The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music] foreign
is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind when was the last time you
read a book and you actually applied it to your day-to-day well that’s one of
the things that we do within the rising tide Mastermind no it is not a book club but we do use books to enhance our core
knowledge on how we approach our day-to-day lives how we approach the
goals that we have in business and then we read those books and we figure out
how we help each other with the techniques that we learn within that book to help the day today we get above
the day today so we can affect the day-to-day if this is something that sounds interesting to you I would love
it if you went to scaling up h2o.com forward slash Mastermind to find out
more and to see if this group is right for you [Music]
welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our
systems I’m Trace Blackmore the host of this podcast and I’m not only Trace
Blackmore I am Trace Blackmore cwt and we are talking this entire
episode about the certified water technologist designation but before we
get there I do want to talk about a couple of things because we have World water day coming up and of course world
water day if you want to learn more about that you can go to our events page
and we are celebrating World water day by trying to get as many people as we
can to sign up for the global 6K taking place on May 20th this year and you can
go and sign up for that this very day by going to scaling up h2o.com forward
slash 6K and that will allow us in a very fun way to educate people about the
global Water Crisis there are over 2 billion people that do not have access
to clean drinking water and we can be part of the solution and why not we’re
in the water industry so if you would go to scalingup h2o.com forward slash 6K
you will learn all about that and I invite you to join our team team scaling
up and you can do the 6K with us you can do that from wherever you are or maybe
you want your entire company to do it together well you can create your own team and do it that way you can join
with neighbors however you do it it’s the message that is important and let’s
face it it’s something fun that we can do that’s up and above our normal
day-to-day it allows the inside staff to work with the outside staff and we can
have a lot of fun so once again that’s scaling up h2o.com forward slash 6K some
other events that you might want to attend are ashrae’s heating venting and
air conditioning cold climate conference and where else would that take place but
Anchorage Alaska that’s going to be March 6th through 8th and we have all
the information you want to know about that on our events page and then taking
place March 29th through April 1st in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
our second installment of the association of water Technologies Technical Training seminars so many
people attended the first version of this and that was in San Diego just a
few short weeks ago so if you did not get the opportunity to attend you’ve got
one more opportunity and of course we have all that information on our show notes page the American Waterworks
Association and the water environment Association is having the Texas Water
conference where else but Houston Texas April 11 through 14th we’ll have all the
information you want to know about that on our events page and then finally the
water environmental Federation storm water Summit is taking place June 27
through 29th in Kansas City Missouri all that information on our events page and
go to our events page because let’s face it it’s hard to keep track of all of the
things that are going on in our industry well we’re trying to help you with that
one place that you can go to plan your entire year that is scaling up h2o.com
and navigating over to the events page there you can see exactly what’s coming
up go straight to the provider from links that we have within that page and
even put invites in your calendar so we are trying to make this year as easy as
possible for you to enhance your knowledge around your industry and as
always the man who helps us do that each and every week here’s James McDonald
hello and welcome to the periodic water table with James where we think and learn about water chemistry drop by drop
please use your week to search online ask your colleagues or even pick up a
book to learn more about each week’s periodic water table topic if you do at
the end of the year you’ll be 52 water chemistry smarter so let’s raise the water table of
knowledge together and get started today’s topic is
Alum aha we’re touching upon raw water clarification in the wastewater
treatment here what is alum used for what is its chemical formula what weight
percentage of Alum is aluminum what could happen if Alum is overfed
what form does Alum typically come in solid liquid how is alum fed to a system
remember knowledge is power and taking the time to learn more about water chemistry each week will help make you a
force to be reckoned with be sure to post what you learn to social media and tag it with hashtag water
table23 and hashtag scalingup H2O I look forward to learning more from you
James thank you for that we always enjoy your installments on this podcast and
several people when I was at the awt Technical Training seminars told me how much they enjoy your installment so
thank you for doing that well Nation there’s no doubt about it we talk a lot about the association of water
Technologies on this podcast and as you know I’ve been very involved in the
Technical Training committee as well as being president of that organization and
it is an organization that I truly enjoy being a member of and I remember when I
was on the board I always wish that we had some sort of an outlet to let people
know what was going on in the industry at that time I had no idea what the
podcast was but I will let you know that that was one of the reasons I wanted to do a podcast and awt is just so dear to
my heart I want to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to support that great organization and something
