The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
welcome to scaling up h2o the podcast where we celebrate industrial water week
happy industrial water week everybody and happy careers
friday in case you’re wondering industrial water week is always the first full week of october
and today we are celebrating our very last day of industrial water week
that is careers friday so i hope you’ve had a great week
we of course have been listening to scaling up h2o each and every day
and we’ve been celebrating each and every day we started out with pre-treatment monday then boiler tuesday
cooling wednesday wastewater thursday and then careers friday it has been an
amazing week and we want to make sure that you celebrate
industrial water week in style and you definitely want to make sure
today is the biggest part of your celebration so happy to celebrate
industrial water week with you and i’m so happy that i have a career in
industrial water treatment that’s what we’re celebrating today careers friday it’s all about having a career in the
best profession in the world and that of course is industrial water treatment
what we’re in right now i am so thankful to be a water treater
i was lucky to be born into it some say they fall into water treatment however
it is that you became an industrial water treater it is my pleasure to call
you part of the scaling up nation now on this day many companies have a
cake to celebrate industrial water week if you have a cake before you eat it take a
picture of it and post it on social media be sure to hashtag it with iw22
and scaling up h2o now this elevates your cake to our cake and we can
celebrate together speaking of cake a few years ago
i talked about a water cake and many of you have asked me to repost that recipe
for the water cake now many of you have tried it many of you have made the water
cake a tradition that you keep each and every year for
industrial water week and some of you have never tried it and you want to try
it and then there’s a small outlying group of people that have adopted
the water cake as a rite of passage for new water treaters to eat
to signify that they are part of this amazing
industry now if you’re wondering what is in it we
have the recipe posted on this show notes page so if you’re wondering what
is in it there’s nothing really sinister it’s water olive oil
vanilla extract flour baking powder sugar and cocoa
powder so again this cake it was rumored to be george washington’s favorite cake
and people could travel with the ingredients because they were non-perishable
so go to scaling up h2o we will have a link there so you can download the
recipe that we shared two years ago and as always if you are going to make
the water cake don’t keep that to yourself hashtag your social media post
to iw22 and scaling up h2o
i also want to thank all the people that shared their stories about the water
cake i am just amazed at how many people made the water cake two years ago so i wanted
to bring it back this year it got a little bit stale no pun intended on our website so let’s see if
we can pick that back up and if you guys want the recipe it’ll be available
for you now speaking of stories that’s the whole name of the game when
you are an industrial water treater we learn things through stories we teach
things through stories and it’s no wonder we’re able to paint pictures with
our stories and bring others in to what we experienced
and we’re also able if we’re listening to a story to pretend that we are there
and actually see what that other person encountered so we can have a similar
experience without actually having the real experience stories are a great way
to learn and a great storyteller is james mcdonald here’s another story with
james hello scalenegot nation happy industrial
water week as we celebrate careers friday i am reminded of my career in industrial
water treatment as you often hear you’re either born into our profession or you fall into it
i fell into it by innocently answering a job posting in the newspaper
i remember receiving a follow-up call from a company owner saying they were interested in me but that they didn’t
move quickly on such things he said to be patient and they’d call back
as you have guessed they did call back and i remember during my interview noticing how much everyone seemed to
really enjoy what they did they hired me tucked me under their wings supported me and challenged me
to let me make mistakes and learn from them they let me connect with the larger industrial water treatment community by
participating in the association of water technologies and attending the international water conference
they let me soar but kept me grounded they let me share my passion for industrial water treatment they had
instilled within me they believed in me i made it a mission to not let that
belief go wasted and my career grew as a result today i cannot imagine doing anything
else i like this story because it illustrates a dual responsibility we have
first people starting off in an industrial water treatment profession require support and belief
they need to be challenged and allowed to make mistakes they need to be mentored i have had many mentors in my career
second people starting off in an industrial water treatment profession need to take that belief and support seriously
they need to listen learn and one day soon do the same for someone
else i hope you enjoyed today’s story on water and equally hope you will share
one of your own on social media to help celebrate careers friday of industrial
water week don’t forget to tag them with hashtag iw22
and hashtag scalinguph2o [Music] as james mentioned we definitely have
many responsibilities as professional industrial
water treaters one of those responsibilities that i believe is to mentor others to share what you learn
