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Intro
[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast for water treatise by water treaters where we’re scaling up on knowledge so we
don’t scale up our systems everybody tres Blackmore here and you asked for it
here it is I am doing a multi-episode series on getting your certified water
technologist designation we’re going to explore all things CWT why you need it
how to get it how to study for it how to pass the test what to do if you didn’t
pass the examination excuse me and then how to recertify along the way I’m going
to give you tips on what you can do to make sure that you can pass that test on the first time and make sure that you
are as prepared as you need to be and hopefully by the end of all of this get
you to start your journey to certification you’ll also hear from
people that have recently received their CWT so you can learn from their first-hand experiences the certified
water technologist designation or the CWT is the highest professional
designation in the water treatment industry it’s administered by the association of water technologies and in
my opinion it is the culmination of your commitment to being in this industry
today we have none other than a WTS own
Angela Pike with us Angela works directly with the committee responsible for the CWT she also knows
everything about the certified water technologist process so learn with me as
we speak with Angela Pike about all things GWT the entire process and I hope
that you enjoy my interview with Angela Pike my lab partner today is the
Angela Pike
self-proclaimed queen of the Association of Water Technologies Angela Pike Angela
Pike how are you I’m very well trace how are you I am doing wonderful because you are on
scaling up and I’m wearing my crown I have no doubts now Angela a couple of
people may not know you in the scaling up nation so we’re going to get around
to exactly who you are and and why everybody in the nation needs to know exactly who you are but I can’t help but
notice it’s not a Texas accent you know it’s Boston national okay that was going
to be my second guest let’s get our let’s get our American geography right yeah yeah well a Julie you came over
Julie Smith
from from Scotland and Stacy and I are going to Scotland later next year and
after this show I can’t wait to talk to you about all the wonderful things that we can do over there but can you tell us
a little about what she did over there and what she brought you over here ok so I lived in Scotland until I was 26 I
worked for the UK government in the Land Registry and my job there was to check
the deeds the title deeds turn to houses to make sure the lawyers had drawn them
up properly before we recorded them and made sure that the title to your house passed correctly so you didn’t end up
with a pig in a poke sort of thing and then I came here in 1985 my husband was
offered a job and we decided that we would come over and give it a try and so
arrived here I went to work for the British Embassy in Washington stayed
there for 16 years took a little break to do some child raising and then in
2005 came to work for the association of Water Technologies and the rest is
history so we summarized history well that was actually the first year that I joined
AWT History
the board of the Association Water Technologies we started with a WT together mm-hmm and history is made
absolutely absolutely what exactly does Angela Pike do for the
association of water technologies well whenever I you know what technical
training I introduced myself as my title is the senior member services
manager for a doughy tea but I kind of feel like I’m a bit of a jack of all trades and master of none
I’m usually the first port of call when members or non-members call in and
hopefully I can answer most of the questions if not I’ll certainly get
somebody in our team or on our team sorry they can help you with that so we have we have a great team of AWT and and
each of us has our part to play and hopefully we we get you the answers that
you want well one of the parts that you play is you have a very intricate role
in the certified water technologist designation and that process I was
What is a CWT
hoping that we could talk about what the CWT was what the process was to become a
CWT and then once she became so CWT what you had to do to keep that active how
does that sound sounds great well why don’t we perfect well why don’t we start
with what is a certified water technologist now I know what it is I’m sure many in the scaling-up nation know
what it is but I’m sure we’re explaining it wrong so what is the correct way that
we should be saying what a CWT is so my definition of a certified water
technologist is a water treatment professional who has had a minimum of
five years experience in the field who has then gone on to pass a very rigorous
200 question exam who then on passing that exam applies to become a certified
water technologist and when that’s approved needs to recertify
every five years through continuing education so that’s kind of in a nutshell obviously we you know it dimes
a bit deeper but that’s that’s the CWT in a nutshell a certified water
technologist with a minimum of five years experience how many CW tees do we currently have
we have 315 at the moment I believe so that doesn’t sound like a lot to me it’s
not it’s about percent of the number of people we have in our database I would love to see us
at least be 25% certified and this year
actually we had a whole lot of new CW T’s I think is the most we’ve ever had
in one year so obviously the the Moores Canton about the program and certain
issues that have happened throughout the country the situation like New York with the Legionella and the statutes that
came from that are making people realize that it’s it’s an important certification if you’re wharton and
certainly if you’re working in certain areas of the of the country in water treatment excellent point and if
Why is a CWT important
somebody is thinking about getting their CWT with only 315 other CW teas they’re
really going to stand out absolutely and while you always want it
to be an elite Bunch we would like it to be a little bigger of an elite Bunch so I would I would love to have many of our