that that organization puts forward is the certified water technologist
designation now I am a certified water technologist my number is 186 I am the
186 person to get that designation and I’m not sure how many we have to date
but what I do know is there are more potential cwts out there so today’s
interview is all about the cwt I hope you enjoy it here is today’s interview
My Lab Partners today is returning guest Chris golden of Taylor Technologies and
also the certification chairman of the cwt for the awt welcome Chris
hey Trace how you doing this morning it’s great to be here with you I always enjoy our conversations I do as well and
I know we’re going to talk about all things cwt but it’s been a while since
you’ve been on the scaling up H2O podcast so would you mind letting the scaling up Nation know who Chris golden
is oh Chris golden who the heck is he shows up like a bad Penny every once in a
while I’m Chris golden with Taylor Technologies I’ve been with them 15 years for 16 years before that I was a
water treater I actually went out and treated all different types of plants uh my specialty was was steel mill and
power plants and in fact that’s how I got with the with the company that was doing water treatments because I had a steel mill background and they they
needed somebody to treat the steel mill so I came on board with them and I’ll tell you I learned a lot so that was
back in 1989 oh my gosh you young guys going like 1989 I wasn’t even born then let’s
see I’ve got a degree in chemical engineering got that 1981 uh when I was
getting out of school in 1981 by the way I got bitten by the bug of water treatment I saw these jobs posted for
water treatment for water treatment reps and I was like wow that sounds like a really interesting field get to be out
get to see a bunch of different places get to solve problems that’s what I want to do well I couldn’t get hired by a
water treatment company but then again eight years later they that company was looking for somebody and and I threw my
resume out there and they and they hired me so here I am uh where I’m supposed to be it’s always I thought about life you
get to be where you want to be get to be where you’re supposed to be there you go and I agree water treatment is one of
the best jobs out there and how fortunate are we that that’s what we get to do absolutely I feel that every day
Chris let me ask so how did you go from what you just described to volunteering
with the association of water Technologies well that was that was a really interesting path so I was the
local rep for I’m going to mention the name nowco um to tailored Technologies and I met
one of their Executives at a shopping center and she saw my my shirt and said
oh my gosh you work for nalco I work for Taylor I said oh my gosh Taylor I use your stuff uh that’s great and we
developed a relationship that that lasted eight years of me Consulting in the industrial water arena for Taylor
not as an employee but they paid me they paid me with golf which was a good thing because I couldn’t take any money they
paid me with golf and as I golfed I got to know the more of the executives and the owner of Taylor and and they came
and and offered me a job and he said hey uh part of this job that we’re going to
give you is in the industrial world and do you think you could pass the awt association water Technologies
certification test the cwt and I was like yeah sure yeah that sounds like
doable with with my background I’ve spent 16 years out of the field sure I could do that then you know push came to
shove the rubber met the road and I I needed to go take that test and as a matter of fact I I took the cwt exam and
and did everything that was required to me for certification before I joined Taylor
so that’s how I got exposed to the awt and then there was Miss Angela Pike
Gotta Love Angela she saw me she looked at my resume and said hey we’ve got some
committees I’d like you to consider being involved in I was like committees that sounds like great fun and first one
was education the second was certification so way back in 2008 I got
involved in the certification committee and have been a member ever since
so if somebody is tuning in today and they’ve never heard of the certified
water technologist designation first off they haven’t listened to this podcast because we talk about it all the time
but let’s just say somebody tuned in for the first time today how would you explain what the cwt is okay what the
cwt is a certification that you’re a
good water treater that’s just to sum it up you’re a good water treater and you’re a valuable water treater and what
you need to do to get that certification is you need to have five years out in
the field you need to be I shouldn’t say out in the field you need to have five years experience of being a water
treater involved in the water treatment industry because I know some very good lab people and product people that have
their cwts and hadn’t spent five years out in the field but they are are valuable people so you what you do is
you you have industry experience for five years uh you provide references is that say that yes you do have that work
experience and then you go and you sit for a 200 question technical exam a 200
question technical exam one exam and it covers the whole range of what you need
to know in order to be a water treater and you’ve got boilers you’ve got cooling water you got waste water you
got pre-treatment you have regulations and you have you have safety which are
very important especially when you’re when you’re doing water treatment out in the industrial plants and really any
facility so you’ve got this 200 question technical exam that you need to pass and
then what you do is you sign a declaration of ethics and that to me is probably the most important part about
it because that says it you’re going to do the right thing that you’re going to do the right thing for your customers you’re going to do the right thing for
your company you’re going to do the right thing for the world so a declaration of Ethics that you’re you’re going to be straight up so that’s how
