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[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast for water treatise by water treaters where
we’re scaling up on water treatment knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems hi everybody I’m trace Blackmore
the host of scaling up and a couple of things to tell you we’ve got a convention coming up in a couple of
weeks from AWT hopefully everybody has gone online and registered for that I’m looking forward to seeing every one of
you folks there I’m going to be handing out some scaling up pins so be sure to
get one of those I’m also planning on doing some interviews there so if you
like the show come up and tell me maybe we’ll get you on the air and you can give me some show ideas on the air
if you don’t like the show please if you see me walk the other way no tell me what you don’t like about the show and
we’ll fix that too today’s show should be very interesting we’re going to talk
The Closed Loop
a little bit about closed loop systems what you need to know they are the stepchild of the water treatment
community I hope after today’s show you treat them with a little bit more respect and then we’re gonna have a
guest that is one of my really good friends and truly somebody that I have
learned a ton from mr. Jim Lucca niche and he’s gonna share some items that we
should know about water treatment I know this is going to be an exciting show I hope you enjoy it so let’s start by
talking about the closed loop the closed loop in my opinion the most neglected
part of this all the systems that US water treatment folk take care of think
about what our job is we our heat transfer efficiency managers trying to take heat from if we’re removing heat
from one part of a building through our equipment to someplace where we don’t
care about it ie the atmosphere well the closed loop is one of those parts in
that heat transfer train that allows us to transfer that heat so why would we
give the cooling tower loop more respect than we do the closed loop system I
don’t understand that our job is to make sure that we’re treating for
all four legs of the water treatment program and those four legs as we’re
making sure we take care of scale we’re making sure we take care of corrosion we’re making sure we’re taking care of
dirt and debris that gets in the system and finally we know that bugs can grow
in our system so we’re taking care to make sure that they don’t grow rampant
throughout our systems now most of us do a fairly good job of that in the cooling
tower but then we fail miserably at the closed-loop now I will say that most
people have a scale and corrosion inhibitor that they put in their closed-loop system and most people
depending on where you are don’t have to worry too much about a concentration ratio of one since we’re not
concentrating up the closed-loop of ever getting to a scaling condition I have
seen it happen so make sure you know your system you know your water and you know how to treat for it but in most
cases we don’t worry too much about scaling in a closed-loop system we worry
more with corrosion and then that’s where a lot of water traders stop well
wait a second there other legs that we have to treat for I say we had to treat for corrosion scaling dirt and debris
and microbial fouling all right well we’ve kind of addressed corrosion and
scaling but what about the dirt and debris just as a normal working of how
that system flows we’re going to have pieces of metal and trash and stuff in
the system so why don’t we have a filter on the closed-loop system in my opinion
I don’t know why they even sell pot feeders because they don’t have a filter in them if you don’t have a filter on
your closed-loop I don’t understand why because that’s one of the four areas that we have to treat and as I said
before our job is to be a heat transfer efficiency manager
and if we’ve got a bunch of dirt and debris on the side of our heat transfer services we’re not doing a very good job
of that why not take out that pop feeder and replace it with a filter feeder so
that way we’re taking out all the crud that’s in the system water is the best
heat transfer medium when it’s water but when it’s watering a bunch of gunk it’s
not going to keep the cost of running that equipment as efficient as it possibly could and as cheap as it
possibly could with that customer oh my customer doesn’t want to pay for a filter feeder they got that pot feeder
and they say I have to deal with it well your your water trader and you’re a salesperson because you understand what
your goal is you might have to explain to your customer what their goal needs to be but you do it in a way of ROI on
return on investment okay fine the filter feeder and installation is going
to cost X and you already have a feeder so as far as your concern you’re
spending money that you don’t have to spend why would they ever say yes to that you have to change their way of
thinking that they are spending extra money every single second with all that
crud in the system that they don’t have to spend with you you’re going to convince them that if they spend Y money
they’re gonna make up that money with all the energy that they’re going to be
saving in two months or three months or five months that’s called return on
investment and then after that’s paid off that’s instant savings for them on their program so start thinking on that
mindset when people tell you no it’s not that they’re telling you no it’s they’re telling you I don’t understand why I
should say yes so step back put yourself in their shoes and think what
information would I need in order to go out on a limb to spend money that other people might not think that I need to
spend if you can give them the ammunition for that they’re going to say yes to your recommendations all right so
that’s one of the items we weren’t treating the other one was microbial it amazes
me how many closed-loop systems that I see that we don’t put buy aside in a lot
of our inhibitors can act as food for the quote-unquote bugs that grow in our
system so we are just simply allowing them to grow and giving them a buffet to
feed on my advice every single closed-loop system you have you are
treating with the proper bias I on another show we’ll get into biocide
selection and why you would choose this over that but for today’s show we’re
just gonna say that the closed loop is just as important as that cooling tower loop and you know what that tower looks
like when you don’t feed by a side well it’s a lot easier to see of course we’ve got a more dynamic system with the
