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welcome to scaling up the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems my name is trace
blackmore i get to host this amazing podcast and i wonder do you ever do this
and what i’m talking about as this is sometimes i’ll look back on a date in
history to see what happened and that’s actually what i did today so today is june 3rd and i
look back in history and i found that in 1965
astronaut ed white was the first person to walk in space that was on the gemini
four and folks i am a huge space program fan it has just fascinated me since i
was a little boy i remember reading about it i remember going to different
camps around space i have just been fascinated with that in fact i’ve been
to some of the different museums that we have around the south to visit some of
the rocket museums and things that we have it is just amazing of the little
amount of technology that we had back in the 60s and what we were able to
produce and that got me thinking around some of the things that i do on a
regular basis i really utilize some of the things that got the space program going as
motivation now here’s what i mean from that i am a planner and i truly believe that everybody needs
goals but they need to plan around those goals and by making sure they’re keeping track
of that plan to get that goal done you feel like you are accomplishing what you
need to accomplish and you’re constantly taking input of all the things that are around you to make sure that you’re
working on the most important things this was something that was taught to me at a very early age and it’s one of the
reasons that i think i have been successful in endeavors that i have gone after in my life and it’s also what
keeps them very fun and rejuvenating because i know that i’m making progress
one of the things that i have the privilege of doing is i get to coach people on how to do this very
thing and it has come up before because it’s one of my favorite mission
statements one of my favorite goal declarations on how you do goal planning
so think about it back in 1962
jfk gave a speech at rice stadium and he declared that we were going to the moon
i think it is one of the best written speeches ever i think it has everything
in it that somebody needs when they are declaring that they are going to get
something done and it motivates not only the person that’s saying it but everybody who hears
it here’s what jfk said back in september 12 1962
we choose to go to the moon we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the
other things not because they are easy but because they are hard because that
goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills
because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept one we are unwilling to postpone and one
which we intend to win and the others too just think about all the meat that is in
that declaration if you were to go through the smart acronym that a lot of us do when we go
through goal planning we talk about smart being specific measured achievable relevant and
time-bound every single one of those aspects are right there in
that declaration i had no idea i was going to talk about this on today’s show but when i started looking to see what
was happening back on other june 3rds i was inspired to share this with you and
i’m sure glad i did because this is a statement that has really inspired me and if you’re trying to rally people
around a specific goal i know a lot of us are in charge of teams and we’re trying to get our teams to come together
and to do something that’s very important for the team if we can rally them in a way if we can
unite them in their actions with a statement just like jfk did back on
september 12 1962 just imagine when we get everybody
rowing in the same direction and everybody really wants to row that
direction just amazing things happen i’ll finish this section up by just quoting benjamin franklin failing to
plan is planning to fail so just knowing what you want to do well
that’s a dream but if you can take action and then put tactics to that action you
will start getting things done when you start listening to the world around you
making sure that you know what the world is trying to teach you that all your relationships are being taken care of
properly and now you’re planning with that in mind it is just amazing how you
will feel when you start accomplishing your goals i’ll tell you how i feel right now i am
just so incredibly humbled i just received notice that we are
within the top hundred podcasts in italy nation i have no idea how that happened
we did not market after that but i think it really goes to show you it doesn’t
matter where you live we are all united because of what we do we are a community
of industrial water treaters that we all know we are a member of the scaling up
nation and nation i want to thank all the listeners in italy for listening to the
scaling up h2o podcast i am just so incredibly excited and humbled that this
message is reaching so far and so wide and again it’s doing that
because we all get it we are all industrial water treaters
speaking of some things that industrial water treaters should know go ahead and
get your calendars out and if you don’t have them out don’t worry we will have all of this on our show notes page of
course our friends over at ashrae are having their annual conference june 25th
through 29th in toronto canada this is a conference that if you have
not attended it is a very large scale conference and just so
many people attend it’s going to be interesting to have it in canada we have a couple of conferences in canada this
year so if you don’t have a passport ready to go you want to make sure that you’ve got that ready to go again all
the information on the ashrae conference will be on our show notes page another conference that will be in
canada this will be in vancouver canada september 21st through 24th that’s the association of water technologies annual
conference we’re going to be talking a lot about that today so stay tuned and you’ll get a lot of your questions
answered so many things that you want to make sure you have on your calendar
but one i want to make sure that you are ready to celebrate is october 3rd
through 7th that is industrial water week it’s an entire week just for us the
industrial water treater and we want to make sure that we celebrate it because
we have the best job ever well nation one of my favorite things to
do is to ask people how they got started in our industry how did they get to
