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[Music] foreign [Music]
is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind each and every year the
rising tide Mastermind gets together in Atlanta for a live event this is one of
the most anticipated events within the rising tide Mastermind normally we have
a zoom call each and every week but this is where we all come together and we
become better friends we learn more about each other and we help each other
with their issues it is my favorite thing and I’m sure it is going to be
your favorite thing to look forward to if you were a member of the rising tide Mastermind that could be a possibility
to find out if the rising tide Mastermind is right for you and you are right for the rising tide Mastermind go
to scalingup h2o.com forward slash Mastermind and you can schedule a
15-minute call with me to find out more [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 your host Trace Blackmore certified water technologist I’ve been
the host of this podcast for years and I hope for many years to come one of my
favorite things to do is to host this podcast for all of our listeners which
of course we call very fondly the scaling up Nation so thank you for
listening to this podcast so much going on so much I want to tell you about and
one of the great mediums that we have available to us is this podcast format
because it allows us to grow a little bit each and every week
a bite-sized piece at a time so I can’t cover everything all on one podcast but
I can cover some things each and every podcast and one of the ways that we do
that and if you listen to this show you know what I am going to say is for you
the scaling up Nation member the scaling up Nation listener to let us know what
you want us to talk about we use all of that information that you send to us to
generate our show ideas to plan our calendar to invite guests to do
everything to make sure we are bringing you the show that you want to listen to
so thank you for all the people that continue to do that out there in the scaling up Nation one of the things that
we also do is we look at where our show is being downloaded and I will tell you
when I first started this show I had no idea how successful it would become
and to look at our numbers today with the numbers of downloads while we’re in
tens of thousands of downloads that’s just amazing to me and we’re in so many
countries in fact we are hitting the charts and rising in South Korea and
Spain so for all the listeners in South Korea and Spain thank you so much for
tuning in to the scaling up H2O podcast it is just amazing to me that through
this microphone that resides in Atlanta Georgia reaching water treaters all over
the globe and not only reaching those water treaters but uniting those water
treaters to create this scaling up nation and each and every day that scaling up Nation gets a little bit
stronger and it’s my hope the next time that you are feeling isolated you know
that you are not alone and all you have to do is tune in to the scaling up H2O
podcast and you know that there are water treaters all around the world that
are going through the same thing the same type of day similar issues as you
are and I hope that gives you strength I hope that makes you proud and I hope
that gives you a little bit extra energy to get through whatever it is that you
are going through and also knowing that you can always tune into this podcast to
learn a little bit more about our industry history so with all of that one
more time I want to thank all the listeners out there it is just amazing to see what this podcast is doing for so
many people in so many countries speaking of different countries we are
listing all other Association and Industry related events on this podcast
and we started doing this quite a while ago and I didn’t know if this was informative if people liked it but we
are getting so much feedback that people had no idea that so much around water
was available and people are finding these events through our podcast and
they are learning more about their craft so let’s talk about Shanghai China
AquaTech China is taking place June 5th through June 7th this is hosted by the
water quality Association and this is a trade show that is all around our
industry around products and services so if you are in the Shanghai China area
and you want to find out more about about this event of course you can go to
our show events page where we always have all the information we mention on this show in a very searchable format
and a very easy to put into your calendar format as well of course you
can just click away to go directly to the trade show or event or anything that
we’re talking about you can click straight to make all your reservations all your plans and then you can put a
calendar invite right into your calendar simply by clicking on buttons in our
show events page so we try to make it as easy as possible for you so if you
haven’t been there in a while or if you can’t keep track of all of the things that I am bringing to you each and every
week you don’t have to we made that very easy for you on our events page
something else you might want to look into is the storm water Summit 2023 taking place June 27th through June 29th
now this is in Kansas City Missouri and it’s a Conference held by the water environmental Federal storm water
Institute so this is crafted to deepen the technical knowledge of professionals
all around the world involving the challenges and managing storm water in a
changing world and provide in-person and virtual forums where leading issues in
the sector are discussed we’ll have all of this information of course on our
events page the last one I’ll mention today is the Smart Water Summit taking place September 10th through 12th in
Scottsdale Arizona for North American Water Utilities this event is all around
resolving industry concerns around operational technology extreme climate
events and political hurdles to learn more about this event you can go to our
events page and of course that’s at scaling up h2o.com Nation when was the last time
you defined excellence in our industry when was the last time that you defined
Excellence within yourself these are the things that I want you to think about
today during our interview around water treatment Excellence how do you define
that maybe it’s a commitment to our industry maybe it’s being trusted by
your company or maybe being trusted by your customer maybe it’s saving water
maybe it’s saving energy maybe it’s just saving overall operating budget for your
customer maybe it’s creating that return on investment where they’ve invested in
something and after so many months they’re now making money money based on
whatever that recommendation was that you gave to that customer or maybe it’s
extending the life of the equipment that you are charged with treating or maybe
it’s something like the mission statement of this podcast raising the bar in the industrial water treatment
industry maybe you define that because you are in this industry your efforts
are raising that bar the question really is have you thought about how you define
excellence and have you thought about if you have thought about how you define
Excellence how do you prove to others that you are promoting excellence in the
industrial water treatment industry well I truly believe that that is what the
center of the certified water technology designation is all about and that is the
premise of today’s interview [Music] my lab partner is Conor Hanrahan of
industrial water engineering Connor welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast
Trace howdy thanks for having me absolutely I’m trying to think you and I met I think it was about a year ago at
the awt Technical Training when we were in Cleveland is that right yeah exactly right uh you did the the sales portion
and uh I think you did the math as well and I feel like we made fairly fast friends and you know just kind of been
in awe of everything you have going on so real honor to kind of be a part of this thanks so much well we appreciate
you coming on you know I think back I’ve only known you for a year you’re one of those people when I first met I felt
like I’ve known forever yeah so sometimes that just happens and uh here
you are oh yeah yeah I feel like we both have a pretty like uh Sunny disposition
towards things and uh synced up pretty well so I’ve been so excited that we’ve
had more and more reasons to to interact and get together yeah I totally agree so uh the scaling
up Nation can appreciate who they’re speaking with right now or who they’re listening to anyway do you mind giving
us maybe a cliff notes Reader’s Digest version of Conor Hanrahan yeah so I’m in
Albuquerque New Mexico kind of back in my hometown and I’m the technical manager for industrial water engineering
or iwe you know the largest company in the southwest for industrial water
treatment yeah again I’m on the technical side there it’s been a great place I’ve been here a few years before
that I worked for GE water Suez for seven eight years and decided to move
