

Ron Fleming has served as President and CEO since 2015, overseeing both the utility-scale operations and the growth-by-acquisition strategy in peri-urban Arizona. Chief Operating Officer Chris Krygier, promoted in May 2024, runs day-to-day utility management across the 25-system portfolio. The company also maintains a board of directors with significant utility-sector and Arizona-specific regulatory experience, which provides governance for major capital allocation decisions.

Global Water Resources acquires small, often under-capitalized water and wastewater systems in the path of Phoenix's metro expansion, then consolidates them into a contiguous "total water management" network centered on wastewater recycling and groundwater replenishment. The firm invests in pipe, plant, and treatment capacity across its service territory in Pinal and Maricopa counties, and files for rate adjustments with the Arizona Corporation Commission to earn a regulated return on those assets.

The company is structurally distinct in three ways: it is a pure-play water and wastewater entity with no gas or electric operations; it operates with a geographic monopoly on the exurban growth fringe of a single major metro area (greater Phoenix), rather than across multiple states; and its regulator explicitly allows it to fold acquisition costs of acquired small systems into its rate base, creating a consolidated rate-base model that rewards scale and efficiency in a state where water scarcity is the primary constraint on development.

The company's operations are concentrated in central Arizona, primarily along the growth corridors of Maricopa and Pinal counties — communities like Maricopa, Casa Grande, and unincorporated county islands that are absorbing Phoenix's exurban expansion. Arizona's groundwater regulations and the Colorado River shortage make these locations among the most water-constrained growth areas in the United States, meaning the firm's water supply and distribution assets are inextricably tied to the development viability of the land it serves.

The firm's customer base is overwhelmingly residential, serving master-planned communities and suburban developments in its service territory. Because it provides both water and wastewater service to these residential clusters, it captures the full household utility cycle. Industrial or agricultural demand is not a material component of the company's revenue mix, which makes it a concentrated bet on household formation and in-migration to central Arizona.

"Total water management" for Global Water Resources means treating imported, native groundwater, and recycled wastewater as a single connected system rather than separate silos. Wastewater is treated and reused for non-potable purposes — primarily landscape irrigation and environmental recharge — which reduces the utility's overall groundwater pumping requirement. This integrated approach lowers the long-term cost of supply in a region where groundwater rights are increasingly contested, and it provides a basis for rate-case advocacy before the Arizona Corporation Commission.

The Arizona Corporation Commission sets the company's rates and approves its capital investment recovery. The Commission permits the firm to earn a regulated return on rate-base assets including the purchase price of acquired small water systems, a structure that incentivizes the kind of fragmented-system consolidation Global Water Resources has pursued since founding. The regulatory compact also requires the utility to meet state water-quality and service-reliability standards, which provides a barrier to entry for unregulated competitors.