BOSTON – Phyllis Arnold Rand of Lewiston was elected president of the New England Water Environment Association on Jan. 25.

The association is an 1800-member educational and technical organization that promotes the protection and enhancement of the water environment. Its members include wastewater treatment plant operators, engineers, laboratory technicians, industrial pretreatment inspectors and educators.

Rand has a long history of involvement in the wastewater treatment profession. In 1995, she served as president of the Maine Wastewater Control Association.

As president of NEWEA, she will work with 17 officers, an executive director and 37 committee chairmen to provide training seminars for association members and the public, promote the water environment profession, and take part in collaborative efforts with other professional organizations.

Rand, a 2003 business administration honors graduate of Andover College in Portland, holds a wastewater treatment plant operator’s license from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and a high honors diploma in water and wastewater treatment plant operations from Fayetteville (N.C.) Technical Community College.

She is the laboratory technician at the Lewiston-Auburn Water Pollution Control Authority in Lewiston.

She is a 20-year resident of Lewiston where she lives with her husband, Robert, son, Daniel, and daughter, Linda.