back home back in Albuquerque worked with iwe now really great place you’re
from Albuquerque you now return to Albuquerque I got to come out and see you during the Balloon Fiesta this last
uh what was that October every October that was fantastic best time in
Albuquerque by far first two weeks of October perfect weather and the Balloon Fiesta is just wild right there are
hundreds of balloons every morning filling the skies and you came out to
put on a workshop for us and which was terrific I thought it was very fun interrupted by lots of oohs and Oz
looking out the windows right and most of those oohs and Oz were from me because you guys are used to it they
were all from you yeah I should have had it they were all from you yeah that was fair I don’t know how you get any work
done during that week and folks you can just not believe this I mean it’s not like oh I see a hot air balloon or
there’s two or three up there I mean there are hundreds in the sky it is amazing so neat and they don’t have
steering wheels you know that’s kind of the wild thing now that I’m like grown up and was gone for a while and came
back like they don’t have steering wheels they’re just going up and down like they’re just kind of descending on the city for a couple weeks it’s really
it’s really a pretty wild time but it is wonderful out so I’m glad you’re able to hit that while you’re out here that was
great it was fantastic and you were explaining to me that there’s a box effect that were the mountains and I
guess where the balloon field is that you can go up a little ways and go a certain direction you come down little
ways and you go back the same direction I guess that’s why they have it there that’s exactly right that’s why the
international balloon fiesta the biggest balloon fiesta in the world ended up in Albuquerque I think we have naturally
good climate you know around that time dry you know cold conditions but there’s
also a natural air current that creates a box and they have a race every year
that you know kind of takes them around and back over so yeah a neat place for
that yeah well hopefully we’ll get some people that go to the Balloon Fiesta next year from listening to this podcast
so unofficially this podcast is sponsored by the Balloon Fiesta
awesome Connor I’m curious how did you get into water treatment man it’s so
funny like from where I’m at now there’s nothing else that I would that I would be doing uh but it was somewhat
happenstance I went to did my undergrad at a small school and just outside of
Austin Texas called Southwestern University and a liberal arts school I was very interested in a lot of things
and ended up my parents you know really pushed me to make sure I got something in the science Fields I got a Bachelor
of Arts in physics and was looking around after graduation and was pretty you know somewhat aimless uh
uh not sure what I was gonna do and a family friend introduced me to a
professor of chemical engineering at New Mexico state and he was doing experiments
at the brackish groundwater National desalination research facility which is a mouthful bigendorf and we really hit
it off and he said come be a graduate student with me and we’ll study water and coming from the southwest from the
Arid Southwest growing up in New Mexico Water shortages and droughts were always things that we talked about and heard
about and I think I always had you know some interest in doing something water
related because of that and meeting with this professor and wanting to extend my
higher education it was like perfect opportunity so I joined his team at New
Mexico State got my Master’s Degree and really since I’ve finished that it’s
kind of been like I’m sure you’ll appreciate this Trace there’s a Japanese term I believe it’s ikigai are you
familiar with that I don’t think I am so it’s uh I think it’s kind of summarizes like your reason for being and they’ve
got this cool like ven diagram of like interests and what the world needs and
what you’re good at and kind of where it all comes together is your icky guy and
for me like that is just so clearly water uh it’s where like my passion
where I can make a living something that the world or you know the Southwest needs
what did you get your undergraduate in I’m sorry your uh your Master’s in that was a masters in chemical engineering
got it so you’re not playing around yeah it was a definitely a great start for
the field that we’re in we were getting pretty pretty deep in the minutia we were doing uh some really neat kind of
high recovery electrodialysis reversal uh got a paper published and a journal
published a thesis on it and uh it was like a pretty deep dive into the minutia
of water chemistry and you know Common ion effects and saturation indices and
all of these things that we all you know sort of dance with now in our jobs what
do you do besides water treatment what are some of your hobbies yeah so being back in the southwest I was in the South
for about a decade really really happy to be in the southwest big Outdoors met
a lot of friends we uh get a good rock climbing group we do a lot of hiking so
really nice sort of like environment out down here in the southwest for that sort of stuff weeknights weekend nights I am
a professional improviser which is uh kind of funny really I just you know
kind of made it to being part of a company here in Albuquerque we put on a weekly about a weekly show which is
great the nice sort of like outlet for you know sort of a different part of
myself more of like a creative silly Part and something I’ve been doing since high school now uh pretty continuous I
didn’t know that I always that’s that’s fantastic I always recommend when people are getting into sales that they do some
sort of improvisation and I’m sure you’ve done this exercise where whatever
the last person that uh that just did their skit you’ve got to continue it on
with yes and have you done that that’s on the crest of the Improv world right
yes I am the most important two words there are and I totally agree I think it’s so important I think for sales I
think man just for like social like interacting and like having fun with
people I just think it’s such a wonderful skill and I appreciate it as an art form but I think everybody can
like learn so much just from the present listening and the agreement that you
kind of are forced to develop within improv have you taken your team to do improv with you no I haven’t I’m always
like a little bit shy to invite you know especially co-workers even friends and
such improv when I perform it it’s a very like silly art and there will be
times when I’m playing you know like a milkmaid or something like that and
there’s just there’s a trust level and I think we’re getting there but you know I’m new and I’m in a kind of management
technical role with this company so we’ll get there well I’m getting tickets
next time I’m in town awesome Trace you get it immediately you’d probably be
comfortable up on stage with me we’d crush it it’s a date I’m looking forward to it
perfect well tell the scale it up Nation what’s your typical day-to-day is like
yeah man I have a great job here I’m so thrilled with kind of how how everything
has worked out here at industrial water engineering again I work as a technical manager so I have four employees that
are account managers that report to me they’re all very like seasoned just
awesome awesome gentlemen and so that part’s pretty easy most of my day-to-day
is on the technical side and that’s what I love I think they’d all tell you I’m a bit of a nerd they’re right I love love
water chemistry it’s like my favorite thing about this job that like the more I learn the less I know right you just
open up like bigger fields of questions I think that’s the best part about our job 100 yeah 100 water is just it
touches so many aspects of our lives and it just it is like pretty endlessly complex in a beautiful way so most of my
day is sort of technical troubleshooting and I would say the thing that I’m proudest of that we’re kind of in the
process of rolling out are a series of water savings awards that we’ve achieved
kind of for or with our customers and we’re on track I think we’re sitting at
about 15 million gallons of water that have been saved kind of between last year and this year with different
projects that we’ve done with our customers mostly revolving around increasing cycles of concentration or
concentration ratio at cooling towers and boilers but I’ve really been working
on like quantifying these things and being able to present them in a way to say like hey excellent work right like
we’re not just selling you water chemicals like we’re doing real like engineering and valuable work out in the
world and really that is like my top ultimate passion and I feel so lucky
that I get to work on that every day or most days at least over here at iwa it’s
amazing how much water that we in this industry can save I say this in my
training classes that if those people go through and become either a a lead GA or
a lead AP to help buildings become less carbon using facilities they talk about