where they are now from where they started so we’re going to get straight
into our interview where we’re going to do that very thing
my lab partner today is matt jensen certified water technologist works with
global water and is the current association of water technologies
president matt welcome to the show hey trace thanks for having me absolutely thanks so much for coming on
we’ve got so much ground to cover today i don’t even know where to start um so
why don’t we start if you don’t mind if there’s somebody out there in the scaling up nation that does not know who
matt jensen is who is matt jensen well my name is matt jensen um i work
for global water technology and i live in green bay wisconsin i’ve lived in green bay wisconsin my entire life i
left home for for a little while i moved to milwaukee for a little bit and then i actually moved to saint paul minnesota
and that’s actually where uh where i kind of started my water treatment career and the job that i that i took in in
saint paul was actually back in green bay which brought me back home which was pretty cool but yeah i’ve
married to my wife for almost 17 years we’ve got two two kids swearing well and we are a hockey family by winter and
they fishing and hiking and outdoor family by summer a little golf thrown in there once in a while and
love what i do great industry to be a part of i couldn’t imagine doing anything other than water treatment and uh yeah it’s
just really cool to be a part of this so speaking of fishing recently
bought a new boat congratulations on that nice yeah it was
it was exciting now i definitely wanted to make sure that we had an upgrade because now with the dog our old boat got a
little small dog was sitting on our lap so we’re trying to fish so had to expand it a
little bit but yeah it was cool it was all good stuff much bigger boat goes a little bit
faster we can hang out on the water a little bit longer and you mentioned hockey you’re actually
coaching your kids teams i do i coach both my son will he played
on the peewee team this year they won the state championship which was really exciting fantastic yeah first time our
association won a state championship in a while so that was pretty cool and then my daughter sawyer she’s nine she’s a
might moving on to sports this year and she’s super excited to start playing full ice
hockey and it’s funny because uh my son is kind of a passive hockey player and my my
daughter who’s only been playing for a year is real aggressive so i know who i’m gonna be seen in the penalty box a
lot between the two of them so a question i love to ask my guests
because everybody’s answer is different how did you get into water treatment
so water treatments when i was in college i actually got hired the
summer between my junior and senior year to work for northland cranberries in their lab and i
was really excited about this internship it was going to be an opportunity to kind of see what the real world and chemistry was
and shortly after i accepted that job my counselor my chemistry counselor
actually said hey i’ve got a guy that works for betts dearborn that used that’s a alumni here and he’s hiring
for a summer internship and then he said i’d like you to interview for the job so i interviewed and they offered me the
job and i thought wow this is way cooler than sitting in a lab for a summer so i ended up calling
calling the cranberry place and saying sorry i took a different job and ended up going to work for betts dearborn for
summer and it was it was awesome i loved everything about it and
just really started my passion for this industry why i’m still doing it today do you ever wish you made another choice
no honestly not i after college i tried to get a water treatment job and the water treatment
industry wasn’t hiring a ton at that point at least in my area and ended up going to work for a
commodity chemistry company for a little while and that was fun but i always wanted to get
back into water treatment and one day i threw my resume out there and i said i had water treatment experience and a
couple days later i got a call from from garrett calais and ended up going to work for them
and now you’re a global what’s your day-to-day like there a day-to-day global i’m having a lot of
fun um i’ve actually you know i i came to global because of a product line
filming a mean product line that they were picking up and i wanted to be a part of it it’s something i had worked on in the past and got the opportunity
to come work here partially because of that and as i was doing that there was
an opportunity to start a new position within global as a regional leader and actually oversee a
team of team of water treatment experts and get out in the field again and help
people you know reach goals and help with technical advice and it just it’s been
it’s been really cool so i you know my day-to-day is supporting my team um helping with sales helping with
technical stuff doing uh a lot of quotes a lot of stuff like that
you know a lot of the office stuff but it’s it’s been really cool and i love everything about it
what’s one of your favorite things about being a water treater being in different places all the time
anytime anybody ever asks me that i always say that it’s you know when we when we talk to people about hiring them
and explain the job i say you know the one of the best parts about this job is the fact that you get to go to different
places all the time and i always laugh you know there was days where i’d start out at a hospital and
then end up at a rendering plant and you talk about one extreme to the next
and all the different processes you get to see you get to see behind the scenes and so many different things how things are
made you know watching engines being made to cheese being made to you know what keeps and cools the
hospital and just there’s just so many different things you get to see so many different things you get to experience so many different things it’s
yeah i could never see myself doing anything else when i first started in water treatment
my father had a rendering plant and he quickly passed it over to me
and i remember i used to have to take a change of clothes and shower at a local truck stop because that smell just
penetrates everything my best my favorite story about the rendering plant is we had a dog um
and i would come home from the rendering plant she would literally attack me because she thought it was a dog treat
it just smelled like you know cooked meat this is the first time i ever bought a pair of slickers
because i didn’t want to ruin my boots so let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about the association of water
