The following transcript is provided by YouTube, mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode click HERE.
[Music] foreign
Nation I get people asking me all the time how do I read so much as busy as I
am and the secret is a lot of my reading people do for me that’s right I use
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[Music] welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast
I’m your host Trace Blackmore and folks I love hosting this podcast I love
letting you know of different events that I’m going to be at in the hopes
that I get to meet you I love it when people come up and let me know that this
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those notes that people just say you know what keep up the good work because
sometimes like this I’m up late at night of course these podcasts are
pre-recorded and I would much rather be in bed sometimes after a long hard day
of work but I know that you out there in the scaled up Nation you want a brand
new episode each and every Friday so it makes it worthwhile because I know you
appreciate the effort of not only me staying up late tonight to give you this
recording this podcast but also all the hard work that my team puts in to not
only bring you the podcast but folks it is just amazing all the resources that
have been created around the brand scaling up H2O we of course have a
website that is second to none when it comes to researching what we do as
industrial water Traders we have a transcript of each and every podcast and
we are well over 300 podcasts so if you search for a particular topic you’re
going to get so much information on Experts about that topic and information
that they have shared with us it truly is amazing of all of the data that we
have collected over the years on the scaling up H2O podcast but it does not
stop there because we’ve also started scaling up H2O Academy and this is where
myself and other team members are creating courses for you to take on your
own designated time when you want to absorb these courses and take these
courses I think the last time I checked there was like 110 different courses
that are in the works that we are trying to make of course we’re trying to get new courses on our platform each and
every month and so many people have taken advantage of that and learn more about this amazing industry so many
people have used this to bolster their confidence and obtained their certified
water technologist designation so you can find out all of the nice new things
that we are doing by going on scaling up h2o.com and looking all over the website
maybe you go over to scaling up Academy and see all the things that we have there maybe you go to our Legion Nowa
page which is scaling up h2o.com forward slash Legionella and see all of the resources that we put together that so
many people last month enjoyed going through or maybe you just want to search
a topic you want to learn more about by putting in the search bar and then you
are able to listen to the guests that we’ve had on the podcast and all of the different supplemental information that
we’ve been able to put on that particular topic once again all that is at your fingertips by going to scaling
up h2o.com now something else that’s going to be on scalingup h2o.com is if you go
over to our events page you’re going to see each and every event that I am getting ready to mention and also all
the ones that I have not because let’s face it there are a lot of events that happen and how the heck do you keep up
with with all of them well that’s what my team has done for you we’ve got everything on our events page just like
the National Association of water treatment companies as having their water Summit right here in my hometown
in Atlanta Georgia September 11th through 13th so if you want to find out
more about that you know where to go same place to go to find out more about the water Pro conference taking place in
Aurora Colorado September 25th through 27th this is put on by the national
Rural Water Association and then the 2023 executive management
conference is taking place on October 22nd through 25th in Coronado California
this is hosted by the Association of Metropolitan water agencies and this is
a premier opportunity to network with peers and hear the latest thinking on water utility management practices
lastly I will mention that once again I have the amazing honor of being the
keynote speaker for the International Water conference taking place November 12th through 16th in San Antonio Texas
now the International Water conference presents the latest in scientific
advances and practical applications in the field and cutting across a wide
range of Industries Technologies and functional areas as the preeminent
International technical Forum in the field the International Water conference brings together end users researchers
practicing Engineers managers Educators suppliers and contractors it is
dedicated to advancing new developments in the treatment use and reuse of water
for industrial and other engineering purposes we’re of course going to have a
lot more about the International Water conference and all the other items that I mentioned by going to scalingup