how do we consume less water but normally the talk is about how do we reduce the flow of toilets or hand
washing things like this and that’s all great stuff that definitely reduces the
amount of water but you just said millions of gallons in a year with the
cooling tower and the boiler and that is just such a large amount and we all have that ability to make that happen
Trace I love this we have a customer who asked me recently he’s a facilities
manager and asked me he said put me together a proposal that would be how
much water we would use if you guys weren’t here right and I was like I thought it was such a strange ask and it
was like huh I’m not sure how to approach this but what I did is I used their makeup water and we got onto
French Creek the water cycle program and we cycled it up until the water would
scale out right so that’s kind of the theoretical limit at which case water chemistry takes it from there right but
that’s as high as you could get with that water chemistry and it was like 1.3 cycles of concentration or concentration
ratio because we have tough water down here in the southwest we had a lot of calcium we’ve got a lot of silica so
then we’re running this cycles of concentration closer to four Cycles right so that’s our value right there
and we were able to quantify it and that right there was like six seven million gallons of water per year that was being
saved through the use of water chemistry and I thought that was so neat and it was very fun to like be able to present
to him that sounds like an amazing customer to ask for that right I know
he’s like it was very cool he’s like a young facilities manager and I was like dude great question and you’re probably
going to do that for all your customers now I bet yeah yeah all the big users be like hey just just so you know this is
the value right awesome well hey one of the things you almost instantly did when you and I met
was you were asking me questions about the rising tide Mastermind and you joined relatively quickly from uh when
you and I first met I wanted to ask why man I don’t feel like a joined quickly
enough you know I think you presented it again I think we hit it off well you presented it to me kind of back in
Cleveland I think I joined right after Vancouver which was what was that like September October I think that sounds
right you know I was hesitant because I’m though I’m not new to water treatment I’m new to awt and I didn’t
feel like I had a big footing like with a lot of these folks right I’d gone to the conferences I’d met some of these
people but I didn’t feel like I I had much of a footing yet and I say that I
joined to too late not really it was perfect timing but I just feel like so
quickly it has like pulled me into a group of people and a community within
the water treatment industry that I am so thankful for like I feel so different
what like four or five months in and like in terms of how so just like
professional development and having some friendships outside of my organization and like the support and there’s also
been like some business development there like I’ve met people that have helped me through some technical Pro troubleshooting that have supplied me
with some chemicals that I was not aware of like masterminds has been so great
that the only reason I say I should have joined sooner is because I don’t know what my hesitation was and my hesitation
was not based in reality the whole experience has just been great I think most people when they join they
join on faith they kind of understand it but until you get involved you really
don’t understand it so you’re hoping everything that we’ve talked about is going to come true and then you’re now
in with a new group of people that you don’t know and so all those things coming together it makes sense why
somebody might be a little bit nervous at first but definitely the payback is worth it you think oh man you know the
other thing that I was nervous about was you know there’s an accountability system in each quarter you have an
accountability partner and you know you’re working through your quarterly goals and with that partner and I was
nervous about that because I just you know I feel young for the industry in some ways or at least for some of these
people who are business owners and just really high level high functioning professionals and there’s ways in which
I feel young and it’s wild to me right because our backdrop is that we are all
water treatment professional right but then from there in my quarterly so we
meet weekly with our accountability partner and there’s just been a great deal of like vulnerability and trust and
partnership in these meetings that’s just been amazing I’m so thankful for it
I’ll let you know that the accountability aspect of the Mastermind is probably the one thing that scares a
lot of people away when we talk about that people are either craving that or
it terrifies them and I think it’s okay to be terrified if you want to improve
that but there’s so many people out there that just don’t want to be held accountable and when I do my interviews
a lot of times when we decide that it’s not the best fit it’s normally around them being held accountable and somebody
else holding them accountable of what they’re going to get done how they get further faster with all of those things
yeah I totally get that but from somebody that was moderately scared
about that vulnerability and like transparency like it has been a huge
blessing to my personal life career Etc as powerful when I first started the
Mastermind a little over four years ago which is hard to believe I really thought it was going to be more
technical conversations and I am surprised at how little technical comes
up and how much personal and financial and you name it comes up I mean we’re
our own board of directors with each other did that surprise you as well oh a hundred percent a hundred percent yeah
technical is like offline like let’s maybe do some emails if we need to get
into that but it’s like a hundred percent like this is like going on in my life yeah not too long ago I had a
technical issue and I put it out we have a couple of group texts that we do we
have one for our specific group and then we have another one that has everybody within the Mastermind and we’re well
over 60 members now and I just never seen this thing before and I put that
out with a picture on the group text and within seconds somebody said give me a call and exactly what you’re
experiencing how cool is that yeah and Trace you know the other thing I feel
like you know we’re all kind of part of this like shared kind of group and experiment and you know thing that we’re
really committed to everybody in my group is like so committed to this process and you
know Reed Hutchinson’s leading our group and he’s badass and awesome and it’s a
great way to describe him yeah and like everybody’s so bought in and the impact
of that is that like I feel like I have friends throughout the Water World now
and when I worked for a big company for years I didn’t feel like I knew anybody like it was a very lonely experience and
I knew you know my co-workers but that was about it and that is like it is so
big for me to feel part of a community and like very much we have a live event
coming up I am so excited for that and then for awt like being able to show up
and just like know people and care about them yeah such a gift such a gift
something that took place that I wasn’t expecting with the Mastermind is how it
enhances the awt experience I’ve seen this happen at every conference since
the Mastermind somebody will go grab somebody else and say hey remember that problem that you were having I just
found somebody you need to talk to let me go introduce you I’ve seen that happen multiple times I’ve seen entire
groups walking through the exhibit hall having conversations on what they’re
going to look at next it just heightens the entire experience because now you’re with a group of people that you trust I
love that your friends yeah Connor just recently you passed a very difficult
examination and I want to congratulate you because you passed your certified
water technologist examination yeah and I was hoping that we could let the
scaling up Nation know all about the cwt Through Your Eyes what you experienced
maybe even some tips that you can share with them so we can get some more cwts
out there this is all new to me working for GE Suez uh cwt who’s never part of
the conversation so this was all new to me and I am such an enormous fan of it
we’re in the process of getting more within our organization and I just think the cwt is a wonderful program so you
know to give some background like we talked about yeah I came out of a very technical field it was like specifically
water chemistry I’d done this for a long time but then I showed up my first day
working for GE water and man you know I couldn’t have pointed out maybe I could have pointed out a cooling tower but you
know I couldn’t have told you what an air-cooled Chiller was or any of this stuff and there’s just such an
unbelievable learning curve in our industry right and like water chemistries maybe like a third or I
