diff --git a/tools/before-test.sh b/tools/before-test.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..80b6794
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/before-test.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+#! /bin/bash
+
+# 
+#  before-test.sh - Prepares Travis CI worker to run epanet regression tests
+#
+#  Date Created: 04/04/2018
+#
+#  Author:       Michael E. Tryby
+#                US EPA - ORD/NRMRL
+#
+#  Arguments: 
+#    1 - relative path regression test file staging location 
+#    2 - absolute path to location of software under test
+#    3 - build identifier for software under test
+#  
+#  Note: 
+#    Tests and benchmark files are stored in the epanet-example-networks repo.
+#    This script retreives them using a stable URL associated with a release on 
+#    GitHub and stages the files for nrtest to run. The script assumes that 
+#    before-test.sh and gen-config.sh are located together in the same folder. 
+
+SCRIPT_HOME="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
+TEST_HOME=$1
+
+EXAMPLES_VER="1.0.0"
+BENCHMARK_VER="2012"
+
+TEST_URL="https://github.com/OpenWaterAnalytics/epanet-example-networks/archive/v${EXAMPLES_VER}.tar.gz"
+BENCH_URL="https://github.com/OpenWaterAnalytics/epanet-example-networks/releases/download/v${EXAMPLES_VER}/epanet-benchmark-${BENCHMARK_VER}.tar.gz"
+
+
+echo INFO: Staging files for regression testing
+
+# create a clean directory for staging regression tests
+if [ -d ${TEST_HOME} ]; then
+  rm -rf ${TEST_HOME}
+fi
+mkdir ${TEST_HOME}
+cd ${TEST_HOME}
+
+# retrieve epanet-examples for regression testing
+curl -fsSL -o examples.tar.gz ${TEST_URL}
+
+# retrieve epanet benchmark results
+curl -fsSL -o benchmark.tar.gz ${BENCH_URL}
+
+
+# extract tests and benchmarks
+tar xzf examples.tar.gz
+ln -s epanet-example-networks-${EXAMPLES_VER}/epanet-tests tests
+
+mkdir benchmark
+tar xzf benchmark.tar.gz -C benchmark
+
+
+# generate json configuration file for software under test
+mkdir apps
+${SCRIPT_HOME}/gen-config.sh $2 > apps/epanet-$3.json
diff --git a/tools/run-nrtest.sh b/tools/run-nrtest.sh
index 0916da9..ddd750a 100755
--- a/tools/run-nrtest.sh
+++ b/tools/run-nrtest.sh
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 #                US EPA - ORD/NRMRL
 #
 #  Arguments:
-#   1 - test suite path
+#   1 - relative path to location there test suite is staged
 #   2 - version/build identifier 
 #