you get the exam but when I always go back to trace is is uh how do you sell
anything how do you sell water treatment and water treatment is a very complicated thing you you need to
understand chemistries mechanical you need to know people all that kind of stuff so you’re doing that interaction
with the person and you want to sell them something or you maybe you took over the account from one of your
friends you want to keep the account you need trust you need trust you need trust that person needs to trust you and
so how do you get that trust and one of the things is competence be able to show competence and that’s what the cwt does
it is a a badge that you get to wear certification that you get to display
that says I’ve done these things I’ve worked in the industry more than five years I’ve answered a 200 question
technical exam and I’ve saw my Declaration of Ethics so I’m standing in front of you and you can trust me so
that’s probably the biggest thing about the cwt is it really is a signal to
anybody that has met you and knows that you’re a cwt that you’re a professional
so let me ask you this there are people listening today that probably should
take their cwt examination why should they what what is the thing that they
need to understand that they need to sign up today and they need to take that exam to become a cwt
well I think we all want to be recognized as professionals we want to be recognized as a professional in our
field and again uh I’ll go back to a lot of people don’t know what we do Trace you know you try to explain what you do
at a cocktail party to somebody that’s a lawyer and they probably their eyes kind of glaze over a little bit and our
customers do too because we’re handling that water and they’re not really sure about the water and any Joe’s going to
come in there that says I’m a water treater and uh hey I could do it for 10 less than what you’re doing it right now
so what’s going to keep that customer from differentiating between you and
that Joe that just walks in off the street that doesn’t have a cwt well the cwt behind your name lets them know that
you’ve gone through this process uh and by the way I’d like to drop in here that the board of directors has decided to
improve the recognition of the cwt by getting antsy accreditation I’m so proud
that they’ve taken that step so we’re going to have a third party accreditation of this certification and
that’s going to mean even more to the people that see the cwt so you’re looking to differentiate yourself you
want to sell business and you want to keep business and that cwt is that
designation says hey I’m a professional you can trust me I always also like to
go back to the first days I stepped foot and the steel mill down at Sparrows Point in Maryland and Trace at the time
there were eight different water treatment chemical companies in there in that plant eight is Big integrated meal
eight different water treatment chemical companies and things would go out to bid different parts of the plant go out to bed so you
know we all end up in the same room we got eight of us and and you’re looking around and and you know a couple of them
you know don’t understand anything and there are a few very worthy competitors that I had sitting in that room and what
if one of us had a cwt and the other ones didn’t I I think I’d kind of be leaning towards that cwt when we started
talking about how we would treat systems and how we’d handle different conditions and there’s some of us that just didn’t
have a clue and showed that they didn’t have a clue but the poor customers saying they’re going like who do I trust
who do I trust these guys who tell me one thing these guys are telling me another thing who can I trust but if you
have that accreditation if you have that certification hey look I’ve been through the test I’ve been through the
experience I’m I’m here to tell you I’ve got I’ve got the shield that says you should be listen to me
so that’s definitely why the customer should value having a cwt and why the
employee the team member needs to say okay I’m a cwt because I can differentiate myself from other water
treaters how can that cwt now differentiate themselves within their
own company we all know that have the cwt and when you when you take a look at what it takes to get the cwt it’s a lot
of work you’re showing your commitment to the industry you’re showing your commitment to the profession and if you
have one person that has a couple people we have a lot of companies a lot of people have cwts if you got those you’ve
known that they they’re committed I would look at those employees as saying they’re in this in the long run they’re
looking at this as a profession and not just looking at this as being a job and that is very important to me when I’m
thinking long term of who am I going to promote Who Am I who am I going to put in charge who can I trust who am I going
to get to train my people who could I trust to train my people I’m going to go towards the cwt because they’ve they’ve
passed the exam they have proven that they know what they’re doing and they’ve proven to me that they’re looking at
this as a profession not just a job does a cwt typically make more money
than a just a regular water Trader I would hope that they would I hope that the the owners recognize that and and
trace it I think you were in the room at the recent annual convention when I got a chance to talk to the business owners
yes it was a great opportunity to always appreciate that I hope I get a chance to do that but I was talking with the
business owners of why you should encourage your people to be cwts and you
ought to reward them for it that’s quite a process that they go through and they should be making more money I can tell
you that they’re more valuable they they’re proving their value that’s not to say that somebody doesn’t have a cwt
who’s been in the industry for 20 years and doesn’t have that cwt they’re no less valuable they really are no less
valuable it’s just one person has chosen to go for the certification and have
that next to their name to say I went through that process there are a lot of really good water treaters out there