individuals that I currently have in our database to you know to say hey I think I think I want to take my career to the
next level I think I want to become certified and there’s there’s nothing
stopping you from from taking that next step if you have five years field experience simply pick up the phone and
I will walk you through the process well we’re going to talk a little bit about that process today but why would
Why would somebody want to get their CWT
somebody want other than the things that we just mentioned stand out in the community why would somebody want to get
their certified water technologist designation why would somebody not that would be my question I don’t disagree with ya I
remember one of the things you once said was that when you came to convention and
somebody told you that they couldn’t afford to come to convention and you said you can’t afford to not come to
convention and I feel the same way but the certification program if it’s
available to you and you have those three letters after your name I feel it
opens up when you’re going to speak to your prospective customers or your existing customers those three letters
have already done a lot of the work for you before you sell that account or continue with our count it proves that
you have gone through a certain process it proves that you’re knowledgeable ethical and you’ve had people provide
references to seeing that you’re knowledgeable and ethical in the field of water treatment so it’s a it’s a
stamp of approval almost – to the to your peers to your customers that you
have completed this process and you earned that certification and not only
did you earn it we make you work to keep it – and I know we’re going to talk about that as well
How to get elevated status within your company
Angela do you have first-hand experience of how people have been able to egg get
elevated status within their own companies because they receive the certified water technologist designation
personally I think there’s no better promotion of the CWT program than from a
CWT and I’m always asking CW T’s when you’re out in the field promote the
program if if you took the time to get that CWT certification it means
something to you so you have to make sure you’re promoting that certification to your clients and to others in the
field I get people it’s kind of nice actually when somebody gets certified
when when it’s approved I call every single new CWT to let them know and to
say congratulations because what we’re proud of the people that take the stat
and finish the process and you unlock
the CWT then you see WT who completely you can just hear the joy in their voice
that that the process is complete and they have their CWT one gentleman said
to me one day I wish you were in the room with me to see how excited I was to see how excited I am about getting my
WT and I said to my I don’t think I need to be in the same room here I can hear
in your voice on the telephone so people are people have expressed to
me how it has helped them with their in their professional career and the more
it gets recognized to the to the public and what it is then I think that will
only get better well let’s start talking about the process there are some people
out there in the scaling-up nation that are either on the fence or they want to get started to get their DWT designation
but they don’t know how to start so let’s talk how to talk about how to start and what that entire process looks
like so we designed the the exam handbook the exam application handbook
and the recertification application handed in three parts there’s a little
mantra that we have on the front of them the first one the exam certification handbook has passed this book number two
is applied and book number three is recertify if you’re just starting out on
your CWT journey you want to download and read the exam handbook number one
and all of these handbooks can be found on the AWT website AWT dot org under the
certification tab so if you’re thinking about the kind of CWT the five years
experience is the first part of the criteria though if you don’t have five
years in the field but you do have a four year degree then your four year
degree counts for one year field experience so if you’re young or if
you’re an individual who has a a bachelor’s degree that counts for one year so if you’ve only been four years
in the field you can use that degree to make up the fifth if you have a degree in a related field that adds another six
months so if you have a chemistry degree an environmental engineering degree biology degree that would add another
six months to your experience level so
the minute you have five experience you can apply to become a CWT the process is you apply to take the
exam you can either take the exam at the technical training seminars that’s a
papal paper and pencil version or you can take the exam through Pearson VUE
which is a they have facilities all over the world it’s an international organization and you can go along to one
of their offices and you can take a computer-based exam it’s not online let’s not you know people say can I take
an online exam it’s not online its computer-based so either of the two
options are open to you once you have the five years field experience either
from actually being in the field or with some education additions depending on
which processor when they go through is dependent on how you would apply if you’re going to take at the technical
training seminar obviously you have to sign up for for that through the website
and those are held twice a year and três três is one of our speakers that that
those seminars so you have two options to take the paper and pencil every year
one on the west coast one on the East Coast and then for the rest of the year the computer-based exam is your option
the computer-based exam you can sign up for anytime you go to the AWT website
again you don’t load the exam candidate handbook you fill in the form at the
back you send it to me and we’ll then 48 hours typically will have set you up
with a candidate ID and you can go off to Pearson VUE and take your exam the