h2o.com and navigate over to our events page now for those of you that are going
to be at the International Water conference I hope you take a front row seat to my keynote speech and I can’t
wait to talk to you after I finish my keynote speech I’m sure I’m going to be wiping a little bit of sweat off my brow
of course getting something like that accomplished is always fun so thanks for
the fine folks over at the International Water conference for helping me out with
that and getting to meet so many new scaling up Nation members
skill nomination each and every week our friend James McDonald is trying to get
us to learn just a little bit more about the chemistries that allow us to do what
we do in industrial water treatment here’s James 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
morphiline and neutralizing Amine what does this mean neutralizing a mean
why is a morphylline considered a neutralizing amine what is its neutralizing capacity
what’s the chemical formula how does morphiline compare to other neutralizing amines such as
cyclohexylamine and deae how does morphyline’s distribution ratio
compare to other amines and why does this matter should morpholine be used in low
pressure boilers where should morphine be fed into a boiler system
could the use of the steam impact where you would recommend feeding the Amine
are there limitations on how much morpholine you can feed in some applications
remember knowledge is power and taking the time to learn more about water chemistry each week will help make you a
force to be reckoned with be sure to post what you learn to social media and tag it with hashtag water
table23 and hashtag scalingup H2O I look forward to learning more from you
well thank you James Nation our next guest is going to be a fun interview he’s a great friend of mine I know you
are going to enjoy it here is that interview [Music]
today my lab partner is Steve Suzanne of Kim treat Steve welcome to the scaling
up H2O podcast hello thank you glad to be here yeah we were just talking earlier I feel like you’ve been on this
show before I know we talk about this show all the time you give me ideas all the time in my mind you have been like a
six-time guest yeah haven’t had the opportunity to be here but I’m glad to be here now we are
fixing that horrible travesty right now as we speak we are Steve for uh the members of the
scaling up nation that have not had the privilege of meeting you can you let us know a little bit about Steve Suzanne
yeah I grew up in Western New York um outside Rochester joined the Navy right out of high school I did 12 Years
mainly on aircraft carriers down in the boiler rooms and working on the mechanical systems
and I then separated and went into boiler maintenance for Goodrich
Corporation in Jacksonville Florida where your favorite guest Mark Lewis was
my water treater and then when they laid off because they had lost a large contract I was looking for work so I
called Mark I said hey where are all the boilers in town and uh he says I’m getting ready to go into a meeting I’ll
call you back and he says uh Tom wants to talk to you can you be here at 4 30. so I went to Premier water and
interviewed with Tom and Mark and walked away with a job offer so that’s what got me into what we like to call civilian
water treatment because Navy water treatment is different than civilian water treatment so same uh lines but
it’s definitely a little bit different and then I bounced around through a couple other companies and landed here
in chemtrie well we are glad to have you today and you know it’s funny we get some of the
best water treaters in our industry that come from the Navy so one thank you for
your service and once again thanks for proving that the military prepares
future water Traders and the civilian side very well they do some of the guys
that I talked to that I was in the Navy with they say you’re still using boiler water feed water School knowledge and
I’m like yes I am so in the Navy uh mostly high pressure and you’re using
congruent phosphate tell us about those programs yep we’re using the phosphate and hydrazine you’re in the middle of
the ocean there’s not a lot of fresh water so we have to convert the salt water to fresh water before we can put
it in the boilers so we do that through the evaporation process where we run the water through a vacuum and it boils at
169 degrees so we gather all the mist and then recondense it put it in the
fresh water tanks and that’s what we used to feed the boilers mainly but it’s also the drinking water and shower water
for the ship which is easier Navy water treatment or civilian water treatment
I want to say Navy water treatment because situations don’t change we don’t run
into all kinds of different systems like we have here in the civilian world
and we’re going to talk a little bit about some of the civilian problems that you’ve been able to overcome a little
bit later today we’re going to get deep into troubleshooting but before we do you’ve got a particular hobby that we
share an interest in do you mind telling the nation what you do on most your weekends
