Posted 8:51 pm Sunday, February 20, 2011
Mettetal Has Heart For Clean Water Initiatives
Dr. Ted Mettetal noticed disease-ridden water as a common denominator among the sick and dying he witnessed in third-world countries while on mission trips.
Now, the Athens physician has launched a line of bottled water, with all profits going toward clean-water initiatives in countries racked with disease.
Mettetal grew up in the small town of Monticello, Ark., which had a population at the time of about 3,500. His father taught business administration at the college there.
"It was great," Mettetal said of growing up in a small town. "Everybody knew you, and you knew everybody. I rode my bike around town during the day and night. I had a paper route. I never felt unsafe and was never threatened by anyone. It was great to grow up in a small town."
He attended Monticello High School, where he played every sport and was the football team captain. He graduated in 1968.
"I would not say I was a star," he said of his athletic prowess.
His baseball skills did land him a scholarship to the University of Arkansas at Monticello, where he played for two years before quitting to focus on his biology studies. He earned a degree in 1971 and went on to attend the University of Arkansas School of Medicine.
Halfway through Mettetal's medical schooling, President Richard Nixon announced the cutting of student loan programs.
"So there I sat with no way to finance the medical school," Mettetal said.
It was around that time the military began offering tuition, books and $400 a month to students if they would commit to the military for four years upon graduation, so Mettetal and a fellow student signed up for the U.S. Navy. All they had to do was engage in six weeks of active duty annually.
During his senior year in medical school, he went on a mission trip to the Philippines.
"We went into the mountains where white people had not been seen before," Mettetal said. "It was just a fascinating time for me. I saw all kinds of tropical diseases."
Many of those were water-related illnesses, he said.
After graduating medical school in 1974, he packed up and moved to California, where he began an internship at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Oakland.
A year later, he was assigned to a Navy Seabees unit, which was sent to Spain to work on a submarine pier and docking unit. That led to an assignment with a Navy security group in Puerto Rico.
He finished his obligation to the Navy in 1979 and joined the John Peter Smith Hospital training program in Fort Worth and went on to a family practice residence.
In 1982, he followed some fellow doctors to Athens and set up a family practice, which he has been running ever since.
"We had a tremendous amount of really good experience," Mettetal said of his fellow doctors.
Over the years, he has been on medical-related mission trips to South America, Central America, Africa and elsewhere.
"Everywhere that we have gone, one of the discussions we seem to have is the difficulty people have in accessing clean water," he said.
A book he read in 2009 -- Rich Stearns' "A Hole in Our Gospel" -- noted that a billion people on Earth have no easy access to healthy water, with nearly 5 million a year dying from waterborne disease. It also was noted that a child dies of waterborne illness every 15 seconds.
"That hit me hard," Mettetal said. "That was tough."
While at a grocery store one day, he began examining the varieties of bottled water.
He wondered whether 100 percent of the profits of that water went to clean-water projects around the globe. So, he did a little research.
"I think this is something God interjected into my mind," Mettetal said. "He talks to us by asking questions.
"There was nobody doing that 100 percent. Portions were going to clean-water projects. I really wrestled with that a lot."
He talked up his idea with friends in Athens, who quickly came aboard. They formed two corporations: a for-profit one to sell the water and a nonprofit one to receive those revenues and use the money to drill clean water wells around the world.
The product, under the Hope Springs Water label, debuted in August 2010 in two Athens locations: Anderson Drug Store and Athens Thrift Store. Enough money has been raised to drill two wells in Nicaragua, with a third in the works for that country.
Mettetal said his company is working to get Hope Springs Water on shelves in East Texas grocery stores and beyond. The water comes from Caney Spring just south of Palestine, and it is bottled by Premium Waters in Fort Worth.
"I spend a lot of time on Hope Springs Water," Mettetal said. "It's a second full-time job."
Mettetal, 60, and his wife, Jo Ellen, met in the Navy, where she served as a nurse. Their first date was a fish fry. The two have three grown children.
In his free time, Mettetal enjoys woodworking, fishing and spending time with his granddaughter. His wife is a registered nurse and Jazzercise instructor scheduled to perform soon at a Dallas Mavericks game.
"That's pretty cool!" Mettetal said.
Most subjects for this column come from business cards randomly drawn from a briefcase. Send cards to Managing Editor Brian Pearson at P.O. Box 2030, Tyler, Texas, 75710.