cooling tower and sunlight might be getting in but we have things that are growing in the closed loop as well so
please give the closed loop the respect that it deserves and give your
profession the respect that it deserves if you are going to take care of a
customer systems make sure that you’re completely taking care of those
customers systems treat for all four areas of water treatment scaling
corrosion microbial fouling and taking the dirt and debris out of the system
today my lab partner is Jim Lucan it Jim Lucca niche was a former AWT board
Introduction
member he won the rabo Memorial water treater of the Year award in 2008 and
just an all-around heck of a smart guy how are you doing today Jim just
fantastic how about you I am doing wonderfully I’m so glad you’re on the show I don’t think I’ve ever told you
this story before but about 20 years ago when I went to my first AWT training I
saw you do what you do and you really inspired me to become an AWT trainer
that’s pretty amazing I didn’t know I was so inspiring of a person you know but I tell you what though that that
pink lab coat you have on as my lab partner that’s pretty inspired well you know it’s good to accessorize
when when you’re speaking with Jim Luke in it but I figured if I could deliver
something as far as water treatment training as well as you do and inspire
people to go out and make it better that that’s what I needed to do so I don’t think I’ve ever told you that story before so I want to share that with you
well you know a ball you know just all choked up I don’t know what to say
and that being said I know you and I are in a competition when we get the ratings
for speakers you know normally you and I are right right neck and neck on each other you’re normally the the speaker we
all aspire to be as good as so one day one day I want to beat you Jim I hope
you do because that means that you’ve done well for yourself well Jim III
think anybody that has been involved with AWT knows who Jim Luca niche is but
there could be some listeners out there that don’t know who you are so could you maybe do a little lead-in on who Jim
Luca niche is well I’m the short guy about five seven about 59 years old I
Jim Lukanich
run a bike and swim and I’ve had just happened to be a water treat her and I’ve been in the water treatment
industry for since 1981 since getting out of college in 1981 and so I’ve
amassed a great deal of experience over the years some of them better than others but I’m a I’m very interested in
the sciences I’m very interested in especially microbiology for some reason
I tend to gravitate towards that area though I do have a great interest in the chemistry it’s hard to avoid being
involved with chemistry when you work in the chemical industry or in the water treatment industry I have a wife and I
live in Grapevine Texas I have nine cats and two dogs all rescues by the way no
pure breeds there and you just recently got a new cat did you oh the one that came a night for last that’s true yes
yeah you’ve posted it on Facebook I saw it yes I yes we did however Laurie took the cat to be what’s
called TCAP and it’s a place to go get spays and neuters for
rescues or to go take care o animals and have them spayed neutered and then not
CH dinner ear and re-released for neuter spare release and the cat was chipped so
which is amazing it’s just it’s about nine months old even though the chip company says is five months old and she
took at our vet and they contacted the chip company and so we’re waiting for call hopefully the owners are missing
their cat and wanting him back I hope there didn’t just kick him out the door so we’ll find out so do you want to do a
plug for being responsible pet owner and spaying and neutering your pets yes you
should spay neuter your pets definitely and don’t wait do it quickly because if
they happen to get away from you and get out into the wild they’re going to make more animals and more kittens and more
puppies and that’s we don’t need more kittens and puppies out there plus it’s costing me a fortune neutering and
spaying a stray and feral animals oh well there you go public service
announcement yes yes definitely would you have what brought you to the water treatment industry well that’s an
interesting story I I don’t think anyone unless they’re their parents or
relatives might be involved in the industry or they’re their parents might own a water treatment company set out
when they graduate from high school and then move on to a higher education if
they do to get into the water treatment industry I say that most people tend to
end up in the water treatment industry by accident you know more thug or court
water yeah there you go I’ve in my case I got a college in 81
and I went to work at u.s. steel and Gary Indiana and I’m from that area most
of the people I grew up with end up working in the steel mill and I happen to work go into that industry as well my
eighth relative was the superintendent of personnel and and said hey I can get you an out here in the environmental
control department and so I went to work at u.s. seal and the department I worked in
was responsible for all of the wastewater hazardous waste process and
process cooling for the entire mill not that Mills quite large it’s about six
miles long you know and in some parts a couple miles wide so it’s a very very big mill so it’s divided up into
multiple departments and I was in what they call environmental control West and that’s mostly the rowing Mills and
casting mills so so I started there and worked and started to get an education
and operations of wastewater treatment facilities filtration plants cooling
towers large cooling towers by the way water distribution and utilities
discharge hazardous waste at about two years into that career they had a
massive management layoff and about 70% of the management my department was laid
off and that included me so and that was permanent layoffs that wasn’t temporary
layoffs so I went to work for Nell Co and I went to work for now go in in
Indianapolis Indiana as a sales rep and I worked Believe It or Not for a
gentleman that a lot of our AWT listeners will know quiet well fred latin who works for a AP tech and he was
i wonder and a joy to work for I really loved that man I didn’t like working for
an out go so much because essentially it was a very good experience for someone
who was more inclined to be technical and even though I didn’t mind doing the
sales part I wasn’t that good at it because I didn’t know how to ask people to buy things or they really didn’t want
to buy so after I worked at Nalco a few years I decided to start looking around