nice thing about the Pearson VUE exam is that you find out that day if you pass the paper and pencil we make you wait a
little bit longer typically about four weeks with the paper and pencil exam well let’s talk a little bit about the
The CWT exam
exam so people have the experience they’ve studied they are ready to take
this exam what should they expect when they’re at a technical training and they
go and see you I think it’s at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning what happened
so 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning and all of these people arrive at registration
and they check in for the CWT exam they’ve pre registered they have to be
pre registered one month in advance of the exam they are in a classroom style
setting they have a allocated seat and the exam process lasts four hours so
we’re going to give you the the materials in the room once once everybody’s assembled and if you turn up
with our ID for the exam we will turn you away so you turn up you show your ID
we check you in we send you to your allotted C you get four hours to
complete a 200 question exam we give you five sheets of scratch paper to make
some notes on we give you pencils we give you a lovely calculator to keep for
after the event to remind you that you went through the process it is lovely is
it’s very lovely we give you the exam handbook there with the questions and
there’s 200 questions and we also give you a supplement which has some formulations and calculations in there
to help you with some of the questions you get for hours as I said to complete it and at the end of four hours we
collect your materials then we send off your scantron that you’ve answered your questions on and about four weeks later
we get the results back I will tell you that the pass rate is typically about a
third of the class typically we’ve had situations where half of the class 50%
is the best score we ever had reached but typically about a third of the class passes so it’s it’s nobody said it was a
simple exam but it’s but it’s well worth it to go through the process and it end if you don’t pass the exam the first
time you can take it again it’s not the end of the world how long do you have to wait before you can retake the exam it
Waiting period
used to be three months because it was all done with paper paper exams and the
questions that the books were printed and the books remain the same for a
certain amount of time so we asked three months you know know that anybody I think was it going to be able to
remember the questions from the exam handbook but there was a three month waiting period with the Pearson VUE you
can go back in you have to re-register and there’s a forty hour waiting period so you can possibly take it that you
know within that within a few days if you fail probably like a week later okay
do you know if there are specific advantages to taking one format of a
test over another that’s a good question because I think I’ve noticed that the
pass rate tends to be higher with the Pearson VUE exam process don’t you have
more success with the computer-based exam that said I think it depends on I
think it depends on the individual to you know some people are happier with a
paper-and-pencil format some people are happier with a computer so you can
choose to do either/or the Pearson views processes is much more available through
the year the paper and pencil if you miss the technical training seminars then you’ve missed your opportunity to
take it for that year so you’d have to wait a complete year before you could do that so probably personal preference but
if you ask me the question I think the pastor is fired with the computer-based exam okay so there’s that special
Benefits of taking the CWT online
first-hand information we’re getting straight from Angela Pike I personally
think that there’s a benefit to taking it online because you can mark a question the only way you can mark a
question when you’re in person at the training is you have to skip a spot in your scantron and can you imagine if you
forgot to skip that spot and now question 15 is really question 16 and
every question that you answered is one spot off that’s a bad day and I wouldn’t
don’t trace that that has happened because it’s you know when people come
into the exam room everybody’s taken an exam it’s it’s a stressful process I
wouldn’t doubt that people have people have phoned themselves in that situation and then when you get to the
end sometimes you know if you if you haven’t checked it properly or you haven’t got time to go back that’s the scantron that’s the answer
sheet that’s going to get sent in and so it’s if you’re going to take the paper
and pencil exampie close attention to how you’re bubbling in those answers because it could be could be
catastrophic if you if you miss not one line exactly well Angela you have a
talent for being able to meet somebody and really know if they’re going to pass
the test or not you are you are amazing how you can do that so what do you know
what can people do that you see and people that are well prepared and that
are asking you the right questions and just lose that confidence that they’re ready to take the exam what do you see
in them that could be a tip for one of our listeners who’s getting ready to take the exam well I don’t know if I I
thank you for the compliment I don’t know if I have a talent but certainly when people come into there are only
people talk to me about the exam there are people who have a strategy now it is
hard to say because it’s not I know we have some study AIDS and we have some suggested reading materials but it’s not
you know it’s not an academic example see it’s a it’s a professional competency exam and so you’re being
tested on something that you do every day and there’s only one correct answer
and the answers are based on best practices so someone who is familiar
with best the best practices in the water treatment industry the familiarity
with the subject market it’s split into five different subjects and the
pretreatment external treatment boiler cooling health and safety and general
knowledge is that very good time so someone who is someone who’s looking to
take the exam is probably want to prepare months in advance they’re going to want to look at those suggested