that aren’t cwts but I would encourage those guys to to go ahead and go get the
cwt so to a business owner having cwts and very valuable thing and you should
pay them more so let’s switch gears a little bit on that topic let’s now talk to the
business owners out there and why do they want to promote their people to get
cwts why do they want to support the people that have current cwts what do
you want to say to the business owners to the business owners it’s an investment it is a wonderful investment
you’re investing in your people and as we take a look at the younger people
coming up we’re trying to get them satisfied with their jobs and one of the things that the younger people value as
I understand and being in a few conferences is is is being able to grow
being able to grow being able to progress if you’ve got a company where they’re looking at being a water tech
and that’s all they’re going to Aspire to you’re probably going to have a tough time keeping people
but if you can show them a path if you can show them a path of progression if you do this I’m going to pay you more
because you’re going to be more valuable to me and let’s face it business owners you want guys that are out there in the
field that understand the business understand the implications are asking
the questions or taking care of the programs are being proactive are recognizing when there’s problems and
being educated being educated and being experienced and we’re talking about let’s say 10 years of experience there’s
two ways to get that 10 years of experience you get that 10 years of experience by being there and keeping
your eyes open and asking the questions why or you have one year 10-year over and I’m a sheep and I’m going around to
the same path to the same accounts yes they’re under control but are we growing are we doing anything am I adding
Revenue to the company uh let’s face it it’s the guys that are educated and are
a showing value to their customers that are going to win accounts and grow the business and that’s really important to
the owners and let’s face it improve profitability so something that we really try to do
here at our company is promote the cwt as much as we can it’s the industry
standard of Excellence letting people know all the things that you said and we
like to encourage people to do everything that they can to get their cwt we pay for them to go to training we
pay for them to take their examination and then we even give them a bonus and a
pay bump once they get their cwt it means so much to us as a company to know
that we’re employing cwts so we want to do everything to make sure that we are
promoting that so for those business owners that are out there that own a water treatment company it is in your
benefit to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to let your people know it’s something that you want to
promote and normally when people see all the benefits that you will offer as
you’re getting your cwt and then when you get your cwt that normally promotes
people to action wouldn’t you agree absolutely absolutely it also makes them a more efficient employee more efficient
employee because they’ve got that experience they’ve got that extra knowledge and along with the extra
knowledge that kind of stuff you got a great network of people that are also cwts that are great resources to you if
you run into a problem out in the field but basically you make that employee much more efficient they’re able to
problem solve more quickly they’re more knowledgeable about the systems they’ve spent the time to become more
knowledgeable about those systems so they work more efficiently and they can handle more accounts that can handle
more work and they can sell more work so it’s it’s all really great investment and and Trace I’m going to butcher this
it’s like was it Abe Lincoln that said if I had seven hours to cut down a tree I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax it
was something like that I think you nailed it but it’s something like that right so yeah it’s it’s going to take
some time that your maybe you’re paying the employee for that they’re that they’re studying and they’re and they’re
obser observing and absorbing like a sponge it’s gonna it’s gonna pay off in
great benefits to your company they will be a a happier employee a more valuable
employee they’re going to be more valuable to the industry it’s it’s a great investment I can tell you for us because we
recognize them so much it allows people that are aspiring to get their cwt to
want to get their certification and here’s the best part when we’re doing consulting we get to build more if
somebody’s a cwt that is terrific and that should be the case absolutely because you’re going to
be more valuable you’re not just getting a guy that that knows how to how to feed some chemical and and turn a wrench
you’re going to get somebody that’s going to come in there and take a look at the whole system look at the the whole water treatment approach and and
uh you know Tracy you’ve heard it from me before that I I’d love to say that water treatments and any kind of water
maintenance is over 90 mechanical and less than 10 percent chemical and if you’re just working for a chemical
company water treatment chemical company you’re looking at all the solutions as being chemical well they’re they’re bypass a lot of things that are
mechanical and I think that’s part of the cwt and part of the knowledge you need to have to be a cwt and be a
professional water treatment field is have those eyes open recognizing problems recognize winds chemical and
mechanical and then taking care of their facility very efficiently and very effectively it’s a beautiful thing
well now let’s shift gears once again and the audience that we’re going to address are now all of the end users all
of the customers out there so for the customers out there that are hiring
water treatment professionals what do they need to know about cwt
oh that’s that is a great question and I’ll I’ll put this in the framework of I have an older brother that’s a civil