with other people thereby elevating our industry i’m always
talking about how we need to help others in this industry after all that’s why i
started the scaling up h2o podcast and this is something that i do
and i hope that it helps elevate the industry i hope some of the things that we introduce on the scaling up h2o
podcast gets you thinking about how you can do something different how you can
learn a little bit more i really hope it motivates you to teach what you’re
learning and i certainly hope that it motivates you to figure out
what you are going to do to advance this noble profession
today we wrap up our mini theme of the day interviews and as the last day of industrial water
week today’s interview is about careers today we are celebrating careers friday
and the interview that you were going to hear today is an encore presentation
from sean mcgrade when i interviewed him on episode 258
as i mentioned earlier this week my team looks for metrics to help us
figure out what’s going on in the podcast when it leaves our world when we
send it out into the universe are we doing all the things that we should be doing to serve you
the scaling up nation and one of the metrics that we listen to are listen
rates and sean mcgrade’s episode 188 which is the first time we had sean
on the podcast was one of our most listened to episodes that we have ever
tracked i really think this is because people shared it with those that didn’t
understand what it was that we did in our industry sean did such a good job of
explaining at an elementary level what our day-to-day is like
i’ve even heard a lot of companies will send episode 188 to prospective
interviewees to make sure they understand what they are applying for
so in this week’s tradition of having many shareable interviews for you to
help give you content to share with whomever you wish here is sean mcgrade
well my my day-to-day definitely varies from day to day every day is not the same and there’s many hacks
i need to be able to wear throughout the day to be successful whether it’s you know sitting down with decision makers doing
you know proposals or business reviews or having those high level talks of how
can we make improvements are there some capital budgets or plans that that we need to
talk about on a project list to continue to make things better for the plant
and then there’s you know the other hats where i need to be an electrician i need to know how to wire up a probe or a
controller or troubleshoot something look at something from a mechanical point of view and diagnose hey do we
have a flow issue or is there a mechanical reason why something isn’t performing how we want so i’d say the
day-to-day is never the same and there’s you know a ton of hats we need to be able to wear to be successful and that’s
part of the fun you know not a whole lot of jobs out there do you need to possess so
many different traits or skills in order to bring that value to your customer
i totally agree with that i was at a a meeting once with the association of water technologies and the young man
came up to me and said that he just thought his job was boring and i said well you’re not doing it
right and it sounds like you need to find something else because doing this job for more years than i care to
announce on the show i will say i have never been bored in this career
yeah a day doesn’t go by where you don’t see something different or exciting or or
have to put your thinking cap on you know we see so many different things and that’s also part of the fun is we we get
that front row seat to you know the show how it’s made and you know you could be going into a dairy or
a semiconductor plant or a plastics you know you name it well we get that behind the scenes look to see how that all
comes together yeah and it’s even better than the how it’s made tv show because the people that are working there they’re so proud
to show off what it is that they make and to get those private tours they’re
not that many jobs that allow you to get paid while you do that definitely and and one thing i’ve
learned throughout that is if you just sit back and let them show you
and let them walk you around the plant that’s a huge way to build trust build
that relationship you’re exactly right people are very proud and take pride in what they do and if
you kind of just sit back let them kind of lead the conversation it’s amazing you know some of the
conversations you can have and that really helps to develop those bonds and and relationships you know
absolutely agree sean what would you say your biggest success as a water treater has been so far
you know not thinking about some of the ways i’ve helped my customers you know kind of taking that off the table the biggest
success i can think of is in 2018 i got rep of the year at the prior company i
was with and i think a big part of that uh was my ability to sell a new account one
each month or at least one each month for a whole calendar year so if we just if we’re thinking
accolades or that kind of deal i’d say that was my biggest success to date
what would you consider a bad day in water treatment oh that’s funny that’s a that’s also a
good question some of the bad days uh maybe getting an emergency call from a customer that’s you know on the
other side of your territory and it’s pressing or it’s pertinent for you to get over there which will kind of
you know screw your original plans up for the the day or whatnot some of the other bad days maybe
maybe lose an account maybe there’s you know a corporate agreement or an rfp came out
where you know they had a vested interest with doing business with a particular water
treatment company so you’re kind of showing out the door and by no control of your own