reading materials they’re going to want to look at these I’m honbu first of all to make sure that and they
meet the criteria to take the exam because what you don’t want to do is to
sign up and this has happened in the past people sign up for the exam without reading the handbook and then they find
out afterwards that they don’t have the field experience they have to less than five years and you’ve put yourself
through that process only to find out that we can’t certify you even if you
pass the exam if you don’t have five years field experience you cannot get certified there’s no ifs ands or buts
it’s a enjoy that test good for one year afterwards so if you were on the fence
How long does the CWT last
maybe you only had four years and you took it do you is that test last a certain amount or you have to take it
with the experience level if somebody if somebody took the exam and and can I
just say I I don’t know if it’s it’s I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing or semantics whoever but I call it the exam
because to me I think it’s I think it’s bigger than a test it’s what I just called a turf well everybody calls it a
test it’s not just you but it’s it’s an exam because a test to me is something
that you you get at the end of the week to see if you’ve learned you know what I taught you that week an exam is a
culmination of of your knowledge everything you’ve learned and so I just I’m trying to get people into the habit
a column at the exam and not the test but that’s that’s just a it’s a it might be a cultural thing an exam sometimes
you have to meet but I know that I have let the word tests slip here on this
show and you’ve let me know about and I’ve had and I’ve had guests mentioned that on the show and I told them that
The word test
they were going to get calls from you afterwards so I am trying as best I can to get the word test out of my
vocabulary when we’re talking about the certified water technologist examination unless you’re running a test that’s fun
if you’re running your pinks and blues you can call that a test if you’re taking if you become an se WT we’re
trying to get people into the habit calling it the exam but anyway so you know you don’t want to you want to make
sure that if you’ve signed up for the exam that you qualify to become a certified water
technologists because it’s you know it’s not again it’s not a it’s not a simple
exam it’s it’s gonna test you on your knowledge in it from feedback I get people are you know it says so people
get stressed out about it and you know they you don’t want to have to put yourself through something that you’re not going to get anything at the end of
so make sure that you read the handbook from cover to cover make sure you
qualify and then we’re gonna start the process for taking the exam Angela is
Grace period
there a grace period for if you pass the test and it’s say you didn’t have five
years experience but you would in a couple of months is the test good for a length of time and I think you just asked me that and I glossed right over
that question sorry I’ve seen people take the exam and once you pass the exam
you have one year to complete the process and so I have seen people with
six months to go who by the time they complete the process they have the five years so yeah you can I don’t know that
I would I think just to save trial and worry I would just wait until I have the
five years and then I would start the process then there’s no ifs ands and buts there’s there’s nobody gonna come
back here and say wow you know at this point I probably would just suggest that
people wait the five years it’s just easier that way either five years in the field again or three
and a half with a four-year degree in a related field or five years with four
years in the field and a one-year degree I think it’s true again great advice now
Passing the exam
let’s say someone’s out there they studied hard they’ve either taken
it at the Pearson VUE testing center or they’ve taken the examination instead of
good time with you at a technical training and they passed it and they found out they passed because you called
them or a Pearson VUE you know tells them instantly right there now there now they pass the exam what net yeah so once
you pass that exam and you have five years experience
you are then we’re gonna send you either we’re gonna send you a letter Pearson VUE will either give you a letter at
that point or if you take that if you take these I’m technical training for
that seminar then we’re going to send you a letter telling you that you passed
the exam and when you get that letter we’re going to say congratulations you
pass the exam we’re not going to tell you by how much you pass the exam it’s a pass/fail exam so if you pass you pass
we don’t tell you your score nobody if somebody comes up to you at you know
Annie WT met and said well you know I got the highest score and the CW teams I’m ever hmm they probably don’t know
that because nobody probably ever told them that so as a pass/fail if you if you pass we tell you you passed and we
invite you to become a CW T if you fail we assure you the areas where you scored
less than the 75% you don’t have to pass every section to pass the exam but you
have to get a cumulative score of 75 percent so if you you know were very
strong in most of the Cantonese categories and maybe a little weaker in in in another chances are you you could
fail you can fail a section and pass an exam I’ve seen that because it’s a cumulative score of 75 percent from all
of the sections so once you’ve passed we send that letter to you and and hopefully people are overjoyed when they
get that letter to know that their hard work paid off and they pass the exam so
in that letter we give you we’re going to instruct you to go to the ewt website again AWT dot org click on the
certification handbook and that’s gonna be handbook number two at this point
after you’ve clicked on the tab you’re going to find handbook number two and that’s the CWT application handbook so
let’s say number two and apply on the front you’re going to again read through
the application handbook and then you’re going to fill in the