and a company called Buckman laboratories who most of you are familiar with as well better listen
again ask me who come for an interview and I went for an interview I was very
impressed by that company I had never heard of them and and they had exactly the job I wanted and that was
job involved with marketing of the raw
materials that people use it water treatment but it was much much more than that and one of the first things that
and it was funny is I had to call them they were really looking for a PhD and they had about twenty some people on
their interview list and that process took a long time because the principles involved in making the decision traveled
internationally and that was another part of the job that attracted me was the International part of it that was
somewhat exciting and so I went and they kept calling them and bothering them and
eventually I guess they got tired of me calling them and being aggressive about hiring me so they decided that they
would hire me the path of least resistance was to hire you it was and boy boy were they sorry yeah but let me
tell you about that what’s interesting about that company at that time I don’t think it’s still the same way because of
the nature of the job the people that were industry specialist and I also worked with the gentleman by the name of
Rick Clark who recently passed on and and I worked with a guy named Pete
zhesan who was my counterpart I was hired by a gentleman by the name of dick
Ludi dr. dick and and dr. dick Ross and
both wonderful wonderful human beings so but it was interesting about this job as you were involved not only in learning
everything about the products that they sold but how to formulate them how they
worked you interacted with research and development looking at their data getting and involved with creating new
products we worked with the analytical laboratories to every every single
analyses I don’t know most people know this in the old days Buckman for their customers who would buy phosphonates and
polymers and biocides were able to send deposits and water samples in and get
analyses done on them pretty good at ala C’s for free and so in our
we had to review all those analyses and interpret them so that when customers
would call we give them answers about how to fix them in addition to that we I had to
accelerate my learning I do like to know things and of course that’s what I do I drink and I know things right
yes Game of Thrones reference all right so because I was a very young man and
only had realistically with my two years and the end-user experience level and my
three years roughly at now go I didn’t know anything really I knew just enough
to know that what I needed to know or wanted to know but I wanted to know more I wanted to know how how everything
worked at his molecular level how these microbicides interacted with the microorganisms and
what was challenging about the job of Buckman it required you to do that so one of the first things that my boss did
it says you’re going to go to Brazil in in three months and you and another guy and you’re going to do a week-long
industrial microbiology course half a day a lab half a day of lecture and I said oh I don’t know it that much about
industrial microbiology you says well you better learn fast so so it was
interesting basically there and I keep saying the word basically I would stop
doing that remind me slap me across the desk here if I keep doing that we went
into work in the morning it was always a challenge to see who could be the first car in the parking lot and never beat
Chuck Brandenburg who’s now retired he was eventually ped become president but
we would get there pretty early and we would leave pretty late and this is before the age of really having
functional internet or anything else yeah we were making doing presentations
on transparencies and that’s that thing so I would leave until seven o’clock and
I’d and then often came in at work half a day on Saturday and a lot of what I was doing and those extra hours is
reading technical papers I would get a topic and I’d ask we had a full library
with library search capabilities now which you could do on Google on an internet search in order
papers we have to have a librarian do it and then we get this really big stack of
folded computer paper and I’d go through with a highlighter maybe thousands of
articles and I go through them and highlight the ones I wanted and then she’d ordered them and I’d spend time
reading and studying and learning from them so it was a tremendous learning experience we also did our own R&D in
our department we had project specialist who would do various projects for us on
corrosion inhibitors and and the effectiveness of different microbicides and scale inhibitors outside of the R&D
department as well so the learning experience there is equal to none there
there just isn’t art people who get that type of opportunity to get involved in
so many things to get thrust into so many different applications in so many situations and have to have
some sort of expertise to deliver to the customer and it forces you to become and
learn become that expert and learn a lot of information very quickly so to this
day I always tell people try to keep learning never stop learning definitely a key to anybody success sure but I
guess I haven’t finished I kind of got off on a tangent there and in 2000 I came to work for a company called chem
Cal which is a regional water treatment company the owner of that company Steve Dahmer had kept trying to get me to come
work for this company and by God finally I did and it was a very enjoyable 14
years with Kim Cal and was she just a few years ago Kim Cal sold to us water
which has bought me to the next evolution of my career which has also been a fun and exciting time the last
few years very again very challenging but what a what a wonderful company to work for so that’s where I am now and
it’s a lot of fun just having having fun looking the last several years of me
being employed and heading towards retirement here probably five years six
years out seven maybe seven years in future but I’ll stay involved in the
industry but I certainly will do it on my own terms which of what what secrets
would you say that you have learned throughout your many years of water treatment experience
well tres I think the the secret is in the question what secrets have you
learned in your career I’ve never stopped learning I’ve always I think the
secret to becoming a world-class water treater is to never stop learning always
never believe what anybody tells you always question and always seek out