don’t know a quarter but then there’s like all this equipment and then there’s you know your pumps and like all your
your water treatment equipment like there’s just so much to know and when I
was at GE I think I was very fortunate I was at a big Refinery and I was able to
touch a lot of these things right like we had high pressure boilers and de-aerators and deionization and waste
treatment and influence clarify like we had all these things right and touching those things makes it so much easier at
least for me as a learner and I think for most people to like grasp kind of the fundamentals of how they work right
but there’s just it is such a big field and there are always going to be things
that you just you don’t know yet right and you you you may encounter at some
point and I think the cwt does such a good job of setting a bar right for like
treatment Excellence or for knowledge that should be generally applicable within the industry and that was
something that I did see when I was with the big company is that the knowledge levels vary so tremendously
like we had a fairly sharp team because our manager was really hard and very
serious about that but we’d go visit other people and man it could just be all over the place so I loved the cwt
for this reason that it sets kind of a standard for water treatment knowledge
and I’ll be honest the exam was harder than I expected very solid on all the
chemistry I’ve done a lot of equipment stuff dude that 200 questions is Pretty Tough they do not joke around with those
dude that you know by the end of three-ish hours like ah this is yeah
this really took it out of me so great test I I love kind of the spirit of it
why it’s there I think it’s so important and absolutely would encourage everybody make the time and commit to it and
that’s you know that’s what I think the biggest thing is is that commitment right that you kind of get serious and
would love to talk about kind of our strategy for studying for it because I
think you were a big influence in that well I think that’d be a great thing to talk about I did want to ask you when
you started working for iwe was the message you need to get your cwt or did
you go in there saying that’s something I want to get working here yeah so iwe has always been very clear
that the cwt is the expectation for everybody on the technical side of our company so it was in my initial sign-on
you know a commitment to get cwt and has been kind of yeah like all right it’s a
matter of when right and it’s the same for our account managers okay you’ve moved up from a service tech now you’re
an account manager it’s a matter of when when are you going to get your cwt so we’ve got you know I think we had eight
on staff I think we’re down to four or five so we’re getting those numbers back
up but no that’s a very big part of industrial water engineering iwe’s kind of commitment to service
I love that that shows the customer and everybody that knows about your company
that you’re dedicated to making sure that you’ve got those educated people that you’re making sure that they’re
staying top in their field and it just says so much about the people that work
there and the company yeah there’s big commitment to training here you know Les did a great job
Bernadette continues to do a great job with that commitment to training and that’s you know that takes time from
everyone but I think that’s how you maintain an excellent organization there was a comic strip and I can’t
remember who gave it to me and what comic strip it was but it was uh two
managers talking to each other and they said well what if we train somebody and they leave and the other manager said
well what if we don’t and they stay I love that I think that’s like so
similar to Richard Branson’s sort of philosophy with his companies he talked about in his his autobiography which was
like trained them so well that they can leave but choose to stay because of what
type of a company you are there you go I love that yeah right like these guys
would be excellent working for a big company or who you know whomever but
hopefully they see the value that iwes put into training and it truly you know it’s it’s hours and hours but I think
it’s also something that we enjoy doing right well it’s my belief that we have thousands of potential cwts listening to
this podcast and they just need to take that first step or they just need to get
past a little bit of nerve so they can take that first step and I’m hoping
we’re going to help a lot of those individuals today so can we talk about
how you prepared to pass the certified water technologist examination
Trace I uh so thankful for I think this is a masterminds book but truly this
like gave me the road map otherwise it would have been my standard kind of procrastination and Chaos leading up to
the exam well and the other important part here is I did my training by
holding trainings for my four employees that are all uh looking to also pass the
cwt I love that yeah and that absolutely like if you’ve been in the field a while
you feel pretty good like train somebody else right because then that puts you in that educator seat which we know forces
you to like have the knowledge down pat and then it’s also like giving right
you’re also giving the training to somebody else but I think because of that because I set out to kind of help
other people pass this I had to have a framework right and so you had us read
the 12-week Year by Brian Moran correct so the 12-week year right and the goal
there is to break down your your planning and all of your you know what
goal you want to accomplish into a 12-week about a one-quarter period and that’s exactly what we did so January
1st we’re starting our cwt training right and each week we have these goals
to reach and by the end of q1 we’re going to be ready and I love this Trace
because just like he talks about in the book we could have done this on an annual we could have said this year
we’re going to pass the cwt and what would we have done we’d have stretched it out we’d have missed some sessions it
would have fallen hard I think or been less productive but instead we can stay focused for one quarter then we did a
great job so each week on Friday afternoons we set out about a half
chapter of the awt technical manual and I think that that’s considered probably
you know maybe the best overall resource for the cwt is to go through the
technical manual without a doubt so that’s about six chapters that are covered in the exam so we went through
those six chapters about half a chapter per week and read the chapter and then
discussed it on Friday and again I was kind of leading the discussion and what
we brought in was there are the analyst quizzes that are available at the awt
website if you click through some of the library and education sections so I
downloaded all the analyst quizzes and then kind of sorted them into which section they would fit best with right
whether it’s pre-treatment cooling towers or boilers and then when we met for those sections we would do the
analyst questions together so that took us about 10 weeks and that’s you know
the first chapter in the sixth chapter are both very short so it took us about 10 weeks to get through the awt manual
answering some analyst questions on the 10th week we took your test
right so you put together such a good training platform Trace most of it is a
Praxis exam for the cwt test so after we’ve done all of the reading and discussion on each section of the cwt
awt manual we took you test on that 10th week and man
such a like gut check good or bad and then when I took the test about a week
two weeks later such such excellent material compared to the test right so like such a good
preparation so the training I think was very digestible we committed to it we got it
done in a quarter my guys haven’t taken the test yet a lot of them had vacation during the first quarter so they put it
off a couple weeks but we’ll be there shortly I love the program that you put together
that’s that’s just amazing you began with the end of mine you said this is the end result this is what we’re going
to do each and every week uh you follow the 12-week year exactly I’m curious I’m
sure there was a week or two that you got off how did you make up for that you
know there wasn’t and I really think I was I was so committed to this Trace I
uh yeah yeah the cwt is a big deal here at iwe and I feel like I maybe could
have done it earlier but I kind of I wanted to do it this time I wanted to do it with you know some of my co-workers
to do it all together and so I was I was pretty like rabid about getting this
done each week for 12 weeks and again I think that’s what the 12-week year kind
of helped me do is like Connor you can commit for one quarter to do this you
know some of the guys were out occasionally on one of the weeks one of the Friday but uh I was very I was very
dogged and determined and we held them each Friday we got it done and then the
greatest blessing Trace was that I took my test last Monday I studied a couple
hours the weekend before I took it because I felt so ready right like