the application and that application is made up of obviously your personal
information your your work experience and this is where you’re gonna document your five years experience or if you’re
using your degree as part of that experience you’re going to document that degree and you’re going to give us a
photo copier or a photo of what in this day and age it’s great people can take a
picture of their degree from the wall and send that in to me and I’ll accept that but if you’re going to use the
degree as part of the five year process you have to you have to show us proof of my degree so you’re gonna fill in that
form you’re going to offer up all of the information that we asked for you’re
going to provide four references at this point and those four references must
have knowledge of Europe your ethical and your professional treatment in of
the water and each of those references must be at least managerial level within
the the facility that you’re using so we we offer up that you can use another CWT
are a previous or present customer or your you know somebody a company that
you used to work for somebody in that company they’re willing to give you a reference but all of your references must be of managerial level you cannot
use a vendor as a reference even if that vendor is a as a CWT because there could
be a perceived conflict of interest there so if there’s a CWT who works for
a supplier company somebody who provides goods to water treatment companies you
can’t use that individual as your reference but anybody else customer past customer a previous supervisor you’re a
load one supervisor from your current company somebody who’s familiar with
your work and who manages you in that company and you can use you know people
if you if you you can use college professors so so so it’s a way range just make sure that you you pick
the right people and make sure you pick people that will will do what you’re
asking them to do many an application has been held up considerably by people
references not sending in the paperwork so I always suggest that when you send
the reference paperwork to the individual you’re asking enclose a stamped addressed envelope back to me so
they can just simply fill in the form and mail it back to me you shouldn’t you shouldn’t see or the applicant shouldn’t
see the the references paperwork that should come straight to me and I find
that if you give them the they already stamped envelope with my name and address on it they’re more than happy to
fill out the form and send it back to me so make sure you’ve got people that know that this is very important to you and
the quicker we get your application and your for references the quicker we can
begin the process of getting you certified one of the parts of the application is you’re going to sign a
declaration of ethics and that declaration of ethics is to assure that
you you’re going to be again knowledgeable professional ethical in your treatment of water and that stays
in your file with your application and every time you recertify you’re going to sign that declaration of ethics it’s
very important that that’s signed and and we won’t accept that with an electronic signature so once all that
forms done you’ve sent over your information to your references you send me your application with your fee and
once I get that and your for references we send out for review and the
application will be reviewed by a current certified water technologist but
you won’t know who that is it’s all done anonymously and the the
current CWT will look at your application check that everything’s there check that the information
required is is in the application that you have the experience and the time
served in the field and at the end of that if you’ve satisfied all the criteria this CWT review
we’ll come back to me and say I approve this application or I denying this
application and then they have to tell me why there why they denying the application and we’ll get back with the
applicant hopefully you’re not one of the people who gets denied and it’s very few and far between that anybody gets
denied and it’s typically because they don’t have enough time in the field now that person has their certified water
Happy dance
technologist designation they do a happy dance how long is it good for so once I
get that application bite from the reviewer and the reviewer said we have a new CWT I do a happy dance too because
this program is very dear to my heart so I love the CWT program and I I do
everything in my power to promote it and to make it legally defensible as far as
my part in it so when I I get very happy when I hear we have a new CW T and I
call that CW t immediately and I tell them congratulations you are now a CW T
and if they get if they get certified on a Thursday sometimes I just wait til Friday morning to tell them because it’s
a start on the weekend and that’s a great time to celebrate for the weekend but I call that individual and I inform
them you are a CW t you can we’re going to put it in the database it’s going to
appear on the website if anybody looks for a CW t you’re going to come up in
that search the first question they ask me is so what happens now and the
question of recertification comes up and someone might ask so when do I need to
start thinking about recertification and my answer is now the moment I tell you
you’re certified is the moment you have to start thinking about recertification
the CW t certification is a five-year certification and at the end of every
five year period you must be certified if you don’t recertify within a certain
time limit you will lose the certification and then you would have to
start all over again so the minute we tell you you’re certified what I suggest that people do
is they open up a file and they prove all of their certification information
into that file and they keep an eye on
track in their CEUs anything that they do outside of a WT make sure you keep
copies of that of those events any CWT who’s a member of a WT can actually
track everything that is that concerns they are CW teen designation from the
Members Only page so if you log on to the Members Only page with your unique