technologies of course you and i care very much about that organization i’m curious how did you first get involved
so back in 2012 i heard about the convention that was coming up in palm springs and at that time i i asked my
boss i said hey do you think i can go to awt and he’s like absolutely so
i got the opportunity to go and i knew right away that i was going to get involved so i you know went sat in on a
technical committee meeting and then i learned about the young professionals group and i got involved with that right away
getting involved with awt and realizing what it was and the stuff that i learned just from that very first time
i fell in love with the association and everything that it stood for and and everything that i was trying to do to help people in this industry and i knew
that i wanted to be a part of it and i just stayed involved and did everything that i could to
to keep myself involved and active in the association
i get asked all the time trace you do a lot for the awt why do you do all this
stuff why are you training your competitors why are you giving all of this information out i’m sure you get
asked the same question how do you answer that because i i just i believe so much in
what we do and how important it is both from a standpoint of you know what we do
for the customer how we support the customer in in helping them be efficient
helping them be stewards of the environment helping them do all those kinds of things and just the personal reward of being a
part of a team you know there’s nothing better than when you when you’re in a water treatment account and you get into
that to that situation where you actually become an extension of their team
even though you’re not employed by the company and they ask you to be a part of everything
and it’s just that to me is just so rewarding and and why i
do everything that i can to learn everything that i can about this industry so i can continuously give back to my customers and now in my position
at global water you know me continuously learning more and teaching myself more
and getting involved with the association i’m able to give that back to the people that i work with and be
able to help them be successful in this industry which is it’s it’s not an easy industry
to be successful in you really get to put the time into it and association of water technology helps
with that big time yeah i love that answer you know so many people
join with the intention of what am i going to get from this and i think if you join instantly you’re
going to get a lot of benefits you’re going to get a lot of things that you can take back
but if you join any organization with the mindset of how can i contribute how
can i become a part of this you will get back more than 10 times
what you ever put in and i just think about the people that are on my call list that if i have any
water treatment question any mysteries that i’ve never come across before i can call some of the water treatment
jedi in the industry they will take my call and they will walk me through that
and the only reason that happened is because i decided to get involved and give to the awt
yeah exactly i feel the exact same way i’ve i’ve never had a question that i
haven’t been able to get answered if i can’t answer myself i can find somebody within awt that will help me
get to the solution and it’s that’s one of the best parts about being a part of this
you mentioned you first started by joining a committee how did you find out about a committee and then how do others
find out about committees and what should they know i think before i went to my first
association meeting i just did a lot of research on the association went to the website found out what
different things i could get involved with you know looked at the convention schedule found out what
was happening and where it was happening and you know what groups i would be interested in being a part of and i just
got and i just did it i just went and got involved and sat through the meetings and you know sat through my first technical
meeting i’m like man i really don’t know anything about this industry because these people are so smart you know but i
but i stuck with it for a little while and and then i got really involved with yp when realized that the direction of
yp was to make sure that we brought more people like me into the
association and got them involved and had kind of a jumping off point for them to get involved with the association and
yeah that’s it’s really just about just doing your homework beforehand and
deciding what you want to do but i definitely if you’re struggling with that with that question in in making that decision the
young professionals group is a great place to start because it will help you get to where you want to be in the in in
the association you mentioned the awt website that’s awt.org and there is a complete tab
dedicated to committees that you can learn all about what matt just mentioned
and more you know i love what you said somebody told me a long time ago that a smart
person makes sure that they’re the dumbest person in the room and that’s not hard to do when you go to an awt
setting it’s absolutely not but the thing is is that if you you sit through it and you
listen it’s just like technical training you sit through and you listen you learn a ton of stuff you’re not gonna absorb it all but you’re gonna
get a foundation to be able to learn more about a lot of that stuff but getting involved with awt
um for me it was i was really interested in the technical side so i kind of gravitated towards that but
um you know if you’re interested in the business side the business resources committee that you know if you’re interested in in education the education
committee that you know everything that you can be a part of anything that that you’re interested within the association
or in this industry there’s something that you can help awt out with when you went to your first convention
in palm springs back in 2012 did you go in with the mindset that i’m going to be president of this organization someday
no so yeah that’s funny that you asked that because
i i remember just thinking that there’s just so much going on and
i knew i wanted to get involved with this because i knew i loved this industry and i knew this was going to be a great place for me to get involved
but for me to think that i i didn’t know anybody on the board at that time to believe you were on the
board at that time that was my uh i was immediate past president in 2012.
