The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast for water traders by water treaters where we’re scaling up on knowledge so we
don’t scale up our systems everybody tres Blackmore here and Happy New Year
it’s 2018 and I know we ended the year with the CWT challenge and I hope all
you find folks out there and the scaling up nation are thinking about how you’re going to get your certified water
technologist designation if you have not already if you need more information
about that please go to my show notes page and I’ve got a bunch of links straight to the AWT site and I’ve even
got some tips for you to help you get on the right path to passing the exam well
with the new year we’ve got a lot of new things coming up and one of the items it’s one of my favorite things to do
twice every year are the association of water technologies technical training seminars we’ve got those coming up right
around the corner the first ones going to be in Las Vegas Nevada that’s February 28th through March 4th
it’s going to be at the Green Valley Ranch and the second opportunity for that is going to be in Cleveland Ohio
that’s going to be March 21st through 25th in the Cleveland downtown Marriott
folks if you have not been to one of these training seminars I cannot think
of any other thing that you can do that will boost your education and your
information that you have about water treatment it is truly like drinking from a firehose so every time you go you’re
gonna get a little bit more and a little bit more so if you’ve only been once don’t think you’ve been there you’ve
done that you’ve got the t-shirt go ahead and come back because I think you would be impressed about how much more
information that you are going to get I’m going to tell you a little bit about some of the things that go on there it
actually starts on Thursday for the bass classes but on Wednesday if you come in
early there is a sales training class and a great friend of mine Russell Baskin of tower water teaches
that and he’s going to talk to you about the basis of sales and talk about what your real role is when you’re in sales he’s
gonna break down sales take you step by step through the sales process talk
about marketing building a brand and all sorts of sales methods and and different
things that he’s done along the way that he’s gonna share with you it’s phenomenal the things that he has in this class
I’ve been privileged to see some of the things that he’s been putting in there as he’s been developing it so I know
that you are going to enjoy that also concurrent with that class is our friend
of the show Collin frame and he is going to be talking about reverse osmosis and ultra
filtration so again a great class a lot of technical information about that he’s
going to give you a complete overview about membrane and ultra filtration technologies he’s gonna talk about all
sorts of advanced topics related to that including design operation cleaning
troubleshooting just a phenomenal amount of information packed in a very small
timeframe so if you’re interested in that be sure to sign up for that the other classes start on Thursday and go
through Saturday and then there’s two classes that you get to choose from on that agenda so there’s the technical
training side and there’s the fundamental and application side so I want to explain to the audience exactly
what the differences are because up until recently they were two very
different classes and and they still are but they build on each other so we start
out with fundamentals and applications we get to a certain point and then we
then move on to technical training so if you’ve been to one and not the other don’t think that you don’t need to go to
the other one I think that you get the full scope of exactly what’s going on when you blend the two classes together
so what the heck do we talk about in there so fundamentals and applications I’m one of the instructors in that class
so very proud of that we talked about the the basis of what we do as a water
trigger so we’ll talk about that and then just the basis of water and all the characteristics of
water we’ll get into some safety we say in the class if you get hurt nothing
else matters so we put a lot of emphasis on how you can keep yourself safe out in
the field we look at testing and one of the great things about this class is we
not only talk about things we get our hands on things and we’re gonna have test kits there we’ll have water samples
there and you will actually be testing the water and we’re going to go through the interpretation of that so instead of
just lecturing about it you’re actually going to get to do it so a lot of questions get answered during that we’ll
go through some time management techniques we’ll talk a lot about boilers cooling towers closed-loop systems how to talk to your customers
and how to write a service report and that’s just the surface of what we’ll talk about moving over to the technical
training class we’ll talk about water chemistry and again the foundation is set in the first class and now we’re
moving a little bit higher so some water chemistry in that and where we were
talking about safety before now we’re talking more regulatory with health and safety and then yours truly is going to
give you a water treatment math class and I know most people they go into that
math class thinking oh my gosh a couple hours of math how am I going to get through that but I have painstakingly
done everything I can to try to make that as interesting as I can and my goal
is not to get you to do the math because I know everybody out there can do the math my goal is to get you to understand
the equation so we’re going to talk about what the equations are how we came
up with them so that way it’s not just a number you’re getting its interpretation
of that number when you actually get it so there’s more classes I’m talking all about math so we’ll talk about advances
in the feed equipment again higher levels of boilers cooling towers closed loops and Jim Luca nitch friend of the
show he’s one of my favorite speakers there and he is going to go into the biology
excuse me Jim the microbiology of cooling systems and I tell you when you
start to understand that you really start to be able to control your systems
on Sunday is the certified water technologist exam so if there are people out there that want to take that exam at
a AWT function this is your time to do so and Angela will actually be the one
that’s giving that examination by the way I said examination I hope you guys noticed that I’ve heard some listeners
have created a drinking game out of how many times I say test instead of examination so there you go and then the
last thing I want to say about that is I do hope that you take some time and you make arrangements to come to this
training I don’t think there’s anything else out there that compares to it we’re
able to bring it as an organization because all the speakers volunteer their time so it’s extremely affordable
especially with all the information that you get when you’re making your
reservations please keep in mind that there are limited spots so once that
class fills up there’s no other space in the room so if you want to go make sure you make your reservations and then as
you’re making your travel reservations I’ve seen as an instructor a lot of people want to leave on Saturday a
couple hour early before we actually dismiss and I tell you folks I think
that’s a mistake I know people do it because they’re trying to make their flights home and they want to save that
last night of the hotel but really you’re thinking you’re not going to get this type of training anywhere else and
now you’re taking a percentage out of what you’ve paid for and you’re missing it in the fundamentals class we do our
wrap-up at the very end and we try to lay things out and put them together so
things make even more sense the last two hours of that class and I can’t tell you
how many people miss that because they were trying to leave early to make those flights I do think it is worthwhile to
stay either to the next day to make a flight on Sunday or to catch a later flight because you
don’t want to miss that stuff that being said I’ve noticed things that people do that do better in the class do better on
the examination do better in water treatment from this class when they do certain things so I’m going to take a
couple moments and explain what some of those items are again there’s limited
spots so if you’re thinking about going don’t just think about it put it into action and sign up now go ahead and do
that once you sign up you’re going to get information from AWT that tells you how to access all the information that
US instructors have put online to allow you to either see presentations or have
access to handouts or items such as that my advice to you is immediately start to
download those items and then start to review them so before you even sit down