uh I am in the competitive barbecue circuit I compete in the North Carolina
Port Council and the Kansas City Barbecue Society events that are here locally in North Carolina
and you have done some very impressive barbecues some pictures that you’ve
shared with our Mastermind group I want to come through the phone and be able to
sample some of those unfortunately that technology hasn’t been invented yet but you you’ve won some prizes throughout
the way we have we haven’t uh taken first place yet our team but we’ve come
in enough that for the North Carolina Port Council we have qualified for the
last week into September for the state championship here in North Carolina for Whole Hog
that’s impressive and as you know maybe our audience doesn’t know I’m a
certified judge with the Georgia Barbecue association you’re a Kansas City judge very different in judging
from what I understand as a Kansas City Barbecue judge you have to rank the
barbecue that’s in front of you to everything you’ve ever sampled in all
time is that correct yes I don’t know how you do that because I couldn’t remember all of that Georgia barbecue
association’s a little bit easier we normally have six seven eight boxes in
front of us that we have to judge but we’re only judging the boxes against the
boxes that are on the table so they can all be horrible but which is the best of
the horrible and then that one would get my best score right yeah with KCBS judging we get six
boxes maximum per table and then the boxes will come around and you will
judge on appearance and then everybody will take a sample after the appearance
and then you will taste it and you will do a taste and texture and Mark that down but you it’s all one at a time you
start with the first box give it all its numbers then you move to the next box you may think the first or second box is
the best barbecue you’ve ever ate but it could be the last box that comes around it’s the best barbecue you ever ate so
there’s a lot of higher scores that can be given to the first box because yeah I
think this is great but then you get to the last box oh my God this one’s even better but you can’t go any higher
there’s a big competition here in Georgia called the Big Pig Jig and I’ve
always wanted to go a little bit early to that because that’s where they offer the Kansas City judging course I’ve just
never been able to find time to do it make time make time it is great I’ve
been through the Kansas City judging course twice now and I’ve always picked
something new up because I know in Georgia you guys aren’t allowed to put Greenery in the box that you will get
disqualified if you have garnish in the box that’s correct but with Kansas City it’s encouraged but it’s not required
and then it can only be a certain kind of greenery it can’t be the red leaf
lettuce is one of the ones that can’t be in the box so if you get a box and it’s
got that red leaf lettuce in it you have to disqualify it because it’s the wrong garnish wow but if it doesn’t have
anything in it you can’t judge it down because the team didn’t put it in there because it’s not required
so that’s the same rules even though we don’t do garnish but if one if one team had sauce and the other team didn’t they
say you can’t judge what’s not in the box right you can only judge what’s in the box there we go we could talk about
barbecue all day but uh this is a water treatment show so we’re going to go
ahead and move to another topic and I thought we could talk about where you and I met which was the association of
water Technologies yes I want to believe it was 2006 in
Charlotte at the convention that sounds right so I’m curious everybody has their
own awt experience how did you get involved in awt and now you’re involved
in leadership how did that happen I was working for Premier water with Mark Lewis and he talked to me about the
awt he took me to the convention I had just earned my cwt earlier that year and
as soon as Mark introduced me to Angela she says you’re a cwt welcome to the certification committee no choice you’re
on it no choice there was I was voluntold to be out that I was going to be on the certification committee and I
had served on the certification committee up until 2019 when I moved to chemtrie but then the awt did this
wonderful thing and allowed me to join as an individual member and as soon as I hit submit and sent my
uh individual application off within five minutes I had an email from Angela welcome back to the certification
committee well let’s talk a little bit about that last year the awt uh went ahead and
wrote into their policies that individuals not just companies can join
the awt tell us about how that affected you and what exactly that is
uh when I went to chemtrie chemtrie to such a large corporation that they were not allowed to be a member of the awt
because awt is targeting small companies and being a cwt it very much limited my
access to the source of Education pieces that the awt offers so I was no longer
had access to the webinars or to the online quizzes so that I could earn CEUs
so it was beginning to be very difficult to get the CEUs required to retain my
cwt so once I was told about this individual membership I joined right