so i remember you you speaking at the at the uh in the rewards dinner and doing all that yeah they threw me in the pool
yeah i was there for that i remember people getting tossed in the pool to save did i know i was going to be president absolutely not did i even know
i was going to be on the board no i just knew that i wanted to get involved and be a part of this and
very happy that i’m here that i’m able to serve at this capacity i’m definitely honored and humbled by it just thinking
about all the people that that have sat in the same position before me and to think that i’m here and that i
was able to do it i you know it’s it’s been an amazing experience um
but never in my wildest dreams 10 years ago did i think that i’d be president of awt
well walk us through what happened you went to a convention you started volunteering with the young
professionals group how did you go from there to becoming president
staying active in young professionals group continuously going to convention i went to trainings when i when i was able
to go just getting involved and being a part of it and just essentially
getting my name out there a little bit and just introducing myself to people getting to
know people trying to make people aware that i was really interested in this association
and that i that i wanted to be more involved and i wanted to do more with it
and i think what would eventually happen was because of my involvement in the things that i was doing the right people
i guess is the easiest way to say it took notice and that’s how i got got nominated to be you
know to be on the election for the board just to get onto the board you know and i’d make the comment too i the first
year that i was on the ballot i didn’t get it and i remember that phone call and i was i was so excited when when
they called because i was like oh my gosh i think i might actually be on the board and then they said no i’m sorry or not but would you be interested in
possibly doing it next year and and i thought yeah you know next year i got the got a phone call and they said
you’re going to be on the ballot again and i just thought that was great well you and i share that in common i
did not get elected my first time i was on the ballot it took two times for me
as well so i would definitely encourage people if you do get on the ballot and you don’t you don’t get it the first time
stick with it i know we’ve already done the nominations but a lot of people listening might not know that process
explain to the scaling up nation what the nominations process is like
yeah so the nominations process there’s a couple different ways you can be nominated there’s there’s an online
nomination so that if you’re interested in being nominated and you you know
somebody’s going to nominate you you can be nominated online and then you can be put on the ballot that way
um the other way is just again just being involved and being recognized by
others and you know people on the board as well and when that nominations committee gets put together there’s a list of several
several people on the list every single year and basically that comes down to
the board starts making phone calls and seeing who’s interested in possibly serving and once they find the people
and the people that are interested they the ballots put together and then then it gets sent out
yeah as a business owner i can think of so many things that being part of the
awt board helped me with ways to look at my business a little bit differently
of course they’re a non-profit but there’s just so much that carries over of it it’s just such a rewarding
experience all around absolutely any and for me i i’m not a business owner and
i’m i’m unique in a way that that i don’t own a business as and i’m not you know i’m not the uh
the member of awt i’m an individual member of awt but you know
the company itself is is a member of awt but again it’s just the ability to get involved and
everything that i’ve done to get to this point this just really helped me
grow both personally and professionally within this organization matt let me ask what is the day in the
life like for the awt president what do you do that’s a great question and you know
it’s funny because a lot of people ask me what what do you what is it like being the president of aw team what do you do
on a daily basis and i think a lot of people think that being an awt president is kind of a catch-all for all the things that go on in awt and you know
you’re constantly getting phone calls about the issues of the association and you’re dealing with them putting out fires and
it’s it’s nothing like that you know as president of awt you you deal with the occasional
issues and in dealing with things with membership and and other other things that go on behind the
scenes of the association but really as president of awt the my job is really just to be
very positive about the direction of where we are going and what we are doing and
you know making sure that that the association is constantly doing everything that it can to better our membership
better the association better the industry that we all love and that we work in
and doing things that we can to offer possibilities for our membership to
continue to grow both personally and professionally in this industry and
you know i’ve i’ve really worked hard as president to try to keep that mission
going because i know everybody in front of me that has done this has has worked very hard to keep the association going
the job of the president in my day-to-day as president is just to keep the message of awt positive moving
forward constantly advancing the association doing everything that we can to keep the membership keep the