and then you know oftentimes too some of these rfps they’re just looking for the lowest bidder they’re not thinking about
the overall value you’re bringing so they’re just looking for the you know cheapest cost and that’s that’s also a
tough tough pill to swallow sometimes when you know the value value you could bring to a
plant or the improvements you could help out with to ultimately help their bottom line and make them more successful you
know oftentimes what’s the saying you get what you pay for and i think
that that holds true to what we do as well i always take it as a personal defeat
when a customer says we’re going to go with another vendor because they are a cheaper price i always feel that i
didn’t do enough to show what our value is to help them document it so they could
see that it’s more than just the invoice they’re paying it is all the value of
all the technicians that are coming into that company you feel the same way when you lose an account
yeah yeah that’s one thing that i i still struggle with is not taking those losses personally i look at it as a
learning opportunity of how i could have done something differently sometimes you know no matter what i i do
it’s out of my control it’s it isn’t something personal but i always strive to learn from those
events you know and look back on it of did i present them with all the facts
were were my service reports documenting or detailing some of the ways that i was really helping
promote savings you know because oftentimes that water treatment cost is a drop in
the bucket compared to some of the bigger costs whether it’s fuel water
man hours i mean you name it that’s a that’s a sliver in the overall pie so
could i have done a better job showing them the value that that i bring or what savings i’ve brought that’s kind
of what i look back and think about yeah i definitely agree and i love how you stated that it’s a learning
experience and if we can learn something from the experience then that means we
are going to get better the next time that opportunity comes around and i’m just thinking this week i
got a customer back that we lost six years ago so right when you were getting into water treatment we were getting
fired from this location and something that a gentleman told me a
long long time ago was you’re going to lose business but make sure you’re always graceful in that process and i
let the people know that anything that we could do to let us know we were always down the road and we could come
and help them out quickly well it took six years but now we are back in that facility and
i have dozens of stories like that so if you use it as a learning experience
if you you accept it gracefully you never know most likely they’re going to ask you to
come back couldn’t agree more you always you always want to leave on good terms you
always never want to bash your competition as well and i’ve had the same thing happen to me as well trace
you know a year two years later they’re calling back up saying hey we didn’t
realize what we were getting when we were with you
as i mentioned before if you want to hear more from that interview that was episode 258
and if you want to hear the original episode with sean that was episode 188
sean thank you for supporting the scaling up nation it’s my hope that you love
being an industrial water treater now one of my favorite things about being a professional water
treater is meeting other professional water treaters let’s face it we have
some of the best people in our industry and because of our industry i was able
to meet these people and i am now able to call them my friends and that’s so
very fortunate because i happen to host a podcast and i’m always looking for new
guests to come on so i can introduce them to you the scaling up nation so you the scaling
up nation can be friends with them when meeting a new friend and
water treatment it’s always awkward let’s face it it’s it’s always awkward when we meet
somebody new so specifically in water treatment whenever i meet somebody new
one of the icebreaker questions that i use is what is one of the things you wish you
knew when you first started in this industry here’s how tammy faber answered that
question i’m here with tammy faber tammy how are
you celebrating industrial water week well our team will be finishing the week
most likely with a big picnic at our headquarters in palestine illinois we had fun with that last year kind of a
a great way to celebrate the team at the end of celebrating the industry that we all love so much
and are you going to make a cake is there going to be an industrial water treatment treat there
there is last year we had a decorated cake and a very festive game of cornhole
or as they call it illinois bags and so it culminates with the champion
cornhole team for hoh on industrial water week i’m so glad you told me that my
assistant the producer of this show corrine talked about bags the other day for our mastermind event and i had no
idea what she was talking about she was talking about cornhole i had the same issue when when i moved here in september they were like we’re
gonna play bags and i was i have no idea what you’re talking about so yes bags in illinois is cornhole everywhere else in
the south there you go nation there is your public service announcement you now
know we can speak chicago in now well uh tammy i want to ask you one more
question what is something you wish you knew on your first week as a water treater
i wish i would have known about the industry a whole lot sooner than i did um i’m relatively new 13 years
in a career that’s over 20 years old so i would have liked to have been an industrial water treater a lot
earlier in my career so the advice is if you’re an industrial water trader spread the word
yes exactly nation as you can tell tammy loves this