ID and password and you click on the my a WT button at the bottom of that page
in the next page there’s something that says CEU tracker and if you click on
there I will show you the day that you were certified it will also show you the day that you’re due to recertify it will
also show you any CEUs that you’ve earned through a WT event so you know
when people say I don’t know when I’m due to recertify if you log on to that tracker you’ll see right there all of
your CEU your CWT and your CEU information is there and when we talk
about CEUs those are continuing education units and within a five year
period you need to have a total of 25 CEUs to recertify and those CEUs must
have been earned between the star of your current recertification and your
current recertification date anything before those dates or after those dates
don’t apply to your current recertification so if you get to you
know if you’re due to recertify on the 17th of October 2017 and you only have
23 CEUs and we’re on the 20 you know
it’s the date the next day you can go back and and you can’t earn any more CEUs but that
recertification period so you have to find a couple of CEUs that you might have missed in the in the timeframe that
you’re least have to find for what are some of the things outside of a WT
CWT events
sponsored event can see WT that’s trying to recertify use towards CEUs well you
know a WT events obviously are are the best way to earn your ce WT
your CEUs sorry for your CW t our convention is worth five CEUs our
technical training seminars if you come to the three-day course those are what
15 CEUs to current CW T’s and then we have 2 1 day trainings that we also do
or at the seminars one this year is an hour or training and the other is a sales training and those are both worth
3 CEUs each so in a five year period if you do a four-day training you’ve got 18
CEUs and that means for the rest of the the five year period you only have to find another 7 some of the other ways
through a WT is to call into the webinars that we do the complimentary webinars those are worth 1 CEU each if
you watch them in real time we get a lot of the Semin office the webinar
afterwards and we just allocate that CEU to you if you watch the webinar a little
date from the website you have to make sure you take notes of them and let me
know which ones you watch them alone so anyone seeing you for those two are quizzes that are on the website they are
worth one CEU each on the certification I’m sorry on the education and events
page there’s a drop down menu there that has our training and our quiz
opportunities our quizzes are those are written by current CW T’s and they’re
all based on articles from the analyst magazine and what you do is you you read
the the article you take the little quiz at the end of it and if you pass with an
80% pass or better we’ll give you one see essaouira half a CEU there and one CEU for any position papers
there’s two position papers there the rest are analyst articles but that’s another easy way to to get CEUs without
leaving your desk our safety training that we offer is worth one CEU power
purchase video that you you get our online training that we offer the the
video is from the technical training seminars are online there too and a few purchase lewis’s or mark 1 CEU each and
I believe it’s fifteen if you buy the whole set so that’s the AWT CEUs and
that’s that that’s the easiest way to do it but for our purposes because we will just assign those CEUs with few
exemption and then you can just you don’t have to worry about it we make a note and you can look at your tracker if
you do education outside of AWT we need
to see proof that the education was actually undertaken so if you go to an
Ashley conference or a CDI conference you need to show us a certificate or
letter of attendance and a copy of your your registration form or your your
badge that you would wear there’s not sufficient it doesn’t prove that you were there it only proves you’re
registered and but you know that that’s not proof of the credits so we need to
see a letter from the organization or a certificate to show that you attended
then we’ll assign the applicable credits if you do training for your customers
you can also earn credits that way you can earn CEUs through that but we need to see a letter from the the customer on
their letterhead with an O of the trainin that was given the day it was given the subject matter and it needs to
be signed off by an official from the company and managerial level or higher and that would be sent in when you’re
submitting your application for CEUs you would note that you know you’re claiming
the credit for doing this they teach in this class and the proof of credits would be attached if you look
at the recertification handbook it note it notes in there which when you’re
filling them in you have to you have to choose where you’re you’re selecting your CEUs from and for the CEUs for AWT
events you don’t need to provide any further proof of credit with a few exception if there’s either me if
there’s training that’s done outside of AWT there’ll be an asterisk next to the
the form the the portion that you’re filling in and it will say you need to
provide proof of credits if you’re if you’re electing your CEU count from from
this section if the proof of credits not there we don’t award to see you Angela we’ve
CWT recertification
been through how you start to even think about taking the exam how you take the
exam what to do after you’ve passed the exam and how to put your application in
and then once you get your CWT how to keep it current and how to recertify what have we missed through this process
one thing that i would like to remind people is that you’re your CWT does not
automatically recertify you have to take are in that I’ve had emails from people
saying I noticed that my CW TV certification date wasn’t updated what I
need to do it will the only way your recent your CWT will be certify as by
you sending in the recertification application with payment and your
credits failure to do that your your set your CWT will not be updated and you
will not be recertified and so if you you know if you’re looking at your page