engineer and he was working at several chemical plants and one of them is just up the road in Westchester Pennsylvania
and I said do you have it you have a steam stripper in that plant don’t you go yeah I do and hey doesn’t that scale
up because well yeah it does but uh you know there’s nothing you can do about it well I’ve got a good friend that was one
of my trainers Doug Shackleford that’s right up the road from you and why don’t you why don’t you have him come in and
and take a look at that thing and he’s Oh no you’re all you’re all uh just chemical salesman uh no I don’t I don’t
need a Salesman to come to to come to see me well he probably had been exposed to a lot of water treaters that were
just that they were just chemical sales guys they weren’t Engineers they weren’t resources they weren’t Partners they
weren’t Partners now you see all these people come through and you see all the business cards come through but what if
I’m one or two of them had cwt after the name and you’re like well you know what what is a cwt and you either ask the guy
what the cwt meant or you went online and said hey what’s this cwt mean and
you go to the awt.org website and you learn more about what a cwt is and what
you need to do to get it and how you’re you’re treating this job as as a profession not just a job I think I
narrow my choices down to those cwts because they’ve proven through certification and by going through this
process that they are professionals and to me I’ll go back to that that sign in
the Declaration of Ethics that always gets me that always gets me that what you’re doing is you’re you’re assuring
them that you’re going to be telling them the straight story you’re going to be doing the right thing for them the right thing for your company right thing
for their employees that’s what I want on my team that’s that’s the kind of supplier that I want I I don’t want
somebody who’s just coming in here and dropping off some chemical and and take get my money I want somebody that’s
committed and I think the cwt maybe the C and cwt should be committed we’re committed to water treatment again it’s
a profession and it sets yourself above now back in the day if I had that cwt
when I was down that steel mill and there were all those eight different groups I’d love to slide my card across
the table to that business owner to that owner of that part of the plant and say
hey I’ve got this certification I’m recognized by an independent organization the association of water
technologies that I am a water treater and this is my profession it’s certainly going to put me on a step much higher
than the rest of the people in that room you had mentioned that if somebody’s hiring a water treatment company or a
water treatment professional to do their water treatment that they should do some research about them what are some places
that they should do this research can you give them some resources
Trace that’s a really interesting question right now the best place to learn about cwt and the certification is
on the awt.org website we talk about the value of the cwt and four years ago when
when I became the chair of this I wanted to see what we had and I was pleasantly surprised on the write-up that was in
the awt.org website about the value of the cwt to those customers that are out
there now let me tell you something we’re also doing we got together as a committee and we wrote an article we
wrote an article on how to choose a water treater how to choose what what are the qualities you’re looking for in
a water treater and I’m trying to shop that I’ll call shop shop that to the
professional magazines yesterday it’s so funny just yesterday I sent a copy of it
to my contact at the cooling tower Institute the CTI uh the CTI represents
a group of our customers a very valuable group of of our customers rather large plants of our customers and I sent it to
them to ask them if they would please publish this I’m hoping it’s a very
non-promotional type of article and that they see it as being valuable for their
people because I’m sure there are many people both very experienced out there
at our customers plants and also new Engineers new Engineers I remember when FMC agricultural products plant down
here was looking for options in their water treatment they had a very young engineer in there and he was you could
see it was very flat-footed he couldn’t couldn’t make a decision he couldn’t decide you know what is a good water
treater so that’s what we’re trying to do we’re trying to get out there to the industry news magazines and get this
article published and that’s one of my Prime goals to do in the next year
well excellent well since we have the committee chairman right here on the
podcast let’s take a peek behind the curtain so let’s say somebody has passed
their cwt examination what happens next what happens next they pass the exam now
we say okay you’re ready you’re ready to go now what we got to do is we have to we have to check your work experience
we’re going to check your work experience to make sure that you have it and by the way you know I talked about five years experience in the industry we
also give credit for a year for technical degrees so if you have a chemical engineering degree industrial
engineering degree civil engineering degree we’ll get environmental engineering degree we’ll give you credit
for that time that you’ve spent learning we’ll give you a Year’s credit so then you need four years worth of water
treatment experience so what happens so we check that we have you signed the Declaration of of ethics and really as
far as the changes traced which you’re going to see coming up with earning our NC accreditation that’s where it’s going
to stop you’ve done the things that you need to do to get this certification here’s your cwt
so what does the committee now do with the application well actually the committee doesn’t
touch the application what we have is our Management Group which is Angela
Pike she’s the one that processes it she makes sure that it’s there what we do send it out as a packet to one of the
certification committee members in order to make sure that it’s all inclusive