industry now i met tammy through the association of water technologies i’m
trying to remember what we were working on together we were all either on the same committee or we were on a webinar
together but there were several things that i was doing with awt and i kept bumping in to tammy faber and i’m so
glad that i did because i got to know tammy through awt and then tammy joined
the rising tide mastermind and we really got to know
each other well through that and tammy is a great example of sharing
what you know loving this industry and just giving back as much as she can to make this
industry better she is such a great example for that now if you want to hear
tammy’s story that was in episode 252 so feel free to go back and listen to
that and as james challenged us earlier in his story i’m curious how did you get
into the water treatment industry that would be a great post for your social
media and be sure to hashtag that with
iw22 and scaling up h2o nation what a great industrial water
week i think it is safe to say that this has been the best celebration yet
and i can only imagine how amazing next year will be
if you’re a planter like i am the next industrial water week in 2023 is going
to be october 2nd through 6th it’s always the first full
week in october now remember this weekend go to
all your party supply stores and get your industrial water week party supplies
on clearance because they’ll all be half off and you know every store has industrial water week supplies
and again celebrate today and style make sure you are celebrating
being an industrial water treatment professional make sure you’re celebrating all of the great things that
you get to experience because you are in this industry i will have a brand new
episode for you next friday yes you’re going to have to wait an entire week
you’re not going to have an episode each and every day like you did this week you have to wait an entire week
for a new episode but it will be worth it happy careers friday everybody and
remember to end today with a great way to close out industrial
water all right i know what you’re thinking but trace you promised us a brand new
detective h2o all right i didn’t forget i’m just having a little fun with you
scaling up nation it is my honor to introduce this brand new
never before heard episode of detective h2o and the case of seeing the dead
[Music] the case of seeing the dead
as he stood looking at the rain-smattered window of his office in downton waterville herbert henry oxidane
pi cwt cracked a sideways smile when his black rotary phone sprang to life
on the third ring he answered detective h2o here the best water treater this side of the ohio solving water problems
drop by drop what you got mr oxidane i mean detective oxidane or h2o whatever
your monika is this is charlie baxter originally from savannah georgia but i now live in
waterville and i work at carlisle industrial incorporated i got your name
from a friend and i thought i’d drop a dime on you i see well since you got me on the blower why
don’t you spit it out i charge by the minute paying cabbage is no problem if you can come on out here and solve our
problem we have this process loop you see and it keeps getting loaded up with those
microbial critters i tell you what despite all our best efforts why don’t
y’all come on down here and i’ll give you the full scoop all right you’ve hooked me i’ll get my rust bucket
started and be out your way within the hour i might have to fill up the old mirror first since you’re uphill most of the
way and she gets mighty thirsty in her old age fantastic detective h2o
we’ll be ready for you y’all come on down you here
as if on demand the deluge of rain slowed to light drizzle as detective h2o
pulled to a stop in his rusty blue ford water was in his blood and weather like
this always soothed his soul charlie baxter met him at the front gate
and escorted him to his office in the middle of the plant the detective had never been here before
a multinational water treatment company had this account buttoned up for years it was telling that he was being invited
here now something had them perplexed and solutions weren’t forthcoming this is
quite the complex operation you have here mr baxter pipes running everywhere from every direction it seems
some water and some not oh please call me charlie and what should i call you
detective h2o was the bland reply oh of course charlie quickly recovered
you are quite right detective h2o this facility looks like a bowl of spaghetti
in fact people accuse us of getting willy wonka to design it every nook and
cranny has a purpose to get the final product out the door but it ain’t an easy task keeping it all going
and you can take that to the bank tell me about this process loop that’s given you the headache that you
mentioned on the phone charlie looked down at the facility and said you see the main process loop
provides cooling water to several critical processes in the plant
it’s a completely closed loop all clammed up with no open water to the
atmosphere we had some failures in some piping and even a heat exchanger
upon inspection all the reports said mic are
microbiologically induced corrosion that is this comes as no surprise since the
metal samples we took even felt slimy i see what did you do next you mentioned
taking action on the phone earlier first we tested the system for microbial
activity and boy did we find them then we added a non-oxidizing bioside
that seemed to ward them little suckers off for a while but they soon came back
we tried a few more times but it was the same old story it was like a broken
record then we moved to an oxidizer by a side and we flushed the system before
and after we added that biocide that’s not an easy task with the loop this