in that seminar you have an idea of what’s going to be talked about and
you’ve already created some questions in your mind so you’re listening for those answers
and you’re you’re asking yourself did that answer the question that I had and
if it didn’t now’s your opportunity to ask the people that are instructing
those classes so I think you’ll get a lot more out of each seminar that you attend and then you know making sure
that you’re taking notes not only during the seminar but before the seminar make
some notes of what you want to get out of each and every section and then make sure when that sections over you got
those items out when you are done with the seminar so we try to give a lot of
breaks during the seminar but granted there’s so much stuff we try to go over there’s only so much time that we can
actually break so there’s probably not as many breaks in there as there should be but when you get a break please take
care of your bodily functions and all that stuff that you have to do but it’s important that you review all the notes
that you took and make sure that you understand them now and
make any changes or additions so you can understand them later I can’t tell you
how much this is going to help your comprehension when you go back and try to reread your notes the last thing I
want to tell you to do is schedule time when you’re going to go back and review
your notes and maybe put some of this information into play before you go to
these seminars so for example we’re getting back from Vegas on March 4th
maybe March 5th I want to go ahead and slate three hours in my office that all
I’m doing is going through my notes and I’m coming up with an action strategy on whatever I’m going to do with that
information if you don’t do that and you just have intentions to do that the day
to day is gonna happen and we’re simply not going to get to it because something else is gonna cry out louder so try to
schedule that and if you can do that as soon as you get back from these seminars
I think you’re going to get a lot more out of it in fact I know you’re gonna get a lot more out of it because you’re
going to remember the context in which you were taking those notes and then as I said before don’t just go to one
training there is absolutely no way that you can get all of the information going
to one training when I was preparing to take the role that I did with the
Education Committee Bruce Catterick who leads the education committee one of the jobs he had for me was to sit into every
presentation so I thoroughly understood where the speaker was coming from and
every slide that was on the screen there so by going to multiple classes you’re
able to keep increasing the amount of knowledge that you’re getting because
you’ve got that baseline knowledge from the previous classes and then you’ve put that into practice in your regular day
to day and now that stuff is is not new anymore so since that’s not new you’re
able to learn stuff on top of that so I really think if you follow the
tips you’re going to get a tremendous amount out of these technical seminars
no matter which one you go to and if you’re taking the CWT exam a lot of people will go to these seminars not to
prepare to take the CWT exam but just as a quick review maybe a confidence
builder right before they go in and take the exam and folks if you have not gotten the five tips of what you should
do before you take the CWT exam please go to scaling-up h2o comm /c WT and go
ahead and get that so I will be there I hope to see you there and by all means
please feel free to come up to me tell me you liked the show tell me what you want to hear on the show if you have
some questions tell me that too because as you know from previous shows one of my fears is I’m always going to run out
of questions so please help me make sure that that does not happen keeping on the
AWT theme our guest today is the current president of the Association of Water
Technologies mark Vermeulen and marks gonna going to join us in a second he’s going to tell us a little bit about
himself how he became the president of the Association of Water Technologies some things he did leading up to that
and just what to expect from us the scaling up nation out of the Association
of Water Technologies for 2018 so I hope you enjoy my conversation with Mark from Yulin my lab partner today is
AWT president mark vermeulen how are you mark I am doing fantastic it’s so nice
to be talking with you today trace we are very excited to have you here on scaling up and Mark you are from Canada
so what’s it like up in Canada well you know what at this time of the year it’s usually much colder than it is in
Celsius it’s minus 6 today very little snow it’s it’s a vastly different winter
than than what we’ve been used to we had a big dump of snow around Halloween and then now it’s it’s it’s
cold you know below zero but it’s not it’s not freezing cold and we haven’t had to shovel a lot so it’s actually been a
little bit of a welcome respite from what we normally have and where in Canada are you I live just
outside of Edmonton Alberta Canada so it’s the would be north of Montana
Calgary Alberta people over familiar with the Winter Olympics so I’m just about three hours north of there just
outside the city of Edmonton well you mentioned the snow word we get this just the threat of snow here in Atlanta and
the whole city shuts down so you guys actually know how to deal with it up there I’m sure yeah it’s been it’s been
a lifelong thing that it comes early in life and you just learn to adapt and move forward well mark I introduced you
as the association of Water Technologies current president do you mind introducing yourself to the audience so
they get to know who mark Vermeulen is sure I’ve been I’ve been married for 27
years my wife Stacy she’s a strong supporter of everything that I do have three kids
23 year old Spencer 21 year old James 19 year old Kate all three of them are in
university or college all doing really well they are gonna be home tomorrow the
last one gets home tomorrow for a nice Christmas break I get a chance for the family to get together it’s fewer and
far between when they all get off to school and I’ve been in water treatment since I graduated from the University of
Alberta with my master’s in 93 so it’s been it’s been a lot of years what got you into the water treatment industry
yeah that’s a really good question tres what happened is when I was doing my Master’s it was time to look for work
and I scoured the wine ads and this company came up that was looking for a
process development chemist and it fit right in with my analytical chemistry
master’s degree the company turned out to be now local so join the company in
the lab scaling up from the PhD development chemists I would scale it up so that we could manufacture and and
drum it off and tote it off and then when Nalco started to shut my plant down
they asked if I wanted to go into sales having no idea what that was I was the best decision of my life and and now was
the start of it all sounds interesting now you also have your CWT how did you
come to say this is something I need to get well you know what it’s the CWT isn’t a tremendous
differentiator in the water treatment industry it allows you to prove that just like you have with a with an
engineering or a chemistry degree or such that you have the ability to learn you have the ability to to be a
professional in some area and this is a third party accredited so when I was looking around for how I could
differentiate myself and our company at the time I said hey I think the CWT
would be perfect I studied a little bit before it went to the three day training session wrote it on a Sunday and lo and
behold I passed and I’ve been a CWT now since 2006 what’s your number do you
know my number is three twenty three year three twenty-two I think I want to
say that one of the Andy’s Andy Morcom or Andy Williams that I just interviewed his number was like three thirty
something so we don’t have that many CW TS I was very surprised to hear how few
we actually have I know it’s strange how in the industry it’s either it’s that
mountaintop that that’s very hard to reach and and a lot of people just they can’t reach it or they just don’t have
the wherewithal or it’s something that we as an organization and Association need to get out there and promote a more
and and that’s we’ll talk a little ater I think about our four outcomes that the association is working on one of them is
advocacy and we’ve brought on a new person within our management company to be a strong advocate and push that and
perhaps one day that you know that will show fruit and and those numbers will will go up like a rocket ship once we
get out there and more and that’s more known with everybody I’ve put out to this gay man up nation the CWT challenge
urging people that if they’re going to be in the best industry in the world which of course is water treatment they