that’s a first for me I’m such a Cramer that is a first for me not to be like
Sunday night like you know going to bed at two and trying to re read the awt
manual like that weekend the cwt exam is supposed to be a culmination of all the
knowledge that a water treater has experienced within the past five years so they say there’s really no way you
can study for it but we all know that there are certain things you need to brush up on make sure you’ve got terminology right and it sounds like you
just created the the perfect time frame with the the right expectations I love
what you’ve set up great job thank you yeah and again without the 12-week year I think that gave us the right road map
for it so for anybody thinking about it would absolutely say pick a quarter that
you think it’s doable get it done in that quarter because if you got your five years I completely agree you’ve
heard the terms you’ve been around these things you’ve probably heard the information before before
like commit to a quarter get your test scheduled and get it done because it
feels great I cannot wait for the next awt conference be able to celebrate that and we get to go every year right
because that’s how you got to get your training credits or a way to get your training credits so that’s a huge bonus
for us that’s like we’re in yeah for everybody listening when you go
to an awt convention you get five points when you go to a Technical Training
seminar uh you get 15 points so that’s definitely how you get the bulk of your
points and that’s what most people do they go to Convention every year and or they go to a couple of trainings and
those quizzes that you mentioned that are on awt that’s a hundred percent freeway that you can get all your
continuing education units from the comfort of wherever you want to do it yeah those are great those are pretty
challenging a lot of those you know they really get into some of the minutia but man especially getting into you know for
me like the phosphonates and polymers and all of these things like that that’s valuable stuff so those quizzes were
cool one of the items that you mentioned was the scaling up Academy cwt practice exam
course how did you use that to make sure that you were confident enough to go and
pass that exam so again we bought that course at the beginning of our 12-week
plan and then we had discussion about it and I said guys what I would like to do is spend 10 weeks going over the course
material doing our reading and then that’s going to be our gut check right then we’re going to take that course and
find out really where we are and I’d never done this before I wasn’t sure what your test would be there were a lot
of unknowns but it worked out so well for me you know I passed your tests
pretty well I I hoped that I would and it was like great I’m ready for the cwt
for some of the other guys that were working through this with it’s it’s been so such a great tool because they’ve
been like right at the cusp right and they’re like like oh man if I learn a
little bit more about softeners I can do this right like I can get my 75 percent
so your course again great gut check I think inspiring for some of the folks
that are doing the studies and then when I went to go take the test like they were great questions they were great
preparation going into the cwt we worked through a lot of the problems afterwards
but you also you know put together kind of you going through each problem and
explaining how you arrive at these answers so really really really excellent resource
yeah for those playing along at home if you go through the course you take the
exam and it’s a hundred questions and then you get your grade right there just like you would if you were signed up and
taking the actual exam but then there is a video for each one of the questions so
you can see how I take the exam along with you or after you’ve taken that and
then I tell you how I go into how I find the answer and then I have some extra
resources on each page so you can go and research more and something that I also
didn’t I want to ask you about this is I throw several standardized test taking
techniques within that course so if you just do not know the answer I give you
some techniques so you can at least Whittle away some of the bad answers were you able to use those on the exam
yeah that was something that we liked going through and also your math section
I think that was also really helpful kind of in the Preamble to taking your exam both of those just gave like a nice
basis for actually getting into it one of the things that I hear a lot is
somebody takes the exam they come back they complain to me that there was this obscure question on the exam they know
they got that wrong how could they possibly have put that on the exam and I said well that sounds like something
that they would have referenced in your reference material and they say what reference material please tell me you
looked at your reference material before you looked at question one yeah can I address this please this is a weird for
some reason there is lack of clarity on what reference material if there’s any available what’s available your course
actually did a great job of providing like nearly exactly what was available on the exam but yeah when I took the cwt
like half the screens dedicated to your supplemental material and it’s got you know like boiler asme guidelines things
like that or steam tables so agreed and that was my biggest thing with the guys
that are also doing this was like guys don’t rush into the test spin the first
I spent the first probably 15 20 minutes clicking through each slide on that supplemental material reading through it
and kind of making a note of what was available right it’s like softener calculations and boiler information
periodic table Atomic weights like things like that so that I’m like great I don’t have to freak out if I see this
the information’s here that is exactly what I asked people to
do during that practice exam course so thank you for doing that yeah and then
with your course I had the guys print that out your supplemental material which it’d probably be better to do it
on the screen so that it’s the same as the course but then they had a copy of that I said look reference this if you
don’t remember exactly reference this and then also ask them to use the calculators available on their Windows
computers right because that’s what the exam is it’s just an on-screen calculator less fancy than your your
scientific one not that you need any exotic functions but get used to kind of
clicking on the buttons or using your you know your keypad that’s a great tip to actually use the calculator that’s on
your computer I love that I’m going to have to add that to the course yeah because you know it is funkier yeah and
now you’re used to it and uh I I think the more you prepare by a course
studying the material but also knowing what to expect your mind can take so
much more and you don’t get overloaded on the day of the exam that is exactly I
think like the most important point because I know that like our seasoned guys here know the information but man
200 questions and like a weird test environment you know you got to go take it at Pearson whatever and 200 questions
is just that’s like uh like psychologically draining that’s right to like stay on that long and then if
you’re not prepared for the supplemental material or the calculator they just add on right so I think those are such big
things so that you keep your mental like resources primed to do their actual work
can you walk us through the registration process and then going to the testing center and how you got your results yeah
yeah I’d love to because there’s a funny story there so go to the awt website the
cwt portion of it and what you have to do is print off an application where I
think you fill out like your full government name middle name everything and then some method of payment and you
send that into Angela at the awt office she sends you back a registration number
right she emails you that back once you have that number you can get on Pearson’s website and enter your
information and sign up for the test date that you’re looking for so a little
bit of like homework that you need to do beforehand so do not wait until like the week you want to do it this needs to be
done I think once you get that number it’s available for a year is that right I honestly don’t know when that expires
I think it’s for a year so if you’re planning to take it might as well get
that done right and get that all kind of ironed out um from there you go on Pearson schedule
the time for your exam you show up yeah you can like keep a water bottle out of
your locker but everything else jewelry everything goes into a locker and you’re
given some scratch paper and like a Sharpie marker that you know doesn’t
erase and you sat down at your computer you clicked through a couple practice questions and then it’s a three hour and
50 minute exam to answer 200 questions it’s a marathon and that’s like you know
very apt race for it because slow and steady right that’s the other