just as that second check to what Angela’s seen just to make sure that it’s all right it’s pretty much just
making sure all the items have been met that you’ve taken your test you’ve got
your five years we go over the the work experience and education experience make sure the Declaration of Ethics is signed
and you’re off and going so that’s that’s really all the committee members will do we don’t sit there and say hey
look Joe Smith wants a cwt we’ve got nine people in a call we need a quorum
do I have five that say yes no it doesn’t come down to any kind of personality contest beauty contest none
of that it’s strictly your qualifications once all of that gets approved and the
person’s notified that you are officially a certified water technologist they have five years and
then they have to re-certify tell us about that recertification process I’d
love the recertification process and and that the whole thing of we want to make sure that you’re continuing to grow we
want to make sure that you’re con continuing to learn we want to make sure you’re continuing to be a professional so the way you can do that is very easy
what I really enjoy doing is attending the annual conventions attending the annual conventions and at the annual
conventions you have papers that are being presented and oh my gosh the the people that are presenting the papers
are are riveting gosh you got Bob Ferguson you got Colin frame oh you got
all the all these great people James McDonald up there presenting papers uh
on what uh topics that are related to the water treatment field so the annual
convention you can go there and you can go sit written four or six or eight classes and really uh add to your
knowledge so attending the annual convention gets you points the other thing to do is go to the Regional
training that’s held we hold Regional training twice a year and we try to do it once in the East and once in the west
and it might be Central times when we kind of move it around the education committee is in charge of that and they
are just a wonderful group of people so go to the Regional training which is three-day Regional training and you get
to hear from again some some wonderful speakers and they’ll they’ll go over everything in in water treatment you
know cooling water Wastewater boiler water they have um safety training also which is good
then you have equipment training I’m just blown away by some of the equipment training you’ve really got some great companies in there showing you what the
what the latest and greatest is and you also have so you so that’s for the cwt
I’m gonna also promote that fundamentals course let’s say that you’re not a cwt that you happen to be a service tech
that’s out there and you want to learn more about what you’re doing the fundamentals class oh my gosh that is
absolutely terrific and I and I know a couple of the trainers and that and they’re they’re very very good speakers very very good resources to have so
that’s the Regional training the next thing is you can get points by reading articles and taking quizzes we have a
wonderful publication called the analyst it comes out four times a year and and
it has technical articles and has great information in it that that’s very useful and you can go online and take a
quiz on those articles and you pass that quiz and it counts as points that you
understand the content of those articles the other thing that cwts get to do is we get to review papers uh I love
reviewing the papers and these are the papers that are offered to be done at the convention and so we need people to
go ahead and review and see are they what we’re looking for at the awt convention do they hit the mark are they
not commercials for their companies are they generic good information that I
need to have we don’t want people going to the annual convention and and standing up there and and doing a doing
a commercial for their company we want them to be offering some very good information so review the papers that
are being proposed for the annual convention and then the other thing that you can do is there are other qualified
training seminars that are out there put on by some very very good companies a lot of suppliers can put in some very
good Training seminars they get qualified by the certification committee and you could earn a point or two by
going to those training seminars all great information
something that I’ve heard people say is I can’t travel or I don’t have time to travel or I don’t have the budget to
travel and what I love about what you just mentioned is if you’re a member of
the awt you can get all of your recertification done without traveling for free now I think you can pay a
little bit for some of the webinars and things that we’ve got online if you’re not a member but I love that all of that
stuff is available to members to re-certify where they’re at
yeah and Trace uh recent development I think this is over like the last three years it used to be that people get
surprised that it’s oh my gosh it’s my five years are up and I need to have my 25 CEUs in order to keep my cwt oh my
gosh I’ve only got five I’ve only got six what am I gonna do the awt has on
the portal of the awt.org the members section you go in and you can see up to date I can go on to that right now and
see how many CEUs I have towards my recertification now I just got my recertification December of last year
and I as a matter of fact when I was on the awt.org website the other day I went and looked and I’ve got my five CEUs
posted from the convention yay so this tool is very very valuable that you
don’t get surprised and to all cwts out there I recommend that at least annually
and and you know with with the way I’ve got Microsoft Outlook I can put recurring events on there to remind mind
me in fact that’s how I do my time organization time management is I’ll put an event on there once a year to say hey
check your CEUs how many CEUs do you have for your awt are you heading in the right direction that way you don’t get
surprised it’s just a wonderful wonderful tool let’s talk about the term CEUs because I