away because I instantly got back all the access that I had lost
so if somebody’s listing out there and they’re curious about finding out more about individual membership you can go to awt.org and I’m sure on their web
page you can read all about it yes so you are on the certification
committee tell us a little bit about what that committee does and specifically what you do on that
committee we actually write the quizzes that you can take to earn CEUs towards
your cwt renewal we review applications we go all the applications that come in
through awt to become a certified water technologist go through the committee
Angela randomly selects one person on the committee and sends all the information to them
and we go through it we call contacts we call references we read over the
paperwork to make sure that all of the boxes are checked properly and then we return a letter to Angela that says we
approve this person to be a cwt I’ve never declined anybody from getting their cwt because once they’ve passed
the test and all the paperwork is correct there’s nothing really else to do it’s yes this is good
what would be one of the things that would allow somebody to want to decline
that application if there was a blatant forgery on some of the paperwork that comes in so you’re
basically fact checking to make sure everything that came in was true and correct yes yes fact Checkers I like
that term [Laughter] so with that there’s so many
organizations out there like the awt there are a lot of people that listen to this podcast different types of water
treatment professionals but for those people that are out there in the scaling up nation that do the same type of water
treatment that you and I do the cwt is at the top of the certifications that
you can get to prove to everybody that sees those three initials beside your
name that you have really accomplished something great within this industry
anything you want to say to the audience to motivate people to get their cwt
I’ve actually seeded in a couple of bid specs where it’s written in there that you have to be a cwt or there at least
has to be a cwt within the company that’s going to oversee the account so it has opened a lot of doors for me when
I was with smaller companies anyway I don’t see it a lot with the large companies that I deal with with chemtrie
but a lot of the smaller companies I have seen it written into their bid spec that cwt is a required protocol for for
them to get the business I’ve heard that and seen that more and more so if you’re out there and you
haven’t seen that most likely it is coming very soon yes
well let’s talk about business so you have been an industrial water Trader for
how long would you say I moved into the industrial water treatment World in 2003
okay so 20 years as an industrial water treater I’ve seen the military side the
civilian side and as you mentioned the civilian side uh you can see the same
piece of equipment 20 times and it’s probably going to be installed 20 different ways so all sorts of variables
in our world and I thought we could shift gears just slightly and talk about
troubleshooting because you had brought something to The Mastermind that was really fun to ask questions about and
you were getting some advice on and then you were going out and trying to see how you could isolate a leak that was in a
system we’re not just talking about a little drip set us up what kind of leak are we talking about
we have a very large customer with a large closed loop chill water closed
loop that is 10 million gallons system volume and we were losing at a rate of
about 100 to 110 gallons per minute of water loss that’s a leak that is a leak
yes so it was a big leak and we didn’t know what happened we didn’t understand
where it was going they actually presented the problem to me on a Tuesday morning
and it just happened to be that our Mastermind call is Tuesday afternoons so
that became what my problem was that day and it was a fun one to dive into and if
I recall I think the first one was if you had to continue to treat this loop with the leak how much I think you were
treating with molybdenum how much you were actually going to have to put into the system and we did some quick napkin
math there and uh uh we were talking totes totes almost tanker truck so that wasn’t
an option no it was not it was not it was a very expensive Endeavor for this
leak so there are many people out there that haven’t experienced the The Mastermind since you just mentioned you
brought this to the group tell us a little bit about how you brought it to the group and then how we processed it
brought it to the call I actually started the conversation in uh we used the app called GroupMe and we have two
different groups that we’re part of there’s one group that’s everybody that’s in the Mastermind where if we want to talk to a lot more people but
then we have that’s just our group where we can throw some questions out there and get a response pretty quick if a
problem arises that’s outside of our normal one hour a week meeting time so I
actually threw it out in our group uh GroupMe I got some answers pretty quick one of the uh responses that sticks out