thing I’m working with my guys on is like especially some of the math questions oh most important strategy for
the whole thing there’s the ability to flag questions if you’re like on the fence about something don’t
fret like when you’re fretting you’re just draining yourself you’re like boosting your anxiety like don’t fret if
you’re unsure about a question flag it and keep moving because again if you’ve been in this five years the chances that
you can get 70 of the questions I think are pretty good so then you just got to get a few more
to get your passing grade 75 percent on each section is that right Trace I think
that sounds right yes so if you’re if you’re not sure flag the question and then when you get to the 200th once you
get to the end of the exam question 200 you’ll hit end but it’ll take you to a
review screen then you can look at how many questions you’ve missed that’s great because when
you don’t know a question it like it terrifies you because you don’t want to fail this big exam but then we went to the review it was like oh I’m actually
okay right like even if I don’t get these I think I’m gonna be okay just
based on how many I had checked that I wasn’t sure on Connor did you find that
once you went through all of the questions you saw all 200 and you went
back to then go through the review where you selected a few of the questions that
you were thinking a little bit differently maybe a question maybe 20 down the road got you thinking of that
question a little bit differently and then you were able to go back and answer it with something a little bit different there was definitely two or three of
those yeah where like you like pick up on a piece of information exactly a few
questions down and like oh okay I know this one yeah they tried very hard not
to have one question answer another so I doubt you’re ever going to find that but you never know how your brain’s gonna
help you and there’s just a way question 20 was worded that helps you answer
question three in your mind and then you can go back and you’re like hey I know
that answer yeah agreed and then again just knowing like being able to have a realistic
assessment at the end of the questions that I was unsure of and knowing that
okay this is actually probably okay so the funny part was I was told you get
your answers right away as soon as you click submit it gives you congratulations or boohoo you did not
pass so I hit submit and nothing happened it
took me to a screen that just said Thank you for taking the cwt I was like oh no
like here I am well that’s better than the screen that said sorry we were unable to save your test yeah well
better than that yeah but um like I thought it was going to tell me if I passed so I’m like oh no like here I am
like putting on weekly courses for these other guys and you know technical managers
I just flipped and failed this and I walk into the other room and this uh
this woman is so we we had a good rapport we were like laughing in the morning when I signed in I see her pull
something off the printer and she goes I’m really sorry to tell you that you passed the exam oh come on I know I was
like my stomach was an absolute nuts but all is well got the passing grade it was
a very challenging test but looking back I really enjoyed it and I think it was a worthwhile test I think it was a good
kind of determination of General water treatment knowledge and all kind of
continue that you know this what the cwt process is right so one of the reasons
that I I waited a while after joining industrial water engineering is because
the next step is getting three outside letters of recommendation
right and then one internal letter of recommendation which Bernadette has written for me hopefully had nice things
to say about me but you need three external letters of recommendation right so that process
I was actually looking forward to the least I really don’t like you know kind of asking people for things like that
right like kind of for them to do me a favor but man right after I passed the
exam I kind of started that process and it turned out like it was it actually
became a really rich thing and going back to some of the stuff we were
talking about it gave me an opportunity to explain the cwt and what I had just gone through to some really important
customers of ours and be like yeah I’m really proud of this I’ve established myself as a certified water technologist
took a really difficult test this week and now I’m asking you to write a letter
of recommendation on my behalf saying that you know you support me and you
know you would hire me and I think it was a great bonding moment for the three people that I chose so
overall cwt experience challenging extremely worthwhile
I can’t imagine how you are now elevated in those three people’s eyes that you
asked them to write that letter that had to have multiplied that relationship by
at least tenfold like truly it really did feel very special for me to ask
those people and there was like just an acknowledgment of the work that I had
done and then an acknowledgment of our relationship for me to feel comfortable with that I’m like I’m so happy with who
I chose agreed well said well here’s the question everybody wants
to know so you’re taking an almost four hour exam answering 200 questions you’ve
got your bottle of water there you’re staying hydrated how do you go to the bathroom oh yeah two pro tips there no
biggie right you raise your hand they come over I don’t know kind of look things over let you go out to the
restroom right then you come back sit down absolutely during those breaks
bring a banana or something bring something that’s going to give your brain a little energy I wish that I had
I went in on a light breakfast and man 200 questions just Chomps up the the
neurological juice I would have killed for a banana during my bathroom break so
I went through the test in about two hours and was like bathroom time for
sure and just would have loved to have some sort of snack to then sit down
review the questions I’d missed and actually go through most of the test again I think this has been great I
think a lot of people are thinking okay well maybe this isn’t that bad especially if I put a plan to it and you
now of course have given them your plan so why not just copy what you did I have
no doubt that we have converted several scaling up Nation members today that
they’re going to take that next step so thank you for all of that information yeah again thank you you introduced me
to the 12-week year and that was like the best road map for getting this done
I think it would have been a hectic chaotic sort of run if I had not set out
a road map and determined when I was going to do it so I appreciate that Trace absolutely like many things you’ve
uh you’ve given a lot of wisdom to the people around you well I appreciate that that’s very kind of you and I of course
took that wisdom from somebody else I think that’s how how we do that so and of course after you learned you passed
the examination you of course had some sort of party and I’m willing to bet it was a mullet party do you want to tell
the nation a little bit about that chase we uh we haven’t had a good mullet party
because I’m in the process of buying a house but our first party will be a mullet party and my brother and I
probably about four years ago now we started a company called mullet party and the goal you know our first mullet
party Trace we had people from like all over it was a going away party for a
friend and I didn’t know his friend grew up and he didn’t know mine and there’s some nerves about like ah are all these
people gonna like get along you know and like have have fun and I love Halloween
we had all of these wigs and I busted out the wigs it was a little bit weird
at first but man once they once everybody committed to it it is like
such a party hack because it’s like the ultimate Icebreaker you’re like you’re
not a stranger when everybody looks like silly so then we kind of like curtailed it a little bit to mullets because we’re
like that’s even funnier and uh yeah we’ve been selling um these bags of mullets these mullet party packs and it
sounds like we might be able to Mullet party I think we might have a mullet party at
the rising tide Mastermind live event that is a possibility beautiful well we’ll uh we’ll get to do
it live then and I can’t wait because uh because it is a hoot Connor if somebody out there wants to have a mullet party
of their own what should they do so we’re uh we’re just you know it’s a fun sort of Pastime we have an online store
mulletparty.com and uh order a bag send us a message and let us know what it’s
for we love trying to uh like customize the the bags add in like little things
that we have shoot us a message let us know what it’s for we love mullet parties we love seeing pictures from
them and uh Trace can’t wait to party with you man awesome I just I just can’t
imagine when somebody gets that package and there’s this this bag of mullets on
their front porch that’s got to be a very exciting moment so Chris he’s been wearing his for our masterminds calls
the dude rocks he was on the podcast not too terribly