think people get confused because they’re thinking oh well 25 hours I need 25 hours of continuing education so
what’s the difference between a continuing education unit and a continuing education hour
well continuing education unit they are assigned to what we see as the value of
the course the value of the course now it may be a four-hour course that you might be taking with the qualified
training seminar and it may only be worth one ceu one one continuing
education unit so the Regional training the Regional training is is three days
oh boy that’s what a great three days it is and so you’re talking about three days Thursday Friday Saturday that’s
probably 20 hours worth of classroom training that you’re you’re doing uh so
we don’t give you 20 credits for that we give you five credits for attending the Regional training so the ceu’s
continuing education units do not equal the hours yeah I think that’s important to know
especially if somebody has not been keeping up with their continuing education units throughout the five
years and they’re like oh my goodness I expire in one year and they’re thinking they’re having to do 25 hours and
there’s a lot more of an investment than just 24 hours there there can be there
can be more of an investment but if you go and you you take a look at some articles and you do the quiz you might
be just down at an hour if you’re reading the the article thoroughly and review papers that are being proposed
for the annual convention there again that that might be one hour to get one ceu so there’s multiple ways to skin the
cat some of the best advice I heard about keeping up with your certification is
start immediately when you get certified get those credits as soon as you can and
then you never have to worry about them yeah have a plan and it’s up to the individual to create that plan but do
take a look at it as you do have that feedback of how you’re doing with the plan and again I’m I’m big on putting
events time management putting events into my Outlook that thing my phone goes off and says oh yeah it’s it’s June the
5th and I’m supposed to check my CEUs how am I doing towards those CEUs Chris you have an open mic to tens of
thousands of water treaters what do you want to make sure that they go home with about the certified water technologist
designation well if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re listening to trace’s podcast I’m going to bet you’re a professional
I’m going to bet that you’re committed to the industry you continue to want to learn you’re about personal development
and that is one of the things that I value and I and I do believe that everybody values is personal development
I got a chance to do that at every one of my jobs and here is a program that is
set up that you can get a lot of personal development out of by working
to earn your certification in the water treatment field you’re earning your cwt it’s got cooling it’s got cooling Waters
got boiler water it’s got safety it’s got equipment you’re talking about in order to pass this exam you need to be
proficient in these areas and not everybody passes the exam the first time
I’m going to give you a heads up on that we got about a 25 pass rate and if you’re one of the 75 does that mean
you’re a failure or anything or you’re less professional no it it doesn’t no please take this as as a sign on
personal help there’s some areas that you could improve on there’s some areas that you can improve and when you can focus on those areas and improve
yourself in those areas I I just think that’s that’s the greatest thing that’s that you talk about really leading to
job fulfillment this is a profession and I want you all to enjoy it as much as I
have enjoy as much as Trace has and work and work and work to be the best that
you can be as far as that business partner to your customers and I guarantee that if you’re that business
partner your customer and you’re working towards your cwt and you earn your cwt those customers are going to Value you
they’re going to value they’re going to keep giving you the business they’re going to refer you they’re going to refer you to their friends that are
looking for good water treaters and you’re going to set yourself aside from all the rest of the water
treaters that out there it is a very very valuable designation and I really
encourage you strongly to work towards it if you if you don’t earn it that’s
fine talking about continuing development continuing personal development that’s what this is all
about and I think that’s what what personal satisfaction is all about well Chris I want to thank you for all
you do for the certification committee allowing us to have a certification like
this and I especially want to thank you for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast and sharing all of that information
well that’s great and just to tell you I might be the chair but I represent a whole bunch of really great people in
the certification committee very very talented people I’m very humbled uh each time when I get off the phone they say
thank you because you guys are professionals you make a difference
Nation it’s my hope that you learned more about this certified water
technologist designation and let’s face it this podcast serves a lot of
Industries within the water sector so right now I’m talking to the people that
practice the same type of water treatment as I do and that is specifically cooling towers boilers
closed loop systems if this is something that you do I would love it if you learn
more about the certified water technologist designation I truly believe
that this is a designation that elevates your commitment to this industry and it
allows everybody that sees those three initials behind your name that you are
taking this more seriously than other people in this industry and when people
research search what those three initials mean it gives you so much extra
behind your name that people want to do business with you I am so proud to be a
certified water technologist and as I mentioned earlier I got mine and I was
186th person to get their cwt I know
that there are thousands of potential cwts out there I know I am talking to so