in my head was uh is there any unexpected Lakes forming Lake Suzanne
yeah yeah we didn’t have any lakes so it was interesting for sure
so we gave you some advice uh you had some ideas that you were already going to try we gave you some more I think you
took all of that information and then your new Endeavor was how do you find
this leak so talk us through that we met the customer and I and we sat
down and they explained that they had a pressure spike in in the overnight hours
and it had gone up well above normal operating range in the system and once
the pressure spike came down the makeup meter uh started spinning so they said
we don’t know where it is yet we need your help so instantly I thought normally the weakest points within the
closed systems are Air Handlers I have 18 buildings that we collect air handler
condensate from and it is pumped back to one of the main Chiller plants and used his cooling tower makeup it’s free water
so that water is pure so I started testing for molybdenum in that tank that
it all comes back to when I found that I didn’t have any molybdenum in that system I instantly eliminated all of the
air handlers in those 18 buildings so we did that we kept an eye out for
any geysers because a lot of this piping’s underground we didn’t have any geysers and the customer has a building
automation system called Pi Pi and they have done their due diligence and they
have a lot more information in that than I have seen at other customers every
building has a flow meter for chill water supply chill water return going in
and out of that building so what we did is we took all of the buildings that had
greater than 50 percent loss between the supply and return and put those in a
list well then we started looking at that list and there were several buildings that had 20 gallons per minute
in and eight gallons per minute out we’re losing over 100 gallons per minute so we kind of put those buildings to the
side and we focused on buildings that had more than 100 gallons per minute flow
going in with a 50 reduction and we narrowed it down to three buildings so
we sent people out and I actually went out the it’s the one of the first buildings that I went to just because
where I was on their site it was the first building that I came to so I met a couple of mechanics there and
we went in and we just started looking and listening we went to all of the air handler rooms and we really didn’t see
anything really didn’t hear anything Air Handlers do have there’s some loudness in there so we started at the top of the
building and worked our way down and when we got to the basement we there was a foot of water in the basement and I
tested it because I had the Chemex kit for molybdenum and I snapped off an
ampule and it instantly changed colors I said this is our problem right here and
there was an open pipe that was just dumping to the ground so we went back and started tracing this
pipe back and back and back and up in the penthouse there was a relief field that had lifted it didn’t reset and we
had water in the basement because it was flowing water faster into the basement
than the sump pumps could pump out so that worked out to be where our problem
lied is in that building the relief valve didn’t reset so they got a couple
of hammers and tapped on it and it finally reset and in the basement the water stopped coming out and it’s almost
instantly the water meter stopped turning so from the time you had the pressure
spike to the time you found and corrected the problem what was the elapsed time
about five days because this customer site is huge there’s 26 miles of piping
underground so we had a lot of places to look in five days how much water was wasted
over a million gallons how valuable were you being able to find
where that problem was very valuable I went through two boxes
of chemets looking for that molybdenum so it was really helpful because we could a couple places they had thought
you know maybe it’s this one because this is one of the older buildings and if it’s an air handler it’s probably in
here and it turned out that it wasn’t so having the chemets and being able to
test for molybdenum rather quickly instead of having to do the powder pillow test and wait the the three
minutes worked out well yeah that’s great advice if you’re doing a whole bunch of testing to be able to
do or use those ampoules I mean instantly you were able to get a result that that’s pretty smart I wasn’t
looking for a specific number I was just looking for the presence of it so yeah it came in handy the kit that I use uh
does 20 PPM to 200 PPM so we run 150 normally in the system
so as soon as it changed color I knew okay this is it’s here or if it doesn’t
change color okay it’s not here the analytics that you had already on
the system are fantastic and wouldn’t it be great if that was on every single
system unfortunately a lot of times the only way we find a leak is we’re testing
for nitride or molyb date it’s there one month we come back the next month and
it’s not there anymore so I’m curious let’s say we don’t have a water meter
let’s say we don’t have any of the analytics that you had available to you
