The following transcript is provided by YouTube, mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode click HERE.
[Music] foreign [Music]
is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind the term Mastermind was
originally written in Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich before that the
earliest documentation that we have of a mastermind group was Ben Franklin’s
group that he used to meet every single week in a Tavern that he called huntus
Nation there’s no doubt about it life is too short to do it alone and it’s not
very much fun to do it alone in nation I urge you to go to scalingup h2o.com and
find out if the rising tide Mastermind is right for you I’d love to have a 15-minute call with you to explain all
things Rising tide Mastermind and see if this is a group that’s right for you and
you are right for the group go to scalingup h2o.com forward slash Mastermind
please hey folks Trace Blackmore here your host
to the scaling up H2O podcast everybody’s favorite water treatment
podcast and I say that because our numbers are just so amazing now I think
I’ve shared on the show before I really have to watch what our numbers show
because then I start second guessing myself on how I talk and what I talk about and and it can be very interesting
seeing all these ratings that are going on but one of the ones I do look at is how many listeners that we have how many
countries we are in and it is just amazing to me how many people we get to
call brothers and sisters within the scaling up nation and we are in over 94
countries where people are listening to the scaling up H2O podcasts in fact I
was speaking to a gentleman just the other day a from India and he said he
started using the expression in India folks so there we go my my Southern
dialect is influencing around the world I had one person tell me that they
practiced their English by listening to me I don’t know if I would recommend that to anybody but I will tell you it
sure is fun to be able to have a podcast like this and come to you each and every
week with new material now one of the things that I get so much feedback on is
how we are letting you know all the things that are going on within the water treatment industry and of course I
get the credit for that but it is my fine staff that goes out and tries to find everything that is going on within
the water industry so you have one place to find it and there are way more things
than what we talk about about here on the show and that you can find on our
events Page by going to scaling up h2o.com there are just so many things
that touch water within this industry different conventions different Expos
different conferences those are probably all the same thing but there’s a lot of them out there and you don’t have to
keep track of them because the great staff here is helping you with that and
we’re going to talk about some of those things so the first thing I want to talk about is we have industrial water week
coming up this is the sixth time that we have celebrated industrial water week
and you first celebrated industrial water week right here on the scaling up
H2O podcast we have been within the industrial water week celebration agenda
since Inception and we are so proud of that this year we’re going to do the same thing we do every year and we are
going to celebrate with you with a brand new episode each and every day
industrial water week starts October 2nd through October 6th now here’s the
interesting thing a lot of things are going on within that time so it’s very interesting that all these Water Events
coincide with industrial water week well the first one is weftec weftex starts
September 30th and then ends October 4th and that’s going to be right during
industrial water week the other thing is the association of water Technologies conference that takes place October 4th
through 6th and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all these things are
culminating together during industrial water week this is giving us so many
ways to celebrate this year and each and every year more and more people
celebrate industrial water week so if you are going to weftec or if you’re
going to the association of water Technologies conference you have a
reason to celebrate industrial water week and you’re going to be with a lot of your friends where you all can
celebrate in style now if you’re not going to one of those conferences don’t
worry you can celebrate industrial water week on your own and the best way to
celebrate is listening to a brand new episode of scaling up H2O each and every
day that week we’re going to start out with pre-treatment Monday boiler Tuesday
cooling Wednesday waste water Thursday and then we wrap up the week with
careers Friday and we have a lot of things in store for you during this
industrial water week and I cannot wait to share all of that with you one of the
things I get asked all the time was have I ever tried the water cake and I can’t
remember which industrial water week we brought the water cake to people’s attention it’s been around since before
George Washington’s time it was George Washington’s favorite confection I
doesn’t really say a lot about George Washington if you have tried this but it is full of non-perishable items so
there’s no milk there’s no butter there is no what else is in cake eggs it’s
just all kind of flat stuff that you can carry around under a saddle I guess and
he enjoyed pulling that out from under a saddle and eating a little piece of cake and I’ve even heard that one company has
a Rites of Passage all their new people have to sample a water cake so we’ll
have the water cake recipe up on our show notes page everybody always tries that during industrial water week and
there’s so many companies out there that do celebrate with an industrial water treatment cake each and every industrial
water week and I want you to do that this year hopefully we get some more people that are hashtagging their photos
to iww.23 so we can all see those photos
now that’s a little preview of some of the calls to action that I have during industrial water week where we share our
Smiling Faces in front of the equipment of the themes I just mentioned for each
and every day Nation as you know I love collaborating
on this show with our friend James McDonald so here’s something that James
has cooked up to get you in the mood for industrial water week
These Are the Voyages of industrial water week to boldly celebrate with family friends and colleagues
ah ah Helm report it’s a board ship captain
we’re being hailed captain on screen
look at your biological and technological distinctiveness tomorrow your Collective celebration of
industrial water week will adapt to celebrate like us resistance is futile wait a second you’re insisting that we
celebrate industrial