need to be the best in that industry so I’m hoping we see some numbers increase on that as well yeah I think it’s it’s just it’s an
awareness issue and then it’s it’s more trying to differentiate going to the training session and writing the test is
not necessarily goes hand in hand go to the training session take advantage of the wonderful knowledge and expertise it
has is put out in those training sessions but then schedule an off-site test where
you’re more conditioned to be successful and get a proctor and write the test on your own time and your own initiative so
that it’s you have a better chance of passing that’s great advice let me ask you since you are not in the United
States was the test different or difficult in any way because you’re you
know outside of the States well you know what that I wrote it back in 2006 and it has since changed but back then the the
biggest impediment to passing for international people was the health and safety aspect it was all American codes
American the OT American regulations and in Canada we probably follow the same
rules but our regulation numbers are different are our transportation dangerous goods is rather than d-o-t so
that was the biggest impediment that was just a hard memorization during the lead-up to the exam was to memorize
everything within that section and and do the best I think that since been changed and they do have a Canadian
version and I’m not sure if they’re working I believe they’re working on a running a Latin American more Mexico and
South version as well to allow the International writers to do a little bit better in that area how often do you see
CWT in bid specifications I see it probably once out of every 10 as you
know Canada’s a much smaller country there’s only about 35 million people so the the actual influx of of bids and the
requirement of having a CWT is much smaller here a lot of our business is not bidded a lot of it is you go through
a traditional sales process so the government where we see it mostly is in government and large institutions and
that would come along probably in my world once every nine or ten bids that I see it’s always interesting to talk with
somebody outside of the States just to see how its CWT is like you also do
servicing outside of your hometown and you have some overseas business I’m a
little curious about that when how did you get business that was overseas well that’s an interesting question as well
so what happened is they there was a company out of Calgary which I’d mentioned earlier ziz kind of the
oil capital of our province and then there was a company there and I had worked with within the province for a
number of years and they had gone overseas to the country of Egypt and partnered with the Egyptian government to form a steam flood that’s where you
inject steam into the ground to loosen the oil up and recover it so they asked for some chemistry and we were shipping
chemistry over once he can a year to satisfy the requirements and then as
they scaled up and went commercial the the demand went huge and so what we did
is we set up a manufacturing facility in Cairo back in 2008 and then from there I
support and do the service work from here and I have a local company there
that does the manufacturing delivery and they also can do some emergency service
work as if it’s required but it’s most of it is done in my three or four visits a year when I head over to the Middle
East what would you say your most difficult challenge is by having business so far away the biggest
challenge would be that you know as a salesman when I go over there my service work is a couple days because you got to
travel out to the desert you live in camp you do the work out in the desert but nobody likes to just to do service so my biggest challenge when I go over
there is I take another seven or eight days and I try to sell as anybody knows trying to sell outside your territory or
outside your state through your province or your county is very difficult and that you can’t respond very quickly and
and the sales timeline is much longer that’s would be my biggest challenge is not the service because it’s that’s
we’ve got that pretty pretty down to a routine it would be trying to get additional business to justify the costs
and the expense of going over there what would you say your your biggest water treatment victory is they’re not just
talking overseas but your entire water treatment career what’s your biggest victory that is another really good
question you know it could be in the fact there’s two ways to look at it could be just in straight dollar value
and it could be also in something that was persistent persistence so when a dollar value I was able to a number of
years ago get a refinery which was quite large so there was a cooling the wastewater and the boilers I was able to
work with the company at the time it’s no longer resistance have been bought out but it that the company of the time to
get that business from a persistent standpoint there was a diamond mined up in the Northwest Territories which I had
to work and work and work and work at and it was just more persistence so I considered both those my my biggest wins
well there you go what would you say your biggest hurdle in water treatment
would be my biggest hurdle in this part of the world is travel well like I said
a little bit earlier we’re a very large country geographically small population so all of my accounts are the ones that
I consider to be the most you know where you have to put the most attention they provide the most payback
are all from a minimum of two hour drive and some of them are eight hour drive so once a month when I do my service cycle
I’m gone for four nights and I Drive you know to three hours stop and do the
service that’s required and I have to take everything with me all my pump parts all my spare agents everything I
need it’s got to come with me so then in the winter or obviously when it’s cold nothing can freeze so when I’m get it to
the hotel at night I have to haul everything in it’s quite a process but it in the hotel room and then in the
morning start the vehicle up again and reverse that process so in in my world it’s travel and the remote location of
the of the customer sites you know it’s funny two hours to you is going to get
you you know well over a hundred miles two hours here in Atlanta we’re going to get maybe five I know I was talking to
another member of the board Michael who lives in California and he says it’s for him to go 15 or 17 miles from his home
to his office takes an hour and for me like an hour as I’m sixty miles away just just straight driving so it is
vastly different well let’s talk a little bit about AWT and specifically
your president this year congratulations yeah it’s an exciting time it’s it’s great it’s something that slowly evolved
and then now that it’s yours it seems it seems natural the AWT and the the
manager Association and previous presidents and people that I had got to know they they prep you so well for it
so that when it’s actually time to be president it doesn’t seem like anything any different it’s it’s it’s amazing actually I thought this would be
something where I would it would be I would feel different it would it would be different but the couple meetings that I’ve had already it’s it’s just
like any other meeting everybody respects everybody and we work very well together as a group I’ve had a lot of
people ask me how I became president and how I started to volunteer what the
evolution of that was do you mind sharing with the scaling-up nation how you got involved with the Association of
Water Technologies and all the different steps that you did that eventually led you to where you are now
absolutely it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a good story you know like everybody else when you first get there it doesn’t
matter how confident you are when you get into that ewt or if you get into any kind of large group setting you you do
seem to be on the outside looking in because people know each other they gravitate to each other so in order to overcome that hurdle I you know when
talked to Angela Angela said hey there’s a couple committees that need some help so I joined certification and membership
and from there Mark Lewis took me under his wing and helped me in the membership
committee get to a certain point where then when he became president he needed to give up the committee leadership role
and he asked me to do it so that was the next evolution became committee chair did that for three or four years as well
I ran for the board three times and on my third time I was lucky enough to get elected to the board after getting
elected to the board I knew that I wanted to keep going three years it wouldn’t be enough to give back to the
AWT so I figured I’ll throw my name in the Hat and and I was fortunate enough to be elected treasurer and then
secretary and then president-elect and it’s worked out really well selfishly I love the travel and I love the ability