large plus we had to add fresh water treatment chemicals those critters came
back again sometimes you can even smell those suckers in the water
just over a month and a half ago we repeated the oxidizer drain and flush
again and of course we had to put new water treatment chemicals in too you can probably guess what happened after that
they seemingly returned from beyond the grave to resurrect themselves once again
that’s where you come in our experts are out of ideas charlie said dropping his head
the detective eyed the poor sap and replied well you’ve got quite the story to tell there that’s a lot to take in
but i’ll do my best to get this canary to sing first what is the chemical treatment program you use in the main process loop
nitrite now i know where you’re going with this because we continually see our
nitrite levels drop as then bug counts keep going up that’s why we also did a pre-flush prior
to adding the oxidizer since we didn’t want the reaction between the two
becoming part of the oxidizer demand yes very good
nitrate can be a bug food and we’ll take that into consideration nitrite is an excellent corrosion
inhibitor and is used successfully in all kinds of applications without the issues you are experiencing
we won’t discount its impact but let’s get the lay of the land first i need to see your testing logs disinfection
reports and whatever other details you can show me regarding the actions you’ve taken
wear an open book around here detective it’s already laid out on that table over
yonder y’all going over there and help yourself as detective h2o perused through the
files he took notes pulled out his near abacus calculator to confirm a few things and peppered charlie with
questions anything charlie didn’t know he pulled his guys in to answer
charlie procedurally i can’t poke holes in your story it does appear the disinfections were by
the book with enough oxidizer for enough time throughout a multitude of checkpoints in the system to be
effective in most applications it would have worked there’s more to find out though
can you walk me through the system next i want to see everything from where the makeup water comes in to the pumps heat
exchangers side stream filters chemical addition points vents and drains
not a problem and i know where to just start this little trip y’all come on now
you hear charlie took detective h2o through a maze of piping stairs and aisleways
all the time the detective kept his eye on the main process loop piping and sketched a process flow diagram as they
went along they tracked down every tee opened the pot feeder inspected the bag
filters etc as they stood at what charlie said was the end of the road detective h2o glared
at his hand sketch process flow diagram and said okay this is the last jump off point
from the main line just above our heads it’s the same diameter as the primary flow of the main process loop quite
large where does it go well that’s there for future expansion plans
so we can connect those operations to the main process loop it ends just
beyond that wall over there it ends you say can you show me
charlie led the way through a door into the next room where the piping simply ended with a blind flange
peering up at the stunted piping detective h2o knew he’d found what he’d been looking for all along
[Music]
so tell me charlie when you did your disinfection draining and flushing the system did you do anything special with
this part of the piping well no we didn’t as a matter of fact
i really ain’t getting it no mind until you just brought it up right now i’m sure it drained with the rest of the
system detective h2o gave his trademark sideways slightly unsettling smile and
proclaimed that’s a dead leg my good fellow a what
a dead what a dead leg not a zombie apocalypse but an area
within a system with low to no flow it can be a leg of piping dead ended
like this one or even an offline system such as a chiller not only can sediment slowly collect in
these areas but so can microbiological activity such as biofilms because of the lack of sufficient flow
water treatment chemicals cannot reach far enough into them to be effective the bugs set up home in these dead legs
safe from your biocides and disinfection activities each time you tried to clean the system
they simply waited and re-inoculated the bulk water all over again i believe this
is our smoking gun a dead leg
who’d have thumb but what you say makes sense i tell you what i’m tired of taking the
fall for these little guys what can you do about it detective in your case i think you need to
disinfect the system one more time unfortunately but this time the entire
system if you can’t remove the whole dead leg you’ll at the very least need to install a drain line at the end that you have to
open on a regular basis to establish flow remove any sediment and expose the piping to the water treatment plus i’m
curious to see what’s inside the pipe it will need to be cleaned out let’s walk the system again to make sure
we’re not missing any other such dead legs and then i’ll work with you to develop a plan for a thorough disinfection this
time alrighty then let’s get started we’ll have them critters sleeping with
the fishes before we know it one month two months
six months and a year later charlie baxter called detective h2o to give him an update on the main process
loop there was no noted microbiological activity detective h2o has saved the day once
again and was paid all the cabbage he was due
[Music]
in the underbellies and penthouses of the metropolis of waterville where the boilers percolate in cooling towers fog
there is one man who works tirelessly to end corrosion stop scale fight low life
microbes and conserve water that man is detective h2o best water
treater the side of the ohio solving water problems drop by drop
[Music]
you