many potential cwts right now and I want
to motivate you to get your certified water technologist designation get it
for your industry get it for your company but most of all get it for
yourself because when you do have a professional design Nation behind your
name it changes how you look at yourself it changes how others look at you and
because you are perceived that way you will learn more
trust me people will come to you with bigger problems so you’re forced to
learn more how do I know that that is the exact same thing that happened to me that’s
the same thing that has happened to people that I know are cwts and I truly
believe that that is the biggest differentiator that you will have to
show that you are among the top tier in this industry and other people that just
have a job in this industry so all the people that I’ve worked with over the many years they all had
something in common they lack the confidence to sign up for the exam and I
truly believe that if they signed up and took the exam they would have passed it
let’s talk about if they didn’t pass it folks even if you don’t pass the exam you get the experience of taking the
exam and that makes your second time taking of the exam so much better
because now you know what to expect so the team here at scaling up has created
scaling up H2O Academy and it’s all about giving the industrial Water
Treatment Community knowledge about our Craft on their own time where when they
can take time to study for whatever they need to study for whether it’s learning
more General water treatment knowledge or maybe it’s boosting confidence evidence so you can sign up for the cwt
exam we have courses for that and I would love it if you went to scaling up
h2o.com forward slash Academy and you will see the courses that we have
available now the two courses that I would love to Showcase right now are the
cwt practice exam course and the free version of that course yes totally free
to you this scaling up Nation now why did we do a free version of this well
one what the free version is is me going through the handbook that awt so
professionally put together letting you know everything you need to know in order to take your certified water
technologist examination so you can see me going through that handbook there are
videos where I am trying to connect directly with you and and encourage you to do all the things that you need to do
to take your certified water technologist examination you will also
see the 10 sample questions that the awt puts in that handbook I go through in
the same fashion as the paid course to give you a little sneak peek of what it
is that I’m trying to boost your confidence for in taking the cwt so that
is a hundred percent free I urge you to sign up for that and if you like that you can then pay for the cwt practice
exam course which is a hundred question exam that my team came up with to help
teach you test taking techniques and allow you to understand some of the
things you know really well some of the things you don’t know really well and give you resources of where to go so you
can go bolster the information that you need the entire goal with these two
courses is to give you the confidence to schedule the exam because I believe
there’s so many people out there that if they just scheduled the exam and took it
they would become cwts and I truly believe that the cwt is the game changer
for your career that lets everybody you come in contact with know that you are a
professional that’s here to stay in this industry so once again that’s scaling up
h2o.com forward slash Academy and it’s my hope that you enjoyed today’s episode
it’s my hope that you learned a lot that you did not know about the certified
water technologist designation of course there’s a lot of legwork that takes
place with the association of water Technologies in order to administer the exam and also make sure that every eye
is dotted and T is crossed so the exam is upheld to the highest standard so
thank you for all the volunteers out there on the certification committee
that allow that to happen thank you to the awt staff that administer everything
that you do around the certified water technologist designation and Nation it
is my hope that you are a future cwt if there is anything I can do to help you
obtain your cwt please do not hesitate to ask it is my goal to raise the bar in
the industrial water treatment industry and I truly believe the way to do that
is to get more people to take their certified water technology just
examination and I hope that’s you and I hope as soon as you hear this you
research the cwt more and to make that as easy as possible you can go to
scalingup h2o.com forward slash Academy and go to the free course and you can
learn hopefully everything that you need to know about the cwt nation thank you
for listening to today’s podcast and an ask that I have for everybody out there
that’s getting their cwt that as soon as you sign up for the cwt you post that on
social media and you hashtag scaling up H2O and you put the date that you are
taking your exam I think it’s very important that we all realize that we are not in this alone and together we
will raise the bar in the water treatment industry and there’s just something magical that happens when you
let the world know that you are going to be a future cwt and what date that is
Nation if you’re wondering what date we’re going to have a brand new episode for you that is going to be next week on
Friday I can’t wait to talk to you then until then have a great week folks
Skyline Nation have you signed up to take your certified water technologist designation exam if you have you’ve
received a mock exam copy and I have answered each one of the questions in
that mock exam letting you know which ones are the best answers I share tips
and tricks about the exam making sure that you sign up easily and confidently
and when you go in to take the examination you have got certain things working for you because you’re prepared
to find out more go to scalinguph2o.com forward slash cwt prep once again that’s
scalinguph2o.com forward slash cwt prep