but we had let’s say a thousand nitrite in the system or let’s say a hundred and
something molyb date in the system and we test it 30 days later and it’s all
gone what can we do to try to figure out what’s going on in that system
if it all disappears that quick there is definitely a problem
nine times out of ten it’s a leak sometimes it could be microbiological so I would run a full analysis not just
the specific chemistry want to run a full analysis compare it to the last full analysis you
ran what has changed what is it as compared to what the makeup water is and
then start digging for leaks there’s going to be a Telltale sign somewhere
sometimes it takes a while to show its head we had a church that had a leak we
could not find the leak we had to install a water meter to prove that there was a leak and boy was there a
leak that thing was spinning off the hinges I don’t know if water meters have hinges but if they did those things
would be spinning and so we proved that there was a pretty good leak there nobody could find it and nobody was
really concerned about it as much as we were and fast forward I don’t know maybe
a month to three months there was a sinkhole in the parking lot there was the leak
there was the leak sinkholes happen so no no Lake Suzanne but uh definitely
all of the dirt that was allowing the parking lot to be a parking lot was all
washed away they of course uh dug that out they were surprised that that happened and then they instantly saw the
leak there uh found some other issues too so they went ahead and did some other repair work and now that’s been a
pretty tight system I don’t know about you Steve but isn’t it a good idea to have a water meter on every closed
system it is it is I enjoy customers that like
data and a water meter is just another data point that helps them but it helps
us also and as you mentioned data is only important if you track it and maybe
you’ve got a fancy system that’s doing it in real time but most of the time you’ve got to go to the water meter and
you write those numbers down on your field service report and now you’ve got a trend and with a lot of the the
service reporting systems that we’re all using now you can very easily track or or line graph out that Trend and you can
see very easily and you can demonstrate to the customer when exactly that leak
started so I’m a proponent that if you’re going to have data do something
with that data and put it into some sort of a system so you can use it to help you in times like that
yes we actually incorporate all of our water meter data into annual business
reviews some of the larger customers we actually do quarterly business reviews and a lot of them now are starting to
ask for the water meter data because we water meters have helped me find more
than just this one problem that we’re discussing today so you were looking for maleb dates and
I really liked how you said I don’t have time to test you know all of these sites and doing the regular my dad would call
that the Betty Crocker method and you just decided to have the all-in-one ampoules I think I think that’s a great
troubleshooting tip to do a lot in a in a hurry with that if you weren’t looking
for molyb date and we’ll just talk about just a regular closed loop system what
are some other things you can look for in other bodies of water other sources of water to try to determine if you have
a leak or not we actually use different dies for different systems hot water is normally
red chill Waters normally blue so when you pull your sample you can tell if the
die is not the same color it was last month there’s been a change that’s a great tip I know there’s some
fluorescent dyes out there and they are they’re able to fluoresce at parts per
billion of uh concentration so very very slightly and you can put a what is it
not to ultra fluorescent what am I ultraviolet that’s ultraviolet black light yeah black light and it will
fluoresce and you’re right nine tons out of ten when we’re helping a customer
find that and we put a fluorescent dye in we go straight for the pop-off valves
and we will see that there is a leak coming out of there now you can’t see it with a naked eye but as soon as you put
the black light on there you can see it fluoresce and normally what happens is
somebody will drain the system a little bit and it will distort through vacuum
the little ball that sits in there and now the ball isn’t a ball anymore it’s got a crease in it and that’s normally
where the water is leaking out what’s your experience mine nine times out of
ten that’s where you’re going to find the leak yes a lot of relief valve have been problems I’ve seen some now in some
older piping systems that are underground some of the steel wasn’t made proper and I’ve actually seen a
couple of pipes corrode from the outside in because they were improperly treated
before they were put in the ground so just the rain water that’s in the ground
and the natural moisture that’s in the dirt was corroding the pipe from the
outside in and a leak was developed that way so that’s that’s something to be mindful of
if you have a system that was built when we had all this bad piping that was put in the ground
