Terrill has degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Management from MIT and Oregon State University. His entire 25 year career has been spent working as a consulting engineer on water treatment, wastewater, and solid waste projects; that is, the dirty side of creating a clean and healthy environment. His work involves the struggle to balance the competing forces of what is legal, what is desirable, what is urgent, what is important, what is practical, what preserves resources, and ultimately, what is humanly possible.

(Bio from summer 1999)