to go to a bunch of different cities and locations I never would get to go and meet people and and do activities that I
would not normally be a part of and unselfishly I love the fact that I get
so much out of a WT that I’m able to hopefully people realize that I’m giving back and that there is some benefit to
me being involved what are some of the things that you talked about during some of these board meetings well you know
the board meaning when when I first joined the board and we we’re working on policies and procedures
and and and and kind of following not necessarily being reactive but we weren’t necessarily as proactive as we
could we ran into some issues where we were challenged with getting new people to join the board we were new volunteers
we reached out because we were not the only Association do that we reached out to a consultant who helped us change our
focus rather than from being kind of in the middle of reactive and proactive to being more global and thinking and
allowing the committees to more freely flow and do the work that wasn’t really
pushing the Association in the right direction so we’ve now have four outcomes a technical a business we have an advocacy
and we have a charity so that all of the committee are now working towards those four outcomes all pulling in the same
direction a lot of a lot of good things have come out over the past few years and it’ll continue to go so it’s more of
the board now is more of an overseer and provides the big picture and then stops at that point rather than doing a little
bit of work on the day-to-day stuff so you mentioned those four categories what
would be an example of some of the things the Association is doing in technical well like in technical we we
have an app for everybody’s phone now so that allows you to do calculations on
the goal rate when you’re in the customer side without firing up your tablet or your laptop last year we rolled it out this year we’re doing a
metric version of it technical would be the learning source that’s at online training modules 39 modules that allows
you to after the fundamentals course that actually you’re a leader in the
fundamentals course of the were you attend the three-day the next step would be the learning source we started out
with having 50 modules that we bought and now we’re up to 75 the online
fundamentals that you teach trace is now going to be we’re gonna roll it out and we’re gonna have nine modules it’s going
to be online as well so that’s really good work on the technical on the business side we had a half-day business
meeting at the last convention we’re gonna have another half-day business owners meeting in 2018 convention and
then in February of 2019 we’re gonna roll that out to a day you know day and a half with some enter
payment and some peer reviews and that type of thing so that’s really good from the business we also have Dale Carnegie
business courses so the the business is really growing under this new structure it’s gone from just being a side light
to you know getting to be an equal to the technical side very very exciting from the advocacy side we have at the
last convention there was TV print and radio interviews with various people
within association we had a lot of publicity at Grand Rapids we’re looking for more of the same at Orlando in 2018
and we also have a lot of involvement with a lot more peer reviews when it comes to when it comes to stuff that’s
coming out and related to our water treatment industry whereas before we were just see sit on the sidelines let it happen we’re now actively involved in
that so that’s quite exciting finally the charity we are actively involved with pure water of the world
it’s quite exciting we we do some fundraising and we have three AWT Center trips to unders in Haiti in 2018 so it’s
it’s really quite exciting the involvement when you get a bunch of people like-minded how you can change
people’s lives at that point I did want to ask about pure water of the world how did the association come to choose that
be the charity well you know like everything else it’s Work committee driven so in this case the president at
the time convened a task force and got some interested parties who wanted to be involved in that and we said do we just
said we want to be involved in charity and we gave them full licence so do we start our own charity do we partner with
the charity what do we do they went away and they did work for a couple months and they determined that the work and
the effort of starting a charity would be probably away the benefit in the first number of years so they looked
around at partnering with the charity at the time there was a number of different ones that came in and made presentations
at that task force and the culture of pure water for the world really closely aligned with the culture of the
Association so that was the recommendation from the task force up to
the board and the board reviewed in all their work and approved pure water and it’s been just over a year it was
probably about 1516 months into our working collaboration and it’s taken a little bit of effort to get
you know everything lined up but now that after the first year it’s it’s quite successful and I think it’s only
gonna go gangbusters from here I must say I really enjoyed speaking to the representatives that were at the
convention in Grand Rapids for pure water of the world in fact there have been several people that have written
into the show asking to get more information about that after hearing it on the show so I’m excited to hear more
about how the AWT works with that organization and all the great things that come out to it now I know you recently went on a trip to work with
them can you tell us about that yeah so what kind of in the first year they you know they came and made presentations at
the board they made presentations at the convention but what they wanted was some real-life experience from AWT people to
give back at the next convention so it’s not just somebody selling it’s it’s it’s an internal part of the Association
selling to the Association so Jason st. Cyr and I took some time in August of
this year and we went to Haiti we did a one-week trip down to Haiti and were involved in setting up filters doing
on-site water testing and also doing cleaning filters that had been in the
field it was a four days in the field plus a couple of days in the lab it was quite quite an extensive trip very
rewarding my personal take on it it’s very heartwarming but it’s also heartbreaking because the heart-warming
is you get hugs from the families you’re impacting their lives immediately heartbreaking is that you’re walking
past families that don’t have the filters yet then and they are still doing it the old way which is you know
drinking and working with contaminated water it was a trip that I would highly recommend that if you’re at all
interested in doing charity work this combines both water treatment skills as well as the charity and and they get
boots on the ground as which is what they need in both Haiti and Honduras so not so much the industrial water
treatment but but working with these filters is that what what you were doing yeah these are gravity filters they’re
you know just like any gravity filter you’d have in a plant except they’re just on a smaller scale just point-of-use so you know put a
five-gallon bucket of water on the top it filters through the sand there um charcoal and then they have a little
chlorination type step at the end and then the water is becomes potable and it’s it’s immediate and it’s effective
and the testing is proving it out it’s been it’s been ongoing for a number of years in Haiti and about 15 in Honduras
and and the results are steady and the results are excellent and it’s proven both in the family quality of life and
in the health of the family so it’s it’s a great it’s a great setup and it’s so it’s not industrial but some of the
industrial aspects like the testing in the sampling and and the protocols that we’re used to doing every day can be
rolled over and used when you’re in country just so people listening can
understand what the water is you’re starting out with do you mind describing exactly what it is what you’re trying to
filter out and what the effluent finally turns into yeah so what it is is the the
water source can be trucked in water to a cistern that’s would be within a small
community or town it could be surface water it could be well water but for the most part every source of water is it’s
either contaminated at the source or it’s contaminating the transportation or it’s contaminated in the house so it’s
not only just cleaning up the water there’s some life skills that are involved in so the water would have all
kinds of micro organizing in air and so when the filter is out then it’s it’s it becomes not potable where it would be to
North American standards but it’s would be potable in in the countries that it’s that is treated in so it’s it’s