right now and you see that you’re coming up to your certification date or your recertification date I try my best to to
keep everybody informed I’ll send a letter to see WTS a year Oh six months
so three months so when you get to the 3-month point that’s when you really need to start thinking
about getting the paperwork in place and submit it to me three months seems you
know I mean we can do it especially if you’ve got all your CEUs in place from AWT I can I can restart to find you
within you know a few days if you send the application and I know your CWT is
it in place that’s not difficult when it gets difficult is when people are scrambling to find the 25 CEUs and it’s
finis painful you know I’ve been through this with a lot of ce WT s who have
tried to get their recertification you know you’ve got five years to take care
of this my suggestion as you do five C in years at least every year when we get to the
end of the the period then it’s easy but they’re a lot of people wait until the
very last minute and then we’re scrambling to get those CEUs and again I want to remind you that the CEUs have to
be earned within this star of the current certification period and the end of it
anything outside of that is not going to count so you can’t go outside of that
period and start down and CEUs for your current recertification so it’s very
important that you keep your eye on the prize and that you make sure that you have those 25 CEUs now once you hit 25
it snooze or lose it so you don’t have to worry about keep racking them up you don’t if you’ve got 50 CEUs that’s great
I love that you’re keeping learn and even if you’ve met your quota but you don’t need to keep sending in that
information you once you’ve hit 25 that’s all you need for that that period if you’re going to use them and you’re
you’re going to lose them they don’t carry over it’s very important that people make sure they recertify in time
when your research when your certification your current certification period meets its limit so let’s say for
argument’s sake your your certification expires on October 31st of this year
okay we Warren used certified recertified by October thirty-first Ashiya so all
your paperwork should either should be with me and all of your CEU should be in
place your payments been made the farms being held you’ve completed the declaration of ethics and you’ve mailed
that into me we’re gonna take care of your certification if everything’s good if everything is in order and all of
your CEUs are verified your your going to be recertified for the next five
years if you get to the 31st of October and you haven’t done that recertification either because you
forgot or you’re still trying to find those you know make up those 25 CEUs
we’re going to give you a three month grace period so in that three months
you’ll still see your name up on the website as a CWT but you cannot earn
credits in that three month grace period or your cont recertification you can
earn it for your next recertification but not your current one so don’t start thinking that three months grace period
is when I give you time to grab low as extra CEUs that you’re going to need it’s not when the three month grace
period expires we’re going to consider your certification in an inactive status
now inactive status means that we’re going to remove the CW T designation
from your name on the website so if anybody looks for a CW t they’re not gonna find you in an inactive status you
can still recertify you have a year after your certification expires to
recertify after the three month grace period you’re not going to be showing as
a CW t but you still have time to recertify so we’re gonna take it down but we’re gonna tell you within you know
within this year you need to get this recertification done and then we will reinstate your CW t now if you use that
year your your new certification date doesn’t change your certification they
always stays the same you’ve just wasted a year and now you’re down to four years for your next recertification so if you
don’t recertify within that year now we’re going to consider your CWT inactive and at that point if you are an
inactive status you cannot recertified you need to begin that process all over again you need to
take the exam you need to apply to become a CWT so it’s it’s well worth the
effort to make sure you keep your eye on that price you make sure that you do not
let your certification expire again the easiest way to do that is to and at
least find CEUs every year come into conventions a great way to do that come
into technical training once and then a few webinars is a great way to do that please just do not scramble at the very
end to find there was 25 seat users it’s not pretty it’s not pleasant to see to
see people do that it’s it’s very stressful I can’t imagine going through that entire process and then because I
Losing your CWT
didn’t plan I don’t have my CWT anymore and I can’t imagine you making that phone call to let me know that and there
are people who’ve done it and and and gotten the CWT back again and they have
vote to me I won’t let that happen again because it’s you know nobody wants to
take the exam again I’ll go through you know and you lose your original CWT
number so if you were if you work in a high up in the in the chain to have one of the earlier numbers you know won’t to
lose that you know ones start all over again so it’s it is painful to see
people lose it when to be honest years ago it used to be much harder to keep
your CWT as far as CEUs were concerned because one of the main complaints we
heard was you know I can’t afford to send my my staff to convention or
technical training and we understood that it gets fairly expensive especially if you have a whole bunch of C WTS on
staff so the certification committee has worked very hard to create a lot of
different way is that your CWT can earn credits and
you can actually you can actually earn 25 credits nowadays without even leaving
your desk the quizzes you can actually even do it for free as well the quizzes
are free the the webinars are free so if you call them – 5 complimentary webinars
a year or did you know 10 quizzes a year you’re you’re on your way to getting
your 25 CEUs and you haven’t had to travel you know not the even pay so at