advance knowledge of any topic that you truly do not understand you know with
with the young folks coming into this industry today with the with the access to the Internet you can just simply
search on the top it can get tremendous amounts of information some of it you
have to pay for obviously fifteen maybe thirty bucks for a technical paper but boy it’s well worth it to do that so
that’s part that’s one of the secret is the secret is to never stop learning always question because one thing for
the young folks out there who happen to listen to spot cash you’ll find is this industry is full of rules of thumb and
mythology that has best been carried on throughout the decades and a lot of it
is not necessarily accurate so just keep learning and always question and that I
think that’s the biggest secret to learn yeah I remember at the last technical
training you were answering questions and somebody was asking about not being
able to put nitrite in a system that had air introduced or an open closed loop I
guess for lack of a better term and I remember you had told me about that years ago and I also have that trust but
verify attitude and I said you know I’ve always heard that if the loop is not a hundred
percent closed you cannot use nitrite so i’m proven Lucan it’s wrong and I went back to my lab and I made up a sample of
our product and some water and I thought a fish bubbler at Walmart and I put it in there let it bubble all day I came in
the next morning I was going to test it and see how low the nitrite was and give you a call and tell you that was wrong
and it was exactly the same as it was before okay well I’ll give it two days exactly the same as it was before
I’ll give it a week it was exactly the same as it was before I think I left that thing on there for six months and the change was so little but that goes
to your point that was a rule of thumb that somebody said and it wasn’t true and we all followed it for all this time
yeah it that is funny though it tres whatever you doubt me you do so at your
own peril but but I may have spun out of
a lack of understanding of the role that microorganisms play in reducing nitrites
and nitrates so rather than the fact that it reacts with oxygen so much it’s
much is probably because if you have a large open pit with even though it’s a
closed essentially a closed system you’re not evaporating very much water you know open closed system concept it
may be because of the microbes that continue they’re getting contaminated often in many plants you know people
have these pits and dirt debris is getting in there and it’s getting inoculated with bacteria so that may be
where that came from rather than just simply the chemistry aspect of it
well it was a very interesting exercise and I hear you’ve never dealt Jim but I
love it when people question me because sometimes I’m wrong and whenever I’m wrong it always I would that’s the other
thing another secret if we can go back to that whenever you’re wrong or you don’t know something always admit that
you’re wrong and say hey look I thought it was this way but I went back and did some more research and by god it’s not
that way it’s it’s this way and I will tell you I learned a big lesson back when I was young
one of my co-workers who had an advanced degree a PhD this is when I learned that
about 50% of people who have PhDs actually deserve the PhD pageant 50% of them got them by just
doing their their professors pet projects but don’t ever eat it’s not it
for young water shake it’s okay to say hey look I don’t know the answer to that here’s what I think but I’m not sure so
let me go back check on that and get back with you on the answer I worked with a guy who never ever would admit
that he didn’t know something instead he would either deflect the question say I’m going to get that later
or he’d make up some answer on the spot that was just totally ridiculous and so
I made a habit of writing some of these things down didn’t sound right then I’d go research them and I’d come back and
say you know you said this but here’s look here’s the research and supports that what you said it is totally off
base and finally got sick of me questioning but so always always
question always doubt don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t know it’s always
the best thing because if you make stuff up or you lie about a situation oh god don’t ever lie to a customer sales reps
do that a lot too they may be to cover up a mistake they might not tell the entire truth and I would advise against
that because long-term that doesn’t improve your relationship with a customer so great advice well Jim your whole AWT
training revolves around the subject of biology so I thought we could talk about
how if you understand biology it’s really easy to treat the cooling tower
well trace here we go you can understand biology but do you understand
microbiology so you’re correcting me again in this macho all right yeah it’s
the microbiology we were most concerned about in the cooling water systems and the allergy bacteria and fungi in my
education that was my main focus was in actually infectious diseases so I was
very interested in bacteria especially in a certain infection disease-causing
bacteria so I was very interested microbiology and of course working for Buckman laboratories who was founded as
a by site micro beside company that is easy to make that connection and that’s
where I really got my interest in in microbiology because there was a lot of smart microbiologist there and that was
our focus and so I learned a great deal there on my own and from what other
other people’s work so yes and then to go to your point one step further it’s
the mud if people can control the biofilm in their cooling water systems
everything else the corrosion and deposition from mineral deposits or
scales will follow suit typically in most HVAC type cooling if you get into
higher temperature systems you know you have some other phenomenon that the to boil water interface or the heat
exchanger water interface to deal with certainly and most relatively cool age you know as far as heat goes heat load
goes microbiology plays a major role in all types of deposition so most
important well if you have a very simplistic way of helping people understand that and you relate that to
teeth can you can you tell our audience about that it’s too bad we don’t have
any photographs right yeah when I teach across the hall and your sessions going
on I always know what slide you’re armed if I goes oh yeah so one of the things
that people need to understand is that a cooling water system is an ecosystem yes
it may be artificially created but so are all the reservoirs except all the
lakes and Texas are artificially another man-made so cooling tower is nothing more than a small pond with
recirculating water in it and maybe some chemicals in it and the fact that the
cooling tower itself is a big air scrubber scrubbing in dirt and nutrient from the atmosphere it can be a fairly
robust ecosystem depending on how much contaminant is there so if you start
looking at your cooling tower thinking of it as an eco system then and a place that’s ideal for
the growth of microorganisms then you can start thinking more along the lines of how important microbiologist so let’s
relate this back to our Keith we all are what we’re trying to really control in a cooling towers biofilm when you brush
your teeth or you rinse your teeth with teeth with a mouth with Listerine you’re
trying to control biofilm remove nutrient particles from between your teeth by flossing and brushing and
rinsing that feed the bacteria and also trying to remove the biofilm from your
teeth which is also referred to as plaque under teeth so it’s really neat like brushing your teeth is like
brushing your tubes or physically scrubbing some something off in a cooling water system like your tower
fill water pick might be like using a pressure washer power fill and then also
when you when you rinse with Listerine that’s simply putting a bite on microbe
aside into your mouth to kill bacteria just like we do in the cooling tower and
then if you were to use something like peroxide to rinse with that’s an
oxidizing microbicides just like we would feed and oxidizing the herbicide and cooling towers so so if you if you
can explain that to use that explanation your customer I think that’s a something they deal with every day in their
personal lives that makes sense relevant to what you’re trying to do so well I will tell you when when I hear
something I like I steal it and I stole that from you years ago and I’ve gotten so many aha moments from customers when
I tell them that and they truly understand what it is that we’re trying to do with our products and our
recommendations sure and it’s a pretty amazing thing we were we were talking about the biofilm in in the mouth and I
you know and you had made it a point to talk about when you were training in the
another room adjacent to mine and you could hear the audience sort of groan or
let out a collective sigh when I showed the pictures of some gnarly things going
on inside the mouth well you know again if you search the internet for pictures
of buck gingivitis or periodontal disease or plaque or tartar you get some
pretty bad photographs and I had those in my presentation to drive home the
point about scale formation inside the mouth and biofilm inside them out and I
didn’t think about people’s sensitivities so much and that people might have some of these issues who are
in the audience so I kind of replaced those the more grotesque photographs
with veterinary dentistry instead pictures of dogs mouths and that way I
figured I wouldn’t offend anyone unless someone course brought their their nervous dog with them er well I actually
did and he was offended I wanted to win so that’s that’s sort of tone that down
you know I one of the things that as you as you age and become a an old and wise
water treater you tend to become a little more sensitive to other people’s
feelings and concerns so so at what age do you give why so I can look forward to
that you know it’s kind of interesting I think some people including yourself
develop wisdom at a very young age and I and you realize you’re not getting paid
anything for being on the show right yeah I know but you’re a fairly unique individual obviously by what you’re
doing here today to help serve our our industry you know I don’t know when I started gaining wisdom but I have
noticed a difference in the last few years that I really react differently to
situations that I may have 10 years ago and I think it’s a gradual a gradual
thing and it may just be due to hormones and getting old you know you just don’t
feel like arguing and about things as much as you used to so uh do we go from
talking about water treatment to your testosterone level is that what just happened here uh no but that certainly
may be part of wisdom is at least wisdom from the point that you’re more willing
to so back and listen to people spew nonsense without reacting in a an aggressive man
but fair enough yeah so what’s your the
untestable well Jim as a trainer I know you have a couple of pet peeves and one
of them I’ve heard is how you pronounce or how other people pronounce the word
potable and there could have been people in distant audiences that may have
pronounced that word incorrectly and they had to go through therapy and
medication from the chastising that actually took place during that question that was answered do you recall anything
that I’m talking about well there are a couple of instances and there’s two
different words that I’d like to talk about that often get misused and and there of course is the word potable
please everyone out there listening to this podcast if there’s one thing you do change in your life is don’t ever call
potable water potable water now listen I’m from the south and if you pronounce
it phonetically it was potable I’m not saying that person that I was talking about earlier was me but I’m just saying
whoever that was yes well they were there was an instance I was with keV
Calipari keV Kel we were doing I was doing a training class for a bunch of
prison maintenance supervisors and of course I always have that slide in my
basic water chemistry presentation about pronouncing potable correctly and one of
the guys stands up and he says well son this is Texas down here in Texas we
pronounce the word palatable because we all got a great laugh out of that but it
trust me it is potable and if you look at the word up in the dictionary you will find that out the other word that
people often misuse is micro biocide
please do not call it a micro biocide calling it a biocide
is okay I’m calling it a micro this side is okay but do not call it a micro bio
side because the micro bio side would be a small bio side so please please use
the term micro herbicide or bio side and more preferably unless you’re using it
to kill zebra mussels or you know Asian clams or something that nature micro
beside is probably a better term but those are certainly acceptable terms Micro beside by a side interchangeably I
still call call them a biocide micro beside interchangeably it just depends
on what I’m thinking about that day but those are my two pet peeve things microwave bio side and potable I’m aware
I I’ve actually walked into your class and you were telling the story how ten years ago I actually ask you a question
or this person actually asked you a question about potable water potable water and was told it’s from the Greek
Pope to drink and that person still very sensitive about it I think it’s I think it’s a Latin root I believe say Jim
you’re doing it again I could be wrong
on that although I could look it up when you do their drinking you know things I’m sure that you are correct well it’s
because the drink is appropriate because I think it’s PO Tablas meaning to drink
right so there you go Wow well you just you just brought something that I think
I’m going to share with our audience cuz I don’t think anybody knows this except you and I so you just brought up this
this word that we don’t use a lot and you and I sort of have a challenge with
each other that as we’re doing our presentations five minutes before we go
in to do those presentations we give each other a word that very few people
have ever heard of and we have to use it correctly in our presentations is this
correct dr. lukovitch yes it is and it’s oftentimes oftentimes it’s a made-up
word don’t think we’ve ever made them out I think we’ve just they’ve just been very unique words that I haven’t used
since I don’t know long long time ago well yes that’s true and it’s very fun because
try it that’s a challenge to try to fit them in correctly or or appropriately
and now you believe it or not trace that started when I was still with Buckman
laboratories that I used to come down and do some training classes for chem cows customers before I worked with and
they’d always challenged me to use sneak in a word and oftentimes that word was
not one you’d want to use in a mixed audience so we toned it down after that
but sometimes they were scientific words were for certain gross things or but
there’s always a word and that tradition kind of carried on with us and and I think I think it’s a fun thing to do
it’s challenging for the for both of us as speakers to do that as well and it
used to be very easy for us to keep each other honest but now we’re teaching on opposite sides of the hall at the same
time so we have spies for each other to make sure it’s used properly yeah I
think the last time you actually walked into their room when I used it so yeah you had so if any of you out there have
ever been in Jim’s training class uh Jim knows that you can only sit for so long
and he gets people to stand up every 45 minutes to an hour well about every two hours he gets everybody to yell out a
primal scream so I’m teaching right next door on an air wall and all of a sudden
you know I’m pausing for effect and all of a sudden the people next door start screaming I had to go over there and see
what’s going on yeah and that’s kind of a fun thing I did that one time I was
presenting a paper I was working for Buckman laboratories I was presenting a paper I believe it may have been for the
first time at a WT and I thought I’d
learned this trick in a Tom Peters seminar I believe that was called the primal scream and so I said I’m going to
try this when I’m doing my paper and you know our managers from Buckman were
out there in the audience and I said okay it’s either gonna work or it’s not and it was quite effective I think
everybody enjoyed standing up and screaming so it was a lot of fun to do that and I think one of these days we
should do the tastes great less filling between the two rooms what you bring up
an interesting topic because you’re you’re a wonderful speaker in order to
be in sales in order to work with customers you have to be able to speak intelligently and get people to want to
listen to you what tips and and what what books you know what do you do to
become a better speaker well back in the old days trace I think that I used to
practice a lot in front of a mirror I’ve always and well I’m not very good on you
know a media like doing a webinar or in this case I tend to do better in front
of an audience I think that I practiced a lot it and it was always something I
did well even in junior high school in high school maybe it was something I
picked up at Boy Scouts having to speak in front of the troop as the senior patrol leader or I think maybe it was
just an evolution that I did not have a fear of speaking to people in audience and that helps a lot if you’re afraid
and nervous you’re always a little nervous but if you’re afraid and nervous then you’re not comfortable in your own
skin I think if you’re comfortable in your own skin that’s the first thing that you need to do secondly I think for
people that are doing it for the first time or they’re new at it practice practice packing know what it
is that you’re going to say especially if you don’t have the depth of experience in the topic of what you’re
discussing and you need to hit all your discussion points I think it as your career evolves and you gain experience
you may have 20 different things that you could say about one bullet point on
a slide and which one of those are two or three things you say can be different
every time so you know these days I don’t practice unless it’s material that’s totally new
for me or it’s a new venue but for a WT it sort of is just there it’s I’ve been
doing it so long that I sort of know what I want to say and know now if
there’s something new I find out I always want to insert it into the conversation and I do so practice
practice makes better ask Larry Bird how he became such a great basketball player
practice practice practice well Jim I get a lot of questions when
I’m at a WT and then when people call me directly to ask questions a lot about
PTSA and I know that’s questions that you get as well and I know you’ve been
using that for some time do you mind telling our audience some of your experiences about using pts a sure we
adopted that technology very early on when it went patent Elka’s patents
came out of existence attention maybe we should even back up a little bit you
might explain what pts a actually is for the listeners out there that don’t know what we’re talking about well pts a is a fluorescent tracing
chemical that can be put into a cooling
water formula is typically where it it’s used at very low levels in the inner part per billion range and most people
use it in maybe the twenty to a hundred part per billion range and measured with
a fluorometer or either continuously or as a check on a handheld fluorometer and
it’s it’s quite stable it is very stable the halogens it doesn’t UV degrade
readily and so it makes a very very good tracing material for for water treatment
needs and now go you know that’s one of
the things that they advancements they did brought to our industry that was gave them a competitive advantage for
men many years was this tracing technology we now many companies out there nee WT
are using and and you are well aware of and what I find with the technology it’s
very linear works quite well in most types of systems the the one thing that
people need to be aware of with that particular material is your measuring a tracer that doesn’t mean your active
component is is at the same level that your tracer is indicating so sometimes
you need to do a back up check to your tracer to make sure that your active
components are still present and that’s something a lot of people forget about now the one thing let me qualify that a
little bit it’s important to do that especially in systems that may be highly
contaminated with solids because your polymer will tend adsorb out and when we
have active groups on the polymers or about they’re no longer active and so you may lose activity it’s important to
do in long holding time system systems where the volume to load ratios are very
very high and your half-life your system is very long because your polymers can ads or about and make it down to a level
below it which is still going to be functional so I would encourage people in those types of systems to do a
phosphonate test at least and then occasionally maybe an active polymer test in most HVAC systems that are
operating at a fairly good load and you know they have typically normal volume
to load ratios it’s not as critical as it would be at a large industrial system
where you have dirty water and maybe not feeding as much active ingredient due to
cost so just be with that that’s the key thing to keep betting about your mind and if somebody wanted to learn more
about that topic where could they go well probably they could go to a WT
training I wasn’t looking for a lot for that well you know a WT training you
could speak with suppliers of the the tksa probes Pyxis
typically exhibits at the unity convention you could talk to companies
that may sell you know integrated panels like h2 tronics you could talk to your
fellow experienced water treaters about that you know that’s I don’t know how
much of that is actually how many technical papers have been presented on that topic so you may do an internet
search on that as well but as you said take everything with a grain of salt and verify it that’s right
salt and pepper right exactly now as far as microbicides I said it
correctly what you mentioned at the last training that there was one particular microbe aside that could interfere with
PTSA yes that is the th a TTP CF I
always want to get the jumble that the TTP C of the thps together your ox or so
someone that the DT PC will interfere with with the pts a test and I’m not so
sure most people are aware of that and unfortunately TTP C is a fantastic
biocide in fact is it’s one of my favorite bio sites because of its spectrum of activity its synergism with
halogens its surface activity for biofilm so it has LOV positive
attributes however it will if you are running say a hundred ppb on your
fluorometer and you add PTSA it may drop or TTP see it may drop that it’s it
going to be both response there’s going to be a dose response relative to dose but you may drop it down with the
typical dose to 70 so if you’re automatically controlling your pts a
level you know by pts a level in your system you’re going to feed more product
so you may be over feeding product now the good news about that is you can account for that and understand that
your of boasting a biocide like that maybe once or twice a week so that effect
would probably last over a period of hours rather than all the time so it may
be something that is truly less concerning than it is but you’ll need to
be aware of it so you can make adjustments in your program for it when you’re going to feed it turn how did you
learn about that well it’s been known for quite some time that that crop even
a lot of the quartz will interfere with the PKS a and that that came out of
industry knowledge and so since essentially the TTP see is a cationic
phosphonium quad if you will we thought well we better check and see if this
interferes and sure enough it does so so
just be aware of that great great information so obviously you have done a
lot of things over your career what would you say your biggest success has
been oh gosh you know that’s a that’s a
that’s a kind of a loaded question I don’t really know if I have had any one
big success I think the most successful thing that I think I’ve done is I’ve
gone through the industry for many many years and I’m coming out the other end
of of my career and not not too damaged [Applause]
I’m not really sure what that means mentally or physically I you know I
don’t really have one one accomplishment that I would consider
the biggest success I think a lot of mine have been in small wins helping
helping a customer solve an issue that no one else was able to solve watching
people that I have helped from other companies grow and
and thank me for helping them it’s a bunch of small wins it’s not a I don’t
think there’s any one one thing that that I’ve accomplished and and I I’ve
always enjoyed doing what I do and and I think that might be the biggest win is
that then I’ve been in this industry a long time and I’m still relatively happy and now working for a company that is
challenging me in different ways that’s that’s even more fun and so it
seems like every every 14 years or right
around Howard for Buffum to 14 chemicals 14 now us water it’s being challenged
differently so that’s keeping me fresh I think so it yeah that you know that’s
that’s kind of it well let me ask you know with all of your experience I’m sure you put your mind to this one
project or something that you were trying out and you knew is just going to be wonderfully successful and it failed
miserably what was that ah you know
again I I don’t think I’ve had any major
successes and I don’t think I’ve had any major years either I’ve had of some
small ones but I’m trying to fake of what what I could have done that would
have been a major failure and for the
life of me trace maybe being on the show that – you know the Bible is failure is
my failure to recognize any of my failures you know I’ve had a little I’ve made a lot of small mistakes I am not
really sure that I’ve made any major mistakes in terms of technology because
I was rather careful about making sure I check things out first I can tell you
one everyone just popped into my head you’re not been doing this for so long I’ve forgotten a lot of love I tend to
you know repress those bad memories I can remember one time I was working for
Buckman a lot of times customers would call us up for formulas so I worked with
a gentleman from Nalco and Indianapolis his name was Dave Williams Dave if you’re out there somewhere hello and he
went to work was doing some water treatment consulting I called me because they were using some Buckman materials
called me for a formula that used a chrome tracer because back in the day the product we sold when we both work
together now go rather than go back to then you can still use Chrome and cooling towers and chrome made a pretty
good tracer well the problem was I because I didn’t know and we didn’t let
it stability test for a long enough period of time that we added the
accidental chrome to the formula it was an accolade a.m. P phosphonate if that
tells you anything and come to find out there was enough reducing agent still in
the polymer that over time it reduced the chrome to trivalent Chrome and it
turned to green so so he ended up with all this green product out in the field
so that was that was probably the most embarrassing advice I’d ever given we’re gonna just before your tonic because now
everybody wants green products where they do don’t they and just just keep in
mind green products are also readily biodegradable so you’re going to need more microbicides there you go which end
we have a lot of new to the industry listeners what advice can you give them
about being in the industry and you’ve given great stuff so far but what’s something else that you can give them
number one the water treatment industry is for a person in the field as a sales
and service rep which most people are some people are either a service technician or sales person but most time
you’re doing both function and of course even if your service technician you’re still selling your
what you do every day to your customers one treatment is one of the hardest jobs
I think there is and the reason is number one sales is a hard job you’re
trying to sell somebody on your products your services and you when they may
already be happy with what they’re doing secondly there’s a lot of you out there so it’s this a highly competitive
thirdly you have to be a chemist a microbiologist
you have to be an engineer a maintenance man and you know you have to be all
those things in one in one package and it’s very very hard we’re again a place
you’re going to kill me for this because I say it every time and but water
treatment is the only service industry where you can get a call at 3 o’clock in the morning to come out and fix a
problem and have nothing to do with water treatment and you may have driven
two hours to get there and you’re on site for an hour and they finally figure out no it’s an electrical problem
somewhere and you drive two hours home and the customer doesn’t get a bill in fact if you send them a bill he’d
probably say oh well if you’re going to charge me for that I’m going to get another water trader so it you try that
with an electrician or plumber and see how far it gets so it’s a very tough industry but stick with it just develop
some tough skin and realize you won’t sell every account you’re going to lose some accounts you’re going to get even a
good account occasionally you’re going to get someone who takes over the responsibility for water treatment he
may have come from another company and he brings along the person or the company he used before don’t ever take
that bad always always exit gracefully and you always want be the if you cannot
be the supplier you always want to be in second place you want to be on deck
because eventually you’re on deck and have a good relationship you’re going to get the business at some point the other
thing is learn and I’ve already told this to trace get you an a WT technical training
manual read it study it understand it sucked up as much knowledge as you
possibly can from all the old-timers around and some of the younger guys do you know know something every day
and become a certified water technologist and and just be a be all
that you can be and just have just learned that’s all I get know a great
advice absolutely well Jim this has been a wonderful conversation I just have one
question left for you and this is the the lightning round question Oh God
so the points are double here so you can come back I don’t even know what that
means anyway so if you can have a conversation with anyone in history who
would that be and why huh you know I was
afraid you’re going to ask me that question as I think you alluded to it before you know I’m not exactly sure who
I’d have that who I’d like to have a conversation with I’m you know you’ve
totally you’ve totally got me stumped on that one now and you know I just I just
don’t have that much reverence for anyone and that’s great to have a conversation with you know I you know
actually I do it because if history includes any anything from the time from
the present time back to whenever we
evolved into you know modern human I think I’d probably like to have a conversation with my father because I’ve
never got to have one with him he died when I was a year old never knew him so I think that’s that’s who I might really
want to have a conversation with if if you consider that is my father being a
historical figure I would have liked to have had that chance and so that’s that’s that’s the person
I think that’s a great answer Jim this has been a great conversation I appreciate you being my lab partner
today just fantastic thanks so much for joining us okay don’t forget your safety glasses yeah shhh what a great interview
Jim was a great guest I know I learned a lot I hope you did too since this was a
little bit of a longer show I’m not going to do any of the questions that we normally do on a show but please keep
those coming to me I do want to remind you that if you have not registered for
the AWT convention please go online and do that otherwise you’re going to end up
paying more when you don’t have to just because you didn’t do it when you were supposed to and folks let me tell you if
you want to stay at the host hotel please be sure and register because
those slots fill up quickly so you want to make sure you get that I’m having a
great time bringing this show to you so I really appreciate you listening please let me know what you want to hear in the
meantime please remember to learn something and be a better water treater
tomorrow than you were today
you [Music]