something it’s quite visible when you look at the before and after water test it’s it’s quite dramatic when they do
the coliforms and the micro bio testing is quite extensive and and the results are impressive
are there any personal stories that you can share about your trip some of the families that you helped well you know
what like I said it’s heartbreaking you go and do you hike up into these villages which will be up in the hills
away from the the port-au-prince and I wasn’t carrying water but we’d go down
to the source which would be saying three-quarters of a mile and probably a
500-yard drop down to where the well was and then of course you have to load up a bucket of water and carry back your
family so when we’re walking down and up there’s kids from as young as five with two three gallons to
larger kids with five gallons of water that they would do this two and three times a day because a typical family
would go through fifteen gallons of water a day and when you can see those
kids and you can the water that they haul is is cleaned up and they can then just take it and have a drink it’s it is
it is amazing it was quite quite profound somebody who’s listening today
and they want to find out more information where and what can they do well you can go to the AWT website then
that’s a WT org and there’s a link there to take you to the pww website or you
can go to PW org which is straight to the pure water for the world website and
they are there’s a couple links in there if you’re interested in going on a trip there’s a sign up we’re looking for a
few more people signing up by January 18th which would then confirm the trips to Haiti and Honduras if you’re just
looking to give some money there’s an avenue for that other avenues would be for the testing if people want to donate
equipment or test equipment or anything that they find that easier than giving
money there’s an avenue for that as well so there’s a bunch of different ways to give it’s not just necessarily cash out
of your pocket there’s time and there’s goods in exchange for a charitable receipt the organization is quite
flexible and will work with you in whichever manner you would like to participate I’ll be sure to put those
links on the show notes page so people can find those so being president of the
association of water technologies what do we have in store for this year at AWT
well obviously the big one is we have the convention in Orlando but I think
more importantly is in end of February in Las Vegas and the end of March in
Cleveland are our bread and butter and our flagship which is our training seminars and the expertise that we can
bring together in a setting like that is is amazing the water treatment history and experience in years of service is
great anybody I talk to I highly recommend that money is is well spent I’ve been to a few of them now and every
time I I commonly more impressed with with the work for example the tips and
fundamentals and the of course that you develop trace that’s from ground zero four years ago to what we have now is
over the top and it would compete with almost any of the training sessions that would be out there on third-party
websites so it’s very impressive a lot of work went into it and it just is is amazing so that is our bread and butter
would be the true training courses than the convention and we do have the online
fundamentals that we’re going to be releasing in May of this year and the learning source continues to grow as
well so that’s where the people who join the WT or want to reap a benefit from it
it comes from the amount of effort that that you put in you could ten full take
it out in knowledge peers and people that can help you it’s amazing the
training classes are one of my favorite things to do and I think we’re able to offer it at such economical prices
because everybody volunteers to do that so speaking of volunteers I know we’re
always looking for people to help get the organization doing the things that the organization needs to get done what
do you want to say to the scaling up nation that you know getting involved the association is helping them as much
as it’s helping out the Association thanks for opening that door one of the things that we find that that is it
doesn’t prevent but inhibits people joining committees or joining the organizers they think they have to be an
expert in some particular area well that’s not necessarily true and everybody is good or really good or an
expert at something doesn’t necessarily need to be something particularly suited to water treatment it could be that
you’re really good at working with powerpoints are really good with organizing a group of people really good
at making phone calls there’s there’s a ton of different ways that we can use expertise so we don’t need water
treatment experts we need people who would like to give back and would like to commit to the Association in a task
force which could be two or three months it could be in a committee for two or three years it could be in a bunch of
committees there is a lot of stuff that needs to be done and it’s not necessarily just pure
treatment that’s we’re just looking for people who would enjoy working with other people developing some friendships
and then when you get to the convention once a year you see them in person you sit down have a coffee at the
roundtables it’s it’s a really great environment and if you’re really committed to it and there’s a lot of
questions and pure exchange when you leave your basket to be fuller than when
you joined with whatever function that you can bring to our association and how would somebody start that process if
they wanted to get started well you know what there’s a bunch of different ways one of the easiest ways might be just to
send an email to Angela Pike at the ewt can send me an email or phone call any
of the board members there’s committee chairs all of this information is online on our website or
if you look at the analysts all of the contact information and there as well or if you’re not sure maybe somebody within
your company a friend of a friend who’s part of the AWT you can maybe start live them more slowly and just ask them to
see if they could sponsor you and get you into one of the groups that you may be interested and there’s lots of different ways to join and lots of
different ways to give back mark what’s the one thing you want listeners out
there to know about the association of Water Technologies oh that is a really
good question it’s also tough trace the one thing I’d like to know is that the organization or the Association is and I
use the analogy you can you can lead a horse to water but if they don’t take a drink there’s not much you can do you
the association is there the amount of information the amount of benefit that you can get from it is is tremendous and
we could talk for another hour and I could just you know wrote off all of this type of informations available you
have to want to open that door or take that drink of water so the the information is there the participation
is there and it’s available you just have to be able to or want to to start
taking back and how you do that everybody’s going to be different but that’s what I’d like to say is the
Association you can’t you can’t make it so that everybody just gets handed it on
a platter it’s there you have to reach out a little bit and then when you make that effort to reach out a
lot of hands will reach out and pull you up one of my favorite lines that you say all the time tres is that a rising tide
raises all boats I’m one of those boats I was floating adrift in 2006 and now
I’m president of the Association so my goal is a turn around and and hopefully I can raise some more boats in the next
10 years and be a volunteer continually and help other people get to where I am
now a great answer well mark this has been a lot of fun I can probably ask you 20 more questions about the association
of water technologies but I’m gonna go ahead and enter into the lightning round if you are ready for that okay all right
so the lightning round is where we ask our guests very similar questions and then we get to play along and and see
how one person answers over another if you could go back in time and see
yourself speak with yourself on your very first day as a water treat what
advice would you give yourself the advice I would give myself would be that nose don’t hurt one of the hard things
that you have to learn is over the years is nose are just as good as a yes because there is a decision that’s been
made and a direction that’s been given doesn’t mean that you give up but in my early years I took knows personally yes
you get to be more confident in your abilities you take the nose and you and that at least gives you something to work with so that’s what I’d go back and
say trying to think was it Zig Ziglar that said every no was leading you closer to a yes it was one of those guys