long ago he definitely it does rock well thank you so much for sharing your
experiences about the certified water technologists exam like I said I know we’ve helped a lot of people here it’s
my Hope by the end of the year when you accept your recognition at the awt
convention that maybe we’ve got a hundred this year I hope we just have just an amazing standing line for people
waiting to go get recognized to pick up that badge that they get Trace I want
people to like absolutely like commit to it and do that and then I want us all to
like and you do such a great job of this but all of us to like make it clear what that achievement is because the water
industry is so variable and it’s such a great way to show that you’re competent
in what you’re capable of so agreed I hope people get on it and I hope that we
just continue to grow it because I think it’s powerful well I can’t wait to see how many people
actually rise to the occasion and I will celebrate each one of them at this
year’s convention Connor not quite done with our questions yet we’re going to shift gears and we’re going to go
straight to the lightning round are you buckled in I’m ready Trace all right so
uh I asked these questions of all of my guests and then of course the scale them Nation they wager to see how well they
do with their predictions of how you’re going to answer so the first question is uh you can now go back in time and speak
to your former self on your first day as an industrial water treater what advice
would you give yourself man be patient and know that know that it
gets better know that you’ll love this I just remembered like feeling so
overwhelmed everybody uses the phrase drinking from the fire hose I just remember feeling so overwhelmed and I
wish that I knew then at that time yeah it was like knots in my stomach like oh what am I what am I
doing is this right for me ah and uh if if I had any sense then how much I would
love this career and this field would have helped with some of the anxiety so yeah be patient and know that you will
love this love that answer what are the last few books that you’ve read well I’ve read all the books you know
what have we read six types of working genius uh 12 week year and traction all
amazing big influences and you know my personal professional life I’m a big Science Fiction guy uh so I read Andy
Weir’s project Hail Mary love the Martian project Hail Mary also great and
then really struggled through uh three body problem and have dabbled into the
the sequel there but probably the two I read two books pretty much repeatedly each year and
that is the obstacle is the way by Ryan holiday and the war of art by Stephen pressfield and uh I’ve given those both
an audio listen this year and those ones really keep me going I’ve got certain books that I listen to
every year seven habits of highly effective people is one of those and I’m always amazed at how I hear something
that I didn’t hear the last 50 times right totally when they make a movie
about Connor who do you want playing you oh I don’t know that that’s a really
tough one I uh I’m gonna give an answer but uh it’s a
funny one I just don’t have a better one a young McConaughey all right I can see
that uh I can definitely see that so last question you now have the ability
to speak with anybody throughout history who to be with and why like right now where I’m at I think that
I would want to talk I’d want to hang out with Abraham Lincoln so my dad’s a big history guy and he reads us the
Emancipation Proclamation like often just think wants to give us a sense of
history and how differently things could be and you know how much certain people you know influence the
world and for Lincoln to be such a like he had so much tragedy in his life
um you know three of his four sons died and he just struggled so much and yet struggled through a Civil War and then
brought a nation together afterwards and I just I think that he’s a really beautiful character in in history that I
think would be powerful to be in his presence I love that answer I was at a conference
and they had an actor come in and play Abraham Lincoln and he started talking
about his life and it was all uh failure and Mayhem and distress and all of this
stuff and most people had never heard that and that was the entire point that
you know you don’t remember that about him you remember what made him great but he had to go through all of that in
order to get there yeah love that answer Connor this has been a lot of fun thank
you so much for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast Chase it’s always fun man
thank you for having me [Music]
people that the first time that I met him I felt like I knew him for years and
I know that you have people in your life like that that you’ve met people and you
know you just met him right there but you feel like you’ve just had this connection with them forever that was
the situation when I met Conor which leads me to a thought and the thought is
how are you putting yourself into environments where you can meet people to enforce why you are in this industry
and think about that are you intentionally putting yourself in an
environment where you can meet people that are forcing you to get better and
that led me to all the things that I’ve done in my career to put myself in that
very situation well the first thing that comes to mind is when I started my firm
the advice the first piece of advice that somebody gave me was I had to join
a trade Association a trade Association that was made just for our industry and
if you’re in the same type of industrial water treatment as I am that is the association of water Technologies and
through the association of water Technologies I started to meet people that I would not have had the
opportunity to meet if I did not take that person’s advice but it didn’t stop
there I then learned because I met these people who gave me more advice and they
said if you really want to get out of any organization more than what you put
into it you’ve got to put into it and I want you to think if you are a member of
any organization and you are not volunteering you are not putting yourself out there to help educate
people to help bring whatever it is that you can bring from your experiences to
that organization you probably are getting just as much out of it as what
you are putting into it so that is my call to action for you not just join an
organization but put into it and if you put into it I promise that it will be a
multiple factor of how much you get out of it and that’s what I heard that’s
what I was told and that’s what I did I started volunteering with the association of water technologies that
led me to start serving on some committees that led me to start sharing committees that led me to get on the
board of directors that led me to become president of the association of water
tech Technologies and that led me to being very active on the education
Committee of the association of water Technologies and boy has that paid me
back not only have I met people I have just received so much information
so much knowledge and going back to the people aspect I would not have had the
opportunity to meet these people had I not showed up for that and these are not
just people that give me information these are people that I consider friends
so it’s my hope that you are out there looking on whatever industry of water
treatment that you are in to find whatever organization that you can put
you into I promise you will never regret that another thing that came to mind is
how am I really really forcing myself to grow within those environments and that
made me think of the rising tide Mastermind of course Connor and I spoke about the rising tide Mastermind and
this is a mastermind group that I created years ago that continues to grow
around industrial water treatment and folks let me tell you this is an
incubator for excellence the whole premise is how do we help each other get
better and not just get better but further faster and with a lot more fun
than we could have ever done on our own that is the whole reason behind the
rising tide Mastermind and Mastermind is not a term that I created a mastermind
is a type of group that has been around since Ben Franklin he called his
so there might be a group out there that is an even better fit for you than the
rising tide Mastermind but the whole point is what environments are you putting yourself into to ensure to
propel you to get better than what you are now folks if we don’t get a little
bit better each and every day we are sliding backwards think about that as
all the information comes out as our customers become so much smarter because
of the ease and how they can find information on the internet if we are
not challenging ourselves each and every day it is very likely that we can become
obsolete now speaking of the rising tide Mastermind next week we are having our
live event and the live event is where the rising time Mastermind comes
together here in Atlanta and it is just an amazing experience we come together
we have meals together but we we normally have an assignment that we do that pushes us to be better and then we