this stage of the game if people don’t certify can i maybe it
may be it’s not important to them to certify it or recertify I don’t know it just I’m amazed that some people are the
ones that really amaze me are the people who have the CEUs and still though it’s a bit of paperwork that’s good so you
know I have people with 25 CEUs and and I don’t have this because you know we try our hardest to get the information
out there and what they have to do but if you have the 25 CEUs recertify police
it’s it’s a wonderful it’s a wonderful program that people will then see in AWT
recognise the value of it staff recognizes the value of it we we are
heavily promoting it the you know we want that we want the general public to know the value of it and and we want
more people to get certified well Angela I gotta say I appreciate the value of
Lightning Round Questions
you coming on scaling up and really letting the entire scaling up nation know soup-to-nuts exactly how to get the
CWT and how to recertify the entire process but I’m not quite done with you
yet I have a couple of lightning round questions for you if you are ready for them alright bring it on alright so question
number one what are the last three books that you’ve read oh my goodness gosh trace put me in a position I think I
think there were Association management books to be honest I think I was I read
the Association management law book some parts of it the other day and then I
read I was reading a membership book that is you know just getting some tips for
membership now to get new members I think the last group I read for just pure pleasure was Angela’s Ashes and
which is a book I read a hundred times and I still keep going back to because I love it and love the humor in it I just
love the story so I must admit I’ve been very likes about just reading in general
recently but no you’ve asked me that question you made me feel guilty and I need to go find a book maybe offer well
Angela Pike Movie
my next question and I’m sure you’re already reviewing scripts but they are going to make a movie about your life
Angela Pike when they do when you approve this script who plays Angela
Pike has to be Meryl Streep I mean who else she you know has to be Meryl she’s
like she’s the best she very well I’m sure she could do me
well ting excellent that was just a rehearsal for her role as Angela pie
absolutely and she’s good with accents she’s you know I’ve seen her with a South African Australian I’ve seen her
with us never the all sorts of British accent she she can she can do it Marilyn can do it well speaking of accents
do you mind closing the show are closing this segment rather something from your
your native tongue okay well I always when my kids were little and they would
bring their friend Joe and they would say to their your friends would say your mama has a funny accent and I would
always teach them to see it’s a brought a human with Nick the next and those kids were to look at me like there was
something wrong with me and my kids would be like mom stop and if I was to say something in our native tongue of
Gallic it would be slang G bar which means good health and that’s why I wish
every AWT member and certainly every AWT member who’s going to take it means good
luck in good health and if you’re going to take the CWT exam I’m going to wish you slan G bar excellent
Bonus Question
well a slightly bonus question you you can let it out that I did do better on the CWT examination of mark Lewis you
can leave that my lips are sealed thanks so much this brings me I’m
caramel macchiatos every day but he insists I call them caramel macchiatos
as opposed to Macky at once because she brings them to me so when we’re on site mark keeps me in punished and coffee so
thank you my dear thanks so much for coming on Angela thanks trace I gotta
Outro
tell you angela is such a fun person to be around
I love having conversations with her as I’m sure you can tell with the interview
that we just had now you learned a fun fact during this interview Angela and I
started our careers I guess with AWT at the same time it was 2005 I was just
elected to the board and she just started as an AWT staff member well of
course I’m no longer on the board but Angela is still there and we’re so glad that she is folks if you’ve ever had a
question about CWT about membership about anything that has to do with the
association of Water Technologies please reach out to Angela Pike she knows
everything about AWT and if you ask her she probably tells you she knows everything about everything she is a
fabulous ambassador for the association of Water Technologies and I got to tell
you I am very proud to call her a friend in fact she is a friend that saved my
life at one time now as you know I am one of the trainers for the technical
training for the AWT Angela is the staff person that comes on site to make sure
everything gets done during those trainings well I was in between sessions
and I had gone out to ask Angela for something I was on my way over to talk
with Angela and there was somebody in between us working on their laptop and right before I made it to Angela
they tipped forward in their chair and the legs of the chair were now in my
path that going to Angela and I tripped and folks when I think of this I can see
this in slow motion like it happened yesterday I was going down there was
nothing that was gonna stop me from going down Angela being the caring
person that she was stands up reaches out and tries to catch me and then me
not thinking I grabbed her and I take her down with me along with the fall so
thank you Angela for putting yourself in harm’s way possibly saving my life but
definitely making a very funny story that I’m sharing with the entire scaling-up nation well I hope you’ve
learned a little bit more about the process of getting your certified water
technologist designation join me next time as I continue the CWT series and
interview individuals that have just received their CWT until then remember
it’s up to you to make this industry better because you are a part of this
industry and as always be a better water treater tomorrow than you were today
have a great week folks [Music]
you [Music]