membership happy keep new members coming and constantly doing things to attract people to our
association in our convention and everything that we do i love that answer
i always looked at myself when i was president of the awt as as a conductor
and i needed to make sure that all the different instruments all the different areas were heard and they all had their
time to be heard and i remember i used to keep a little notepad
when i was in charge of facilitating a meeting and whenever we would have an issue i
would put a little tick mark by everybody’s i’d have a list of where they were sitting and i put a little
tick mark by their name and i would say okay well somebody’s weighed in an awful lot where somebody
else didn’t do that my job is to make sure that voice is heard and every time
i did that it was always so profound what that person said but they weren’t
going to say it unless you called on them yeah absolutely and and i agree with that completely because
the biggest part of being president of awt is is the meetings the association meeting so to say like what do you do
day to day as a as the association president you’re always thinking about what you can do to better the association but the
real work happens in the board meeting and those board meetings are so important
and doing exactly what you just said there’s a reason why people were nominated to the board because those people
somebody wanted to hear their voice on the board and making sure that everybody is heard
and making sure that everybody gets their point across a board that all agrees is not a board
that’s going to accomplish a lot you have to have disagreement to come to a good agreement and
without that disagreement you don’t weed out all of the issues potential issues with what you’re trying
to accomplish and one of the things about being president is like you said you’re conducting that
i use the word director but you’re conducting that and making sure that all those voices are heard and that everything comes
together and you have a good solid path forward and the mission is is sound and
the mission is exactly what the association needs i think our governing body can really
learn a lot with how the awt functions yeah right that’s all i’ll say about
that there’s no political parties open so so and you know you mentioned that
but that was that was a really big rule that we had that when you walked
into that board room you were i was no longer the owner of blackmore enterprises right i was now an
awt board member and i remember specifically voting on some things that wasn’t great for
my particular company but it helped the mass of awt so i had to vote for it now
let’s shift gears to awt’s technical training by far this is
my two favorite things that i do every year is present at the awt technical training
you were recently at the cleveland ohio technical training what can you tell the scaling up nation about it
so i’ve been to a few technical trainings cleveland was by far my favorite one that i’ve ever been to and i think one
one i think cleveland is a great place to go just cleveland’s a fun place but aside from that
you know this was a very well attended training and a lot of people there a lot of
interaction and a lot of really positive responses to it one of the cool things
for me was we were able to put the assc training in person training together for
this convent or this training seminar and i actually sat through the asse and
i i just i thought it was fantastic so just the fact that again we we continue to grow as an organization and continue
to offer our membership more and more things that they can learn and get certified in and
going through the assc and actually getting my certification just recently through through taking that class
but going to that and just seeing all the people and seeing all the interaction and all the
positive comments that came out of it and you know getting to see a lot of friends that i don’t get to see very
often just because of you know we’re all so far apart but awt brings us all together yeah it was it was a great
training session and like you said it’s it’s one of my favorite things that awt does aside from
convention and hopefully one day that i’ll be able to be involved with more with the training
so for those of you out there that don’t know about the assc training 12080 i believe is the the number on it so if
you’re involved specifically with legionella water management plans this is the certification that asse came
out with and matt why did you decide that you wanted to get certified my new position with global water i’m
more and more involved with water management plans and you know controlling and mitigating legionella
so it was important to me to learn more about it and unders get a better
understanding of you know the intricacies of actually putting together a water management plan
and the importance of it how absolutely important it is to do a water management plan correctly
the people that were training that class i mean you’ve got just an incredible amount of brain power in that room and
everybody it’s so closely related to legionella and water management and and
everything that they do in their day-to-day lives and being able to bring it to awt and do it in a class it was
just it was really an amazing experience hearing all the different ways of doing things all the different testing methods
all the different ways of writing a water management plan everybody’s experiences with writing water management plans pitfalls the water
management plans and you know in legionella in general and being able to hear that from a
multitude of people it was it was really cool and i’m really glad that i did it matt we’ve got a convention coming up
