Urbie retired in 2007 after 34 years as a professional environmental engineer. He has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. During his professional career he worked in industrial and municipal water and wastewater treatment plant design, construction and operation. He also was a project and program manager on multimillion dollar EPA, US Navy and private contracts for the investigation and clean‐up of hundreds of hazardous waste sites. Most of his work experience was with large, multiple‐delivery order environmental programs that included technical analysis, environmental compliance, site characterization and investigation, remedial design, and remedial action services in the hazardous waste, solid waste, water, and wastewater fields. He managed and provided engineering expertise for feasibility and treatability studies, engineering design, construction, and operation of a wide range of industrial municipal and groundwater treatment systems.

Urbie has been heavily involved in professional and volunteer conservation organizations for 40 years. He is past president of the Shenandoah Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Past President of the Virginia Council of Trout Unlimited, and past member of the Trout Unlimited National Board of Directors and member of the National Executive Committee. He is also a past member of the State of Virginia Water Plan Advisory Committee, past member of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Department of Forestry and Wildlife Advisory Committee and past member of the Upper North River Water Plan Advisory Committee, past president of the Unitarian Universalists Fellowship of Waynesboro, past president of the Riverfest Committee and a member of the Invista Citizens Advisory Committee.

He presently serves as chairman of the South River Steering Committee, a group of local volunteers focused on restoring a trout fishery in the South River near Waynesboro, Virginia and on the executive committee of the Virginia Council of Trout Unlimited. He is also presently the chairman of the City of Waynesboro’s Stormwater and Flood Control Commission.