yeah I do remember that in the training course somewhere I just I’m just not sure which one what are the last three
books that you’ve read you know what I a lot of my reading is just purely so I
could turn my mind off so I do I just read for fun I do read some you know management books and training course
that type of thing but if I’m gonna pick up a book and read I like Lee Child he’s got a good series another one is Mark
toss and it’s you know espionage guys are running around the world doing this and doing that saving the world at the
end and it’s a series of where you know you have a number of books where they just one leads to another so it’s just
pure escapism awesome and eventually they’re gonna make a movie about you who
plays you okay wow that’s a good one a lot of my
friends have said that I remind them of Ray Romano kind of a jokester you know dark hair you’re not really sure to take
the guy seriously but he’s got a real funny funny bone and a lot of situations
can be can be made comical in one way or the other to lighten up the mood so I
would say Ray Romano there you go and my last question is if you could talk with
anybody throughout history who would it be with and why I think I would like to
talk to my great-grandfather came from Holland and he just picked up his family and emigrated and I always wondered you
know what did you have to face in life I’ve never had to face something like that where it’s it’s you you have all or
nothing so you’d pick up your family and you would get on a boat and you’d sail across the ocean and you’d arrived and Halifax similar to like the New York
Harbor and you’d get on a train and you would go somewhere not knowing where you’re going not knowing what’s at the
other end and and that’s you just have a fundamental change we don’t have to do that now or at least people I know don’t
have to do that now but I’d like to go back and ask my great-grandfather I said well what was it that went through your
mind and and how scary was it or how exciting was it what was it that that led you to do that that’s that’s what
I’d like to find out well mark I’ve really enjoyed the last 40 minutes that
we’ve spent together and I want to thank you for your volunteering with the Association I know me personally how the
association helped develop me and all the things that I have now because I volunteered you of course know that and
hopefully we can find some more people to do that as well but I just want to take an opportunity and thank you for volunteering and thank you for coming on
scaling-up well yeah and like I said Tracy you are one of the key members of our association so keep doing what
you’re doing your involvement is tremendous I’d like to make sure that everybody in scaling-up knows that it’s
you’re more than just the wonderful cones of scaling-up you’re heavily involved in the AWT and
it’s been something that is something to be proud of so I’d like to thank you personally for all the effort you put in
well there you have it folks straight from the president of the Association of Water Technologies what to expect this
upcoming year and I hope you heard something that interests you something that you said I
want to participate in that I’m gonna learn more from that and if you did by
all means go ahead go straight into your calendar right now and write down if there was a particular date of an event
that you want to go to make sure you get that on there so you can plan for it and
I know because you listen to this show one of your goals is to learn more about
the industry that you’re in a great way to do that is actually to volunteer with
the Association of Water Technologies and you’re probably thinking I’m so busy right now how do I possibly have time to
do what I’m doing and volunteer for the Association of Water Technologies what I
would ask you to do if that’s the question that you have is examine how many opportunities do you have to
actually learn more about the career that you are in volunteering gives you
that opportunity when you’re active so the AWT and Mark have all these items
that he just mentioned and the only way that those items get done is volunteers
do them so if you want to learn more about a particular topic don’t wait
until you’re the expert on that topic because it’s never gonna happen nobody knows everything about a particular
topic but if you choose something to get involved with that interest you you’re
gonna immerse yourself in that process of whatever they’re building and you are going to learn by default the other cool
thing that happens is you’re gonna meet a whole bunch of really cool people that know a lot about that topic and that are
also in the field that you are in so you’re going to start accumulating people that you can talk to and ask
questions to when you don’t know the answer so that’s the magic behind
volunteering if you’re interested in that I’m gonna put some information on my show notes page that will take you
right to the AWT website to give you some information about volunteering and great episode to listen to around
volunteering is the interview that I did with Michelle farmerie and she spoke
about all the different needs that the association of water technologies have and how you can volunteer so that was
episode 12 if you want to go ahead and check that out and some ways you can find that are scaling up h2o comm Forge
slash 12 or on your Apple or Android device just go to whatever app you’re
using and navigate through the episodes go to episode 12 let’s get to my
absolute favorite section which is pinks and blues pinks and blues is where I
have the opportunity to answer questions that you the scaling up nation asked me
and said hey I want to learn a little bit more about this so it’s my favorite section because I know I’m speaking
directly to you and I’m giving you the information you said you wanted so I
know I’m talking about the right things instead of asking three different
questions or instead of answering three different questions on today’s show I took about a dozen questions group them
all together and we’re going to theme pinks and blues the theme is going to be
pH meters I received a lot of questions around how to calibrate pH meters you
know why I need to calibrate them more often than maybe somebody else what is the best pH meter a bunch of questions
around procedures I even received one where somebody was in disbelief that I
calibrate my meter everyday so let’s let’s talk about that let’s talk about
the mechanics the procedures behind calibration and why we calibrate and for
you out there that asked me do I calibrate my meter every day the answer
is yes and no I calibrate my meter whenever it needs to be calibrated so
with that I want you to think about how well do you trust your meter and how
well do you know your meter to know when it’s not calibrated
if you’re relatively new that might be a difficult concept but every time you do a test take advantage of everything
that’s around you and try to learn from that so if all these things are doing
the same thing they’ve always done I normally get this reading all right everything around me is exactly the same
as far as I can tell as it always is and I’m not getting that reading that should
clue you in that something is not right so let’s apply that to our pH meter and
actually before we get into that I want to acknowledge that there is a plethora
of pH meters out there so it’s difficult for me to speak about every single meter
because I couldn’t when I am mentally thinking through these questions and
these procedures I’m defaulting to the meter that we use and that is the Miron
l6p I think that’s the industry standard for people like you and I running these
tests and the meter that we use so that’s what I’m envisioning when I’m going through these tests but I am
saying that there’s all sorts of meters out there and you might not have that one so whatever I say just apply it to
your meter so how do you know when your meter is not telling you accurate
information we set it on a previous episode that you need to store the meter properly and you should be storing that
an electrode storage solution I was told that that electrode storage solution is
pH 4 buffer without the dye and we said on an earlier episode that one of the
ways meters fail is that dye in pH 4 buffer will actually migrate through that glass bulb that’s on your probe and
it will make it so your meter cannot work so let’s assume that whatever the
juice is that we’re using that electrode storage solution has a pH of 4 and the
people that we get our electrode storage solution from they’ve said that’s what it is it’s just the same thing without
the dye so it has a pH of 4 if you’re wondering about that take the pH of it
we make a phone call you can do whatever but very simply just take the pH of it when your meters calibrated and see what
it is now without doing anything when you hit the pH button and their storage