in vancouver tell us about that yeah so we have a convention coming up
in september in vancouver canada and how exciting that we are doing a convention
out of country i love saying other countries it just makes it a lot cooler than saying canada no offense to my
canadian friends that might be listening to this so we’re doing it in vancouver canada um
i’m excited to say that i i believe i’m correct in saying this i haven’t had anybody correct me on it yet but i’m the
first president to host a convention out of country which is pretty cool
so which which was funny trace because before you asked me did i ever think that i’d ever be awt president when i
got on the board i started doing the math and i and i looked at where the conventions were going to be and i
thought holy crap if i actually become awt president i’m going to be the first president of
hosting one in canada so vancouver is just an absolutely gorgeous place so many things to do in vancouver and
you know it’s definitely going to be a destination for a lot of people that you know take this opportunity to uh you
know not only go to awt convention but also use this as an opportunity to take vacation with their families and stuff
vancouver is going to be an awesome place to do this and so excited about it matt i think we should address the fact
that you know people are uncertain right now about how travel is of course they just dropped the mask mandates as we’re
recording this podcast on airlines people have to get tested still to come back in the
country so there’s there’s a lot of things going on i want to alleviate some of those concerns and
i want to talk about some of those concerns so people can make really good decisions about coming this year
what do you want to make sure the scaling up nation knows you know it’s we live in a crazy time
and you know i’m not not telling anybody that doesn’t already know that and you know is
i’m the third president of awt now that is dealing directly with coven tom branvold a couple years ago his
convention ended up being virtual and you know mike bourgeois last year you know his convention was the first
one that was essentially done otakovid and now we’re going into another country that has stricter coveted mandates than
the united states so going to canada is it it seems that every day
things change just a little bit you know right now they’re they’re easing the the restrictions but you know you still have
to have proof of vaccination to travel by air to canada but if you drive into canada
you don’t have to have proof of vaccination they’ve dropped their testing requirements so you don’t actually have to test to go into the
country i believe that’s the same with flying right now but um
coming out of the country you know the united states right now still has a testing mandate you have to have a
negative test within 72 hours of coming back into the country and i know that’s a concern awt is working closely with
the company right now to make sure that we offer that testing at convention so that people can do it if that’s
something that is still in place when we hold conventions so that everybody can get their testing done and not have
to worry about taking that test on their way back we were kind of joking about it the other day if you were to drive to or fly
to seattle and drive to vancouver you don’t have any issue but if you fly to vancouver it might be a little bit more
challenging as of right now there’s a vote that’s going to happen
with the general membership at that convention can you tell the nation a bit
about that yeah so you know in light of everything that’s going on in canada understanding
that there’s some restrictions into getting into the country all coveted related we want to make sure that with the big
vote that we have which is amplify awt and we’ll talk about that in a minute that at convention we are going to make
sure that we’re actually live streaming the membership meeting and with that live streaming we’re also
going to we’re also working on being able to have a vote that goes on a virtual vote for those members that
are not able to attend at vancouver for whatever reason and we just want to make sure that everybody
understands that we are very dedicated to making sure that this
meeting at this convention with the importance of it amplify awt everybody that
wants to be able to attend this meeting either in person or virtually has the ability so with that being said what is amplify
awt amplify awt is basically a
way for us to guarantee that awt continues to grow and flourish into the
upcoming 10 20 years from now and what it is is it’s it’s a membership restructuring and what what i say
membership restructuring what i’m talking about is actually the membership model that’s currently in place for awt
members which right now it is to be a member of awt your company cannot have more than 150
employees and it cannot have a revenue of more than 30 million dollars so the point of amplify awt is to change
that to allow growth within the industry of of certain companies minimizing the
companies becoming non-members or becoming sustaining members and what it does is amplify awt actually changes the
membership model from what i just mentioned to what the small business
commissioner the sbc says which is 500 employees or less so following what the small business
association says of 500 employees or less then we’ve followed the original
mandates of awt which the intention was is to keep it
keep the association to the small business owner within the industry and allowing for this
allows companies as it’s things change and companies continue to grow and we have mergers and acquisitions allows