if I recall a rash of that bad piping came over from another country in the
early 2000s and that was right around the molyb date shortage and I don’t think they were using the proper amount
of molybden day to treat the piping if if I recall what was going on there but
here in Atlanta we had a lot of building between like uh 2000 to 2010 and we have
been called in on so many systems because water treatment’s not working well when you see the outside of the
pipe rusting that’s not a water treatment problem exactly but that has happened so many times so be on the
lookout if you’ve got a building that was built within that time yeah not only the building but the
piping that gets the water to the building good point well Steve any other troubleshooting tips if somebody thinks
they have a leak that you want to leave people with know your systems take the time to
understand your systems um what the Navy taught me is uh I go
into a customer and I will draw the system out I will make a paper drawing just a quick
sketch so that I can I know where relief valves are I know where water meters are
I know my points of chemical injection I know this water is going from this room to this room to that room and it it
really helps knowing where the water is going so that if there is a leak you know
where to look well speaking of advice you now have an open mic to the entire scaling up Nation
for about 20 000 listeners strong so you’ve got all these water treaters out
there what advice what words of wisdom do you want to give what’s ticking you off that
a lot of people do you have an open mic what do you want to say to the scale it up Nation build relationships with your customers
if I had not had the great relationship that I had with this customer I think it
could have gone wrong the relationship opened up a very good line of communication I did not get it’s
the water treater’s fault that we’re having this problem it doesn’t fall back to it’s always the water treatment
problem with some of my customers because I have developed a relationship
with them and they can call me they can call me 24 hours a day they know that they normally don’t but they know that
they can and building these relationships has really helped me along
my career that’s fantastic advice Steve if you had a leak on this same system do you think
you could find it faster now we would be able to find it faster if it leaks on this system now just because we went
through this protocol as a team and it will be easier to find
it now well as you know I do lightning round questions with all of my guests so you
are now in the hot seat are you strapped in and ready to take the lightning round
all right hang on let me tighten my belts all right let’s here we go first
question if you could go back in time and speak with yourself on your first
day as a water treater what advice would you give yourself
don’t ever be the smartest person in the room if you are the smartest person in
the room you are in the wrong room I am always learning
I will say that is the most exciting thing about this job if you do it right
you should never be bored you never see the same thing twice if you are washing rinsing and repeating you are not doing
this job correctly because each and every day you should learn something new so I love that answer thank you for that
what are the last few books that you’ve read well we mentioned the first one earlier it was Ted Talks by Chris Anderson which
was assigned through the masterminds and it helped me with my TED Talk and it
helped me with my daughter’s wedding speechless toast so that that really
helped another book that I recently read was who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson very interesting it’s a shorter
book very quick read but it helps describe personalities and I was able to
pick out all of the personalities that were in the book with people that are in my life currently at work and at home
and it was kind of interesting how that all tied together and then another one
of my hobbies that I am currently reading is the fast track to your extra class ham radio license by Michael
Burnett dabble in the ham radio I’m studying to get my uh my next level of
license class and he re it’s all of the questions there’s a test question Bank
very similar to the way the awt works but he reads all the questions and he
reads all the answers and at the end of a wrong answer you’ll hear a buzzer at
the end of a right answer you’ll hear a bell so as I was taking I used the uh the
previous book when I took my test a couple years ago for my general class license and as I was reading the
questions I could hear the buzzers and the bells going off in my head so it’s
it’s really really nice so I’ve got the paperback book but I also have the
audiobook that I listened to on the road so that one is really helped me in my
personal life so um when they make a movie about Steve Suzanne who do you want playing Steve
this took me a while but I had to go with Clint Eastwood all right because
uh his attitude my attitude are very similar get off my lawn [Laughter]
so kind of a uh what was the uh the El Camino what was uh what was that movie
