McDonough, Georgia-based Simmons Manufacturing has announced long-time sales and marketing veteran Mo Rainey will step down April 4, 2022, after 25 years with the well supplies company. In a release, the company says Rainey is known for his enthusiastic and tireless work for Simmons. His leadership over the years, Simmons says, earned Rainey the respect of the water well industry as a whole.

“Mo is a friend to so many at Simmons, to our customers, to other vendors in the industry, and to me personally,” Simmons President West Soward says. “We will miss him and wish him nothing but the best in the future.”

Rainey will continue to work with Simmons for several more months to ensure a smooth transition. He will visit customers, attend customer events, and work to transfer his years of knowledge and experience.

“It had been great ride and, for the most part, a sweet ride,” Rainey says. He adds that all three of the Engeman generations he worked with at Simmons treated him with great respect and that “it has been an honor to work with such a fine family organization.”

Joe Jankowski, regional sales manager, takes over the service of Rainey’s territories starting April 4.

Simmons Manufacturing has offered water well supplies since 1957. The company manufactures foot valves, check valves, frost-proof hydrants, well seals, pitless adapters and other related products across the United States. For more information, visit www.simmonsmfg.com.

In 1979, Our Lady of Angels Apartments Inc. DBA Franciscan Village, a nonprofit collaboration, was formed to serve the anticipated future demand for affordable independent senior citizen housing. Upon the first residents occupying the two-building, 135-unit Franciscan Village, there was a waiting list of approximately 2,000 people. In 1992 the Franciscan Village expanded, constructing a third building, adding 41 additional units for a total of 176 apartments.
Sometime during this same period, the OLA #1 began to vent methane gas, and with the most recent expansion project underway at the Franciscan Village, Franciscan Village II L.P. reached out to the WDF for assistance. WDF has contracted with Moore Well Services Inc. out of Mogadore, Ohio, to perform the work. WDF is also coordinating with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to adopt this well.

Due to the complexity of this project and its proximity to the Franciscan Village Buildings A, B and C, the cost of the work is estimated at $90,000. The Well Done Foundation is seeking donors and contributors among the greater community to help fund this project. Visit their website.

The Well Done Foundations, founded in 2019, builds partnerships between regulators, owners and adoptive parties to plug “orphan” oil & gas wells. The non-profit is based in Montana but is also building capacity in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and several other states. For more information, or to contribute or sponsor a well plugging project, visit welldonefoundation.org.

The Well Done Foundation (WDF) has announced the upcoming plugging and abandonment of an orphan well on the grounds of the Franciscan Village Apartments, an older-adult, independent-living housing facility in Cleveland, Ohio. The project, in partnership with Ohio-based non-profit Our Lady of Angels Apartments Inc., is expected to kick off April 6.

“This well is more than a century old and sitting on the property of a facility for older adults 62 years or older and is emitting a significant amount of methane gas,” says WDF Chairman Curtis Shuck. “It’s a complex project, and it’s larger than our usual plug-and-abandon initiatives, so we’re asking the greater community to pitch in and donate to help us improve the air quality for the older adults living there and the environment that we all share.”

The well, known as OLA #1, was drilled in 1908 to a depth of approximately 2,700 feet into the Clinton Sand Formation near the Our Lady of Angels Parish and a Franciscan Order Monastery. In the 1950s the well was plugged using a clay material that was the standard of the industry in this area during that era. Rumor has it that a statue of Saint Francis was placed on top of the plugged well.