solution in there you should get the reading of whatever that solution is if
it’s off and you know that you’ve got really good clean electrode storage
solution it’s not something that you’ve used over 15 times by the way don’t do that just throw it away when you’re
getting ready to use your meter and you got storage solution and just waste it just get rid of it it’s not reusable if
it is not telling you what it should be telling you that’s an indicator that it’s off and you might need to calibrate
so we’re going to talk about that calibration procedure but before we do that I want you to think about why that
might be off of calibration and if you’re calibrating your meter every
single day that might be telling you that something you’re doing in your day to day process is causing that meter not
to hold calibration so think about it the cleaner your meter is the cleaner of
the probe the cleaner that little glass ball is the more accurate it’s going to be so in our day-to-day we’re probably
not measuring too dirty of a sample but we could be and if we’re not cleaning
our meter at the very least rinsing our meter when we are sampling we are
setting ourselves up for failure now if you’ve had some sort of oily residual in your water or your test and
you put that on your probe that is going to coat that little glass ball and it is
going to change the way that meter is able to read and that is going to get
the meter to read falsely so if you have an oily sample make sure you use some
sort of mild cleaner to get that off you say oh trace well what kind of cleaner
do I use well I really like simple green simple green is made here in Atlanta they’re just miles from our office
that’s not why I use it I use it because it’s readily available and it I think it smells great it simply works very
well for this purpose but you can use other cleaners Windex may work fantastic 409 something like that the point is
that if you get your probe dirty you have to clean it off or you’re going to get false readings so you know your
meters clean you you know you’ve taken care of it and by taking care of it you’ve kept it in that electrode storage
solution so there’s potassium chloride inside that glass ball and if we’re not keeping
it hydrated it can dry out if we’re putting anything besides electrode storage solution in there it can
actually change what’s inside that glass ball because you know everything’s
trying to create a equilibrium so you might be doing damage if you’re using something like di water or something
that is not electrode storage solution it’s a reason that it’s called electrode storage solution so keeping your meter
clean is paramount making sure that you’re keeping that probe hydrated is
paramount in the electrode storage solution and then making sure you’ve got good batteries in the meter I can’t
remember on the Miron l6p what the specific voltages are but it uses a
9-volt battery and it doesn’t need nine volts so it actually steps down what it needs and then when it gets to a certain
voltage that icon pops on that says hey change my battery I’ve got a low battery I was told by the time it gets there
it’s not at the optimal voltage to give you the best current to get that reading
so you might want to make sure that you’re rotating out fresh batteries and if for fun if you want to put your
multimeter on that and figure out exactly what those voltages are knock yourself out keep in mind that every
time you open that 6p meter and this is what I think is one of the design flaws with the 6p is you’ve got to open up the
body of the meter in all the guts and everything is exposed so just be careful
when you do that but you need to do that another thing that I’ve seen where our meter could be out of calibration or no
set up to read properly our temperature differentials so think about it if I
leave my meter in the car overnight in Des Moines where it’s negative seven degrees and then I grab my test kit go
into the boiler room grab a boiler sample I don’t cool it and I put that sample into my meter one that glass pro
is probably going to crack but if it didn’t since I have such huge swings in
temperature we’re already setting the meter up to fail so one of the items
that you can do is to think about room temperature have your meter at room
temperature have your sample at room temperature the closer the temperature is to the meter to the sample the more
accurate the better chance that we give that meter to give us a better result so
now let’s say we’ve done all of that and the meter is out of calibration and we
knew that because when we hit the pH button with the electrode storage solution in there it wasn’t four or
let’s say you have a sample and you know pretty much what it should be based on
everything you observe when you take that sample time after time again and it’s not saying that well now we need to
calibrate and if you’re ever in doubt you can put buffer in and see what it
reads and if it’s spot on something else is going on but let’s get into the calibration procedure the first thing
that you need to do when you calibrate any meter is clean it now we said we
were going to clean it if we had something dirty in it and by the way keeping it clean each and every time is
rinsing it out my procedure is I always have DI water in my test kit so I will
rinse that little pH cup out at least three times and then I’ll put my electrode storage solution in you know
by the way of talking about the Miron l6p if you were to look inside that
rubber cap that keeps the electrode storage solution around the probe
there’s a little piece of foam in there and they put that foam in there to absorb some of the electrode stores so
Oshin so if you forgot to put the storage solution in there was a little bit left in that cap to at least keep it
so it wouldn’t dry out I know that you are very good at your procedures and we’re going to clean the meter every
time we’re going to put the electrode storage solution in every time and I say clean the meter I really meant rinsed
the meter every time clean it when you need to but we’re going to make sure we’re always putting that electrode storage solution in so take a pair of
needle nose pliers and just grab that little piece of foam and discard it in my opinion you don’t need it you’re
gonna have that storage solution in there and that cap is is gonna keep it flooded so it can’t go anywhere the only
thing in my opinion that little foam does is it harbors dirt and crud and all
sorts of stuff that sets us up for failure each and every time so if we
haven’t been cleaning our meter and now we start and we’ve got that foam piece that’s in there that have all the crud
and dirt for the last however many whatever that we’ve been using that meter we’ve now introduced that back
into the party so a little aside there let’s get back to actually calibrating the meter I’d go off on these little
rabbit holes but this is good information and you got I tell you so many questions around pH meters I’m
making sure that I’m answering all of them so the calibration procedure we’re making sure that we kept up with all the
things that we had to do to keep it clean so we’re assuming that it is clean but now we’re going to physically clean
it before the calibration and whether you use the simple green or the 409 or whatever it is we’re gonna put that on a
paper towel or microfiber and we’re going to gingerly go around that little glass probe making sure that we don’t
bend the other electrode that’s in that little cup and we’ll get all the stuff
off there it’s always fun to look at a white paper towel and see all the gunk even that’s coming off even though you think that it’s clean then we’ve got to
rinse that cleaner out and the way I like to do that is I just like to turn on a faucet put it under the faucet and
rinse that sucker out really well because if there’s any cleaner net it’s going to throw off our calibration on
the Miron l6p it wants a seven buffer for and when we calibrate we calibrate
either to a two point calibration or a three point calibration those points are
seven and pH of seven a pH of 4 and a pH of 10 sevens yellow 10 is blue four is
pink I make sure that my buffers are in a really easy dispensable cap so just
got a little flip cap and then I can squirt the buffer right over the probe
and I will rinse that three times with the buffer that I’m getting ready to
test after it’s been rinsed three times I then make sure that it’s on a flat surface and I fill that Cup all the way
up now make sure that there’s plenty of pH buffer in there so everything is covered that needs to be covered and
with the 6p we’re going to start doing that with seven so I did that procedure with seven I then hit the calibration
button and it is hopefully going to read seven if it doesn’t read seven we’re
going to use the arrow keys to arrow up or down until we get to seven and the
reason you want to do this on a stable flat surface is if you’re changing the