he did Gran Torino Gran Torino that was it so kind of that attitude uh Clint
Eastwood yes okay got it and then my last question for you Steve uh you now
have the ability to speak with anybody throughout history who’d it be with and why uh I thought long hard about this and I
decided on Jack Daniels because he developed a world known whiskey in a dry
county in Tennessee there was a lot of battles he had to fight and he got through it successfully and I just think
talking to him uh would be a pretty good time well speaking of that answer next year
the awt is going to be in Kentucky and we are thinking about how are we
going to do a bourbon tour so uh we’re going to try to plan that with the Mastermind so you’re going to be an
integral part of that if I haven’t told you that yet and we’re going to see if we can try to answer that question even
more yes yes and I am so looking forward to going to Louisville because I was scheduled to go in 2020 but covet
happened so that was the one that was uh rescheduled and we went virtual and it
just wasn’t the same well Steve thank you so much for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast and really
Opening Our Eyes to some simple things we can do now that will really pay off
in the future thank you for having me Trace it’s a great time
[Music] Steve once again thanks for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast I love having
people that I have known for years on this podcast there’s always such a depth
of questions that we can reach from and we probably could have done an episode for about 10 hours but I know people
probably wouldn’t listen to an episode that long so again thank you for all of
the great information and as you know Steve is a mastermind member and there
are so many things that I have done that I am proud of in my career but I think
the one that I am most proud of is putting together the rising tide
Mastermind we are in our fourth year of having the rising tide Mastermind and
this was an idea that I hoped would work in our industry and it has surpassed my
wildest dreams of success and the reason for that are people just like Steve
people come each and every week and they are making the rising tide Mastermind
their own we’re learning how to process issues together we’re learning how to
share information that we have with other people and we are getting further
faster and having more fun in life by being a member of the rising tide
Mastermind now we just launched our seventh group we’re starting a waiting
list for number eight so I can’t guarantee that the rising tide Mastermind is the right place for you
but if you want to find out you can go to scalinguph2o.com forward slash
Mastermind and you can fill out an application you and I can go through and interview and we can see if it sounds
like a good fit even if the rising tide Mastermind is not the right fit for you
there is a fit that is right for you out there and folks this is a hard job to do
alone not to mention life is hard to do alone so whether it’s this group or
another group it is my hope it is my wish for you that everybody has a group
of directors that they can turn to to help them with whatever they’re going
through to make sure that they’re processing issues properly to make sure that they have a sounding board so they
don’t have to start on square one and they can have the help of others like I
said to get through life further faster and while they’re having more fun and
Steve is definitely not only doing that but helping others in the rising tide
Mastermind do that very thing Nation we’ve got industrial water week coming
up the first full week of October so how are you going to sell celebrate that we
always do something each and every day to celebrate industrial water week and I
love when people post social media pictures of them with their favorite water softener or their favorite boiler
their favorite cooling tower on Fridays a lot of people have a cake with their team or their customers so I have no
doubt we’re going to have a lot of fun next month when we do industrial water
week to find out more about industrial water wheat go to scalinguph2o.com and
we’ll have all of the information of what we’re planning on doing and how you can learn even more about all the things
around industrial water week Nation I hope you have a good rest of your week
and I’ll have a brand new episode for you next Friday in the meantime have a
great week folks
skill combination it’s my hope that whatever you do in the industrial Water Treatment Community that you do it with
excellence and if you’re in the same type of water treatment that I’m in I do that by maintaining my certified water
technologist designation I know so many of you out there are studying for that prestigious certification and I’m here
to help I’ve answered each one of the mock exam questions letting you know the
logic behind how questions are asked and also doing all the math to show you how
to set things up so you can easily find the right answer and make sure you don’t
select one of those sneaky wrong answers go to scalinguph2o.com forward slash cwt
prep again that’s scalingup h2o.com forward slash cwt prep to sign up today
[Music]