He grew up in Michigan and spent much of his time as a child fishing and spending time on the Great Lakes. Dr. Boutt attended Michigan State University and was always interested in environmental issues. He started out as a Microbiology major but he realized that he didn't want to spend all his time in a lab, instead he wanted to be out in the field and in nature, collecting data. Dr. Boutt began studying bio remediation and geosciences and went on to get his PhD in Hydrology at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.