Jacob Cuarta, who has worked for a rapidly growing water utility in Florida, has been selected to lead the Warren County Water District, itself among the fastest-growing water and sewer providers in Kentucky.

Cuarta, 41, was announced Tuesday as the pick to succeed current Warren Water General Manager John Dix, who is retiring June 10.

“I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity,” said Cuarta, who was born in Bowling Green and earned two degrees at Western Kentucky University. “With all the growth we’ll be seeing here over the next few years, I felt I was a good fit.”

Cuarta will lead a public utility that serves more than 32,000 water and 9,000 wastewater customers throughout Warren County and also serves parts of Butler and Simpson counties.

The numbers are growing along with the population of Warren County – up by nearly 20,000 from 2010 to 2020 – but such growth is hardly a deterrent for Cuarta.

He returns to Bowling Green after three years of leading the Water Quality and Operations Division for Pasco County Utilities in Florida, a public utility in the greater Tampa area that has 122,000 customers.

Cuarta has also worked as a project manager for the Southwest Florida Water Management District and as a field technician for the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection.

With that background, said Warren Water Board of Commissioners member Dion Houchins, “Jacob will be an excellent fit. He has a strong commitment to innovation, collaboration and community engagement.”

Dix, who has been Warren Water GM since 2013, said: “The board was very deliberate in the process (of finding his successor). They had candidates from all across the nation.

“Jacob rose to the top based on his experience and his local ties. They were looking for someone who understood the community.”

Dix, 62, is retiring after a couple of stints with Warren Water. He came to the utility in 1992 but left after nine years for an opportunity in Tennessee, only to return to Bowling Green in 2011.

He has guided Warren Water through a period of expansion, both in number of customers and in infrastructure.

“We’ve experienced tremendous growth, especially in the last four or five years,” Dix said. “We’ve done several projects with the help of Warren Fiscal Court that have helped the county grow.”

Together with Bowling Green Municipal Utilities, Warren Water has been involved in an $8.4 million project to install a 30,000-foot-long force main pipeline that will improve wastewater treatment service to the southern end of the county.

Last month, fiscal court agreed to use more than $3.8 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to help Warren Water construct the first phase of a gravity sewer interceptor near Nashville Road and Dillard Road and build the Hidden River sewer connector project.

Although such projects have already positioned Warren Water to meet many of the needs arising from the county’s growth, Cuarta is aware that more work is needed, particularly to accommodate new employers coming to the Kentucky Transpark industrial park in the north end of the county.

“We’ll have plenty of different types of projects as we extend water and sewer service throughout the county,” he said. “The Transpark work will be a huge undertaking. We hope to get started on the battery plant (Envision AESC’s 3 million-square-foot plant) right away.”

Despite such challenges, Cuarta said he is glad to be back in Bowling Green and to be at the helm of Warren Water.

“I care about this community and the people who live here,” Cuarta said. “I probably never would’ve left if I had had the right career opportunities.”

– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.