configuration in which the fluid is is reading that could throw that off as well so you want to make sure you just
get all the errors possible out of this calibration process so you’re getting
the most out of it I hit the calibration button I arrow it up or down to seven one hold it for a second I’m not just
going to hit the calibration button to go to the next one I want to make sure it’s stabilized there and once I’m sure
it’s stabilized I’m going to hit the calibration button and then the 6p is going to ask for either 10 or 4 it
probably doesn’t matter which one you do next what I do is whatever I’m going to test
next and whatever that pH is going to be I will use that buffer last so if I’m
testing tower water that’s going to be a little bit higher it’s gonna be in the eights or something like that so I’m
gonna use pH 10 don’t know if that matters but that’s just what I do so let’s say I’m doing that I go ahead and
dump out that 7 I then triple rinse with my four buffer I fill up my cup with the four and then I
arrow up or down to make sure it reads four and then I wait until it stabilizes
at four I hit that calibration button again I do this exact same thing with
ten and then after I hit the calibration button that time it should accept a
calibration and then if we go back to whatever we were testing we should have a more accurate reading and again if you
have to calibrate often and you’re not trusting your meter your probe could be bad or something’s wrong with your
procedure so think long and hard about how well are you taking care of your equipment that leads into a question
that I also received how long should a probe last and to be honest I really can’t answer that question because when
they make those probes they do have a shelf life and that clock starts
counting down as soon as they’re made so the answer to that the best one I can
give you is your probe is going to last longer the better you take care of it so
all the things I mentioned in the very beginning of this question you are going to get more mileage out of the probe if
you take care of it I will say that we in the very beginning probably didn’t
take care of our meters and our probes as well as we should have and we saw that because we were replacing probes
frequently a couple times a year and if you’ve ever bought a replacement probe
for a Miron l6p you realize that you know that’s not a
very cheap probe to replace so you want to make sure you’re getting a life out of it that you can well today I know for
a fact that we have meters and service that have probes in them that are three years or older and we’re good with that
because we’re still getting good accurate readings and how do we know it’s good and accurate well because when
we calibrate them they’re holding calibration so that’s why you’re not calibrating your meter when you just
simply think you’re out of calibration do it on a consistent basis and our basis is to
every week and that gives us the confidence that that meter and that probe is still working so let’s answer
another question somebody asked which is the best pH meter and folks you know
that when I am asked the question which of what ever is the best I’m always
hesitant to answer that because I can only answer that for myself best means how you’re going to use it of
course there’s probably a price factor in there there’s a features factor but you’re the one that’s going to use that
so you should be the one to gauge that but I will tell you what I look for when I’m trying to gauge that one is how
compact is it how readily available is it to travel and like I said the Myron
l6p we landed on because it’s handheld all the probes are attached you don’t have
cords attached to them at one time we had a meter that was strapped to the inside lid of our test kit and then we
had cords to the pH probe and the conductivity probe and we found that
maneuvering those cords would sometimes knock over some of the samples that we
were waiting to develop and it was a little bit more cumbersome so having the
little handheld cup there eliminated that and it made it faster for us to do those tests so speed and ease is
definitely something that you want to look on and then something that you feel confident with so I mentioned price
obviously you can spend more money on one meter versus another meter but maybe
you don’t need this super fancy meter for whatever you’re doing maybe you just want your customer to test every so
often and they’re not going to spend five hundred thousand dollars on a meter so you might be able to get them one
more inexpensive like one of those little pin pH testers and that might be
fine for the actual instance that you’re using it for so use all of these things
to figure out what is the best one for you but we’ve got all sorts of great vendors out there that can
definitely help you answer that question as well another question that somebody wrote in
said that they don’t even have a pH meter and their boss does not see the
value in spending money on a pH meter and how do they convince their boss that
they need one well I would say have them listen to the show maybe see if their
boss will go to training with you folks if you don’t know certain base information when you’re making your
recommendations on how you’re going to tweak and improve a program you’re not
going to be able to do that very well one of those things that you need to know is the pH so if you don’t know what
your pH is I don’t think that you can do your job properly so hopefully that
comment in itself is enough to get a pH meter and like I said if he’s not going
to go for the the one that you really want you saw it in a catalog you have to have it maybe you can get something
that’s a little bit less expensive and and hopefully that’ll work fine for you if it doesn’t I would recommend you come
up with all the reasons why another meter might work better and it will be cheaper faster safer whatever it is in
the long run another question sort of around that is instead of using my pH
meter can I just get pH based on my alkalinity and we’ve spoken about
alkalinity on a previous show where you can take your alkalinity and knowing
your alkalinity you know what pH range you should be in based on you know what
color phenolphthalein is and phenolphthalein turns pink at a pH of 8.3 so if we’re eight point three or
higher it should turn pink if it’s below eight point three it shouldn’t be pink
at all but that doesn’t really tell you a specific pH so my answer to that is no
you cannot use something else in lieu of a meter I had a question you know are
the test strips accurate enough for what we do my advice is that if you’re going
to take pH use a meter for what we do at the level that we do it we need to know what that
pH is because we are going to respond to that when we deviate from that we’re not
going to get as accurate results and there’s a whole bunch of guesswork in there and if your reagents are telling
you a range that’s not specific enough and if you are using those test strips
think about what those are designed for and they’re designed for pools most likely so what we do a little more
dynamic is going on then what’s happening in the swimming pool so my answer is go out and find a good pH
meter folks I really want to thank you for asking questions like this without
questions like this I cannot have a section like this or I can’t do a show
like I did where the whole hour was just me answering your questions and by the
way that was my highest-rated show and for me I think that was the funnest show that I ever had because I knew I was
speaking directly to you before I sign off I want to tell you about a phone
call that I received and I think it was the biggest compliment I ever received about this show and it was from Andy
Morcom Andy Morcom was one of the CW T’s that came on and told us about the
process that he went through in order to get his CWT well after his show aired he
received a phone call from one of his competitors congratulating him or not
only getting his CWT but also being a guest on scaling up and invited him to
share a beer with them so they could have a conversation about the process and Andy told me that before this show
that phone call would have never happened that since this show he has been able to speak to more of his
competitors in a friendly way because now they have something in common besides the business that you’re both
competing on so so folks you know that my goal is to have a rising tide raises
all boats and has a water treat it can be lonely out there nobody really understands what it is
that we do except for other fellow water treaters so if we are able to break the
ice and have friendly conversations because of this show I can’t think of a better compliment so Andy thank you for
calling me and letting me know about that I just think that that is awesome folks I do hope you are constantly
thinking about ways to make yourself better and I also hope that you join me next time on scaling up
you