have workshops we have speakers we have all these things designed around everything that I’m talking about in
this dialogue making sure that when we go back to our individual businesses we
have handles to start working on us and of course there are so many other events
that you can attend like the ones I mentioned in the beginning of this show
so all of that I’m hoping that you are putting yourself into environments where
you can enforce why you are in this industry and how you are defining
Excellence within this industry a second question that comes to mind mind is how
are you putting yourself in situation so before it was environments now it’s situations that demand that you grow
towards however you define excellence and I think it’s everything that I have
mentioned up to this point and we can even add to that we can talk about
training seminars there’s so many training seminars that are out there
we’ve got pretty much all of them listed on our events page and there might be
one out there that will help you get to however you define Excellence also
online courses maybe you don’t have to go anywhere now the fine folks here at
scaling up H2O are working on scaling up H2O Academy where we have several
courses out right now where you can start to learn and challenge yourself to
become better in that industrial water treatment Arena so again however you
define Excellence normally education is the foundation that all of that is built
so to find out more about that you can go to scalingup h2o.com forward slash Academy and something you might not
think about is something you have right now something that you do each and every
day and of course that is your job are you taking full advantage of your job
and then are you looking at it as a job or are you treating it as the incubator
for your training the incubator for you creating however you define excellence
and how you increase your skill level so think about everything that you do in
your your day today and what are some things that you can do to help enhance
how you do that do you know how every single one of the tests you use actually
work now to think about all of them all at once that might be too intimidating
and maybe you don’t have time for that but maybe you take one of your tests and
you research it and now when you go to run that test you’re thinking about the
reactions that are taking place you’re thinking about all of the items that you
learned in your research and how those are actually coming together in the test
that you are running maybe you’re investigating a piece of equipment that
you’re working on maybe you know what it looks like but you really don’t know how it works so you do some research on that
and now when you’re in front of that piece of equipment you you are now
envisioning all the things that are happening inside of that and when you
treat your job like that you are treating your job to a higher level and
you are making sure you’re not just doing the what and the how of your job
your understanding the why and folks let me warn you this prescription comes with
a warning level because the why behind everything that you do is addictive and
I promise if you start learning the why behind all these things that you have to
do it will lead you to have to get to the next why and you will just see your
entire job in a totally different light and that is how I treat my job how do I
learn more why how do I talk to people to learn learn more why what’s the why I
don’t know and then here’s the big one what’s the why I don’t know I don’t know
that’s a huge one how do I figure out what I don’t know I don’t know and I
tell you that drives me each and every day to do everything I have just talked
about well of course something else you can do to increase the why is listen to this
podcast we’ve got this podcast that comes to you each and every week about this very industry and it’s my hope as
you listen to all of the content that we have available to you you are increasing
your why you’re increasing your curiosity you’re increasing how you
define excellence in this industry and to help you even more with that here is
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 monomers the building blocks of polymers
what is a monomer what are the various forms of monomers used in industrial
water treatment what functionality can each of these monomers bring
other synergies between them how are monomers used to make polymers
when monomers are combined to form polymers do all the polymers in a batch had the exact same discrete composition
of monomers or is the batch of polymer described more as an average of What the molecules are estimated to be when
examined together how can supply chain shortages of a monomer impact industrial water
treatment 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 learned to
social media and tag it with hashtag water table 23 and hashtag scalingup H2O
I look forward to learning more from you Nation tomorrow we are celebrating the
global 6K of course that is May 20th this is where people all around the
world are coming together wherever they are to bring awareness to the global
Water Crisis we know that not everybody has access to clean drinking water and
we want people to know that and we want people to help with that cause and the
first thing that we have to do is educate people that there is an issue
out there and the first thing we’re going to do is educate people why it’s a 6K and not a 5k it’s a 6K because the
average person that does not have access to clean drinking water has to walk six
kilometers to go and retrieve that water and this is normally water that most
people would not want to drink and because there’s so much time spent going
to get and bring back water people are not in school people are on dangerous
roads and getting captured in human trafficking and all these horrible things that you can imagine they are
putting themselves at risk for so team World Vision through your donation of
just fifty dollars and that’s what the entry is into the global 6K will bring
clean drinking water to one individual now you’re probably saying Trace I don’t
have time that’s tomorrow that is hours away but you do now true you are not
going to get the packet with the t-shirt and all of that stuff but you can still get behind this cause and if you want to
learn more about this you can go go to scalingup h2o.com forward slash 6K there
is still time and folks let me tell you to get together with your team members
to get together with your neighbors and just bring education to the global Water
Crisis to other people that is empowering because now it allows people
to realize that there is something that is very wrong in our world today and we
can all do something about it it’s not something we are helpless in it is something that we can very much help
with and together we can put an end to the global Water Crisis Nation I hope
you all have a great week and I’ll have a brand new episode for you next Friday
thank you scale it up Nation you have heard from
people that have taken the cwt practice exam course to help solidify their
ability to feel confident to sign up for the certified water technologist
examination and it is my call to action for all of you that you define what
Excellence is in our industry and you find yourself challenging yourself to
get your certification within this industry now I know that that is very
intimidating and you have to know so much information in order to
successfully pass the certified water technologist examination I am here to
help build your confidence around what you already know I am here to ensure
that you confidently schedule the exam because I get guarantee you will never
pass the exam if you never schedule to take it I’ve got two ways for you to get
that confidence that we are talking about and both of those ways start with
you going to scaling up h2o.com forward slash cwt prep once again that’s
scalingup h2o.com forward slash cwt prep you will see there is a free
course that has me taking you through the entire certification handbook that
awt gives to you to learn how to get your certified water technologist
designation it’s my hope that you take this free gift from me to you to help
build your confidence and after taking this course you will know everything that you need to do do in order to get
your cwt designation there is also an additional course there that you can
take and this gives you a practice exam to see how you are as far as questions
that you could see similar questions on the examination after you take that 100
question practice exam you will then see a video for each one of those questions
of me teaching you how I derive the correct answer you will see tips and
tricks on how to take standardized exams and you will also find reference
material if there is a topic that you do not know enough about I pinpoint where
you can go to learn more so many people are gaining confidence by buy these two
courses I urge you to find out more to see if these courses are right for you
and to do that go to scalingup h2o.com forward slash cwt prep