people to continue to grow within the association but still be a member of awt and you know have the
benefits of being a member and the other part of amplify awt is that we are going
to be voting on adding an individual membership and the example for an individual
membership would be a company that is not a member of awt or a company that has doesn’t have the ability to be a
member of awt now as an individual member you can actually become a member of awt
but it’s important to note that as an individual member you won’t be allowed to chair a committee and you won’t have a vote but you’ll be able to you’ll be
able to realize all the other benefits of awt being a part of committee’s task force going to convention you know all
the resources that awt has as an individual member you’ll have so it’s an idea and
it’s it’s a pathway for us to continue to grow the association
to entice more people into the association through the individual membership to
continue to make the association the voice of the global water treatment industry which is what our you know
that’s what our goal is and the goal of amplify awt is to
continue that and to to make sure that awt
has the ability to continue to grow and become larger and have the ability to help more people and
be a resource for many more matt if you could only get one message across from this interview today what do
you want it to be we want to talk about awt everything that awt is doing but we want to talk
about you know convention in vancouver i want to make sure that everybody understands that that
despite the fact that we’re doing this in canada and you know covets going on we’re the association is doing everything that we
can to make sure that we can get everybody involved as much as we can with the association amplify awt to me
is just um is so important and you know something that that i truly believe in
and i want to make sure that if people are out there that don’t understand what amplify awt is that they ask and make
sure that they understand it so that before convention comes in september in
vancouver that people know that that vote is coming and understanding
what that vote is for so that they can make a you know a uh informed decision on which way they’re going to vote on it
and there is a page on the website that they can go to answer or even start to ask some of those questions yes
absolutely and if they do have questions after they read that what should they do then
i would say reach out to me directly reach out to anybody within the association anybody on the board you
know anybody that’s that’s involved with the task force or that was involved with the task force
but definitely reach out to anybody within the board and we can answer any questions that you have on the amplify
awt and the importance of it and what it is and what we’re trying to accomplish matt let’s shift gears a little bit
let’s go into the lightning round so these are questions that i ask of all of my guests if you can go back in time and
talk to your former self on your first day as a water treatment professional what advice would you give
i would say like my biggest thing when i started in water treatment was the sales side of it was tough trying to have
those technical conversations with people and getting anxious about sitting down and
having those conversations and i guess the thing that i would tell myself going back i would say relax and have fun
because if you’re not having fun it’s gonna shine right through and people are gonna know that you’re anxious and
nervous and uh this is such a great industry and it’s so much fun to be a part of it
and if you don’t know the answer tell them you don’t know the answer so many people are scared to tell a
customer they don’t know but it’s so much more valuable when you find out and get back with them
matt what are some of the books that you read well trace as a mastermind member
the last three books that i’ve read that i’ve really enjoyed um seven habits of highly effective people i think is an
awesome book 12 week here is something that i’m actually reading right now because i missed it
which i think is a fantastic book actually kind of reading a book called dave decede right now which is about the
pearl harbor and things that might have gone on during that time that that people didn’t
really know about which i thought it’s a very interesting book and another book that i read if you like the bill
o’reilly books i just read killing jesus which was an amazing book gives a totally different perspective on
everything that was going on then who plays matt jensen when they make a movie about your life
well since no one would believe that the rock is me i’m gonna say vince vaughn
last question if you have the ability to talk to anybody throughout history who to be with and why
so it’s funny because my answer to this question when anybody ever asked me this is always abraham lincoln and the reason
why it’s kind of a cliche like like of course you’d want to meet abraham lincoln but
my grandfather was a huge abraham lincoln fan and my dad had a
very good friend that actually had a letter written by abraham lincoln hanging up on his wall in his family
room that when i was a kid i loved reading it and seen his his handwriting so i’ve always been fascinated by him
and in college i had actually had to write an essay on abraham lincoln and
i’m so fascinated by him because of what he did where he came from what he became
everything that he had to deal with you know overcoming all the adversity that he had and
his work ethic to accomplish the goals that he had and you know he was just an
absolutely amazing order and i think that you know being a president
in a time of such a such a turning point in our history i just think it would be just absolutely
amazing to be able to sit down and talk with him well it’s been amazing to sit down and talk with you i want to thank you for
coming on the scaling up h2o podcast thank you trace i really appreciate it
thank you so much like i said before we were talking i honestly never thought i’d get a chance to do this so i’m very honored to have
it and uh mark lewis i’m coming after you as the most requested podcast guy
just there you go the challenge has been laid down
stop nation i have really enjoyed getting to know matt he has
just been a great guy i met him several years ago when he got elected to the board of directors for awt
and every time we get together i just have a better appreciation
for him he’s a mastermind member and we do all sorts of things in the mastermind to try to help each other and make sure
people are getting where they need to get to maybe even push them a little bit further than they will get on their own
but he has just been amazing and if you don’t know matt by all means reach out
to him and get to know him especially at the convention there’s so much stuff that goes on at the convention and
getting to know the people that put that organization together each and every day
and also that conference is something that i urge you to do because you will learn something
that you did not know about that conference if you have that conversation so many people they’ll see matt or
somebody that is the head of an organization and they’ll think i could never
do that and nation i want you to know that that is not a valid thought and i also want you to think of
where you’re measuring whatever it is that you’re trying to do so matt is now president of that
organization he did not start out that way he started out volunteering he
probably started out just joining and trying to figure out what the heck it was that he joined
and then he started getting involved and then through getting involved through working on various projects he then rose
to the board of directors and now he’s president of the association of water technologies now maybe that’s something
that you have on one of your goals that is not a goal that you are going to
start off with in the immediacy what your goal should be is learning about
whatever organization it is that you want to be involved in and how can you
contribute don’t think that there’s not enough work to go around for you to contribute i
promise you there is a ton of stuff that any organization out there needs help
with and don’t feel that you have to be an expert on whatever it is that they
are working on to be able to help there are so many tasks that go into
producing content for associations like this i promise you will be able to help
that’s how you’ll get to know people you’ll get to know people you’ll become friends with people within that
organization and i personally think that is the reason you should get involved
and then people start to trust that you’re going to get completed the things that you say
you’re going to get completed and that will lead to people believing that you
can lead in other aspects maybe it’s a committee maybe it is the board of directors so if that’s something you
want to do just remember we don’t start out there it’s all the little pieces that allow us
to achieve what we’re trying to achieve i can’t help but thinking of michael phelps as i’m speaking of this we all
look at michael phelps as an olympic champion but he did not start off as an olympic
champion he started off wanting to be a great swimmer and he did things that others
were not willing to do he was in the pool 365 days a year he snuck in the window
to get into the pool when he couldn’t get in the open door because it was locked he did all of these things and
now we measure him today by his final action but all of that keep
in mind that we all start somewhere and it’s the persistence and it’s doing all
the things that we want to do to get to where we want to get to all right all of
that something that james mcdonald helps us do each and every week is think a little
bit harder on this incredible job which is industrial water treatment so here is
a brand new thinking on water with james
welcome to thinking on water with james the segment where we don’t give you the answers we give you the topics and
questions for you to think about drop by drop now let’s get to it
in this week’s episode we’re thinking about nitrite levels dropping in a closed loop
what could cause nitrite to drop if caused by a water leak what other water quality parameters may or may not
drop at the same time in the closed loop is there a makeup meter present
does it show any makeup used can the meter detect low usage rates
have any repairs been done on the system lately what about microbiological activity
how may it impact nitrite levels what microbiological tests might you run
to help determine this take this week to think about dropping nitrate levels and closed systems in
possible causes be sure to follow tow 22 and hashtag scaling up h2o to
share your thoughts on each week’s thinking on water i’m james mcdonald and i look forward to learning more from you
james thanks again for that nation thank you for listening to another episode of the scaling up h2o podcast of course i
will have a brand new episode for you and next week i hope you can wait until then i can’t
wait to bring it to you and i hope you have a great week [Music]
nation the mastermind is wildly successful and the only thing missing is
you go to scaling up h2o.com forward slash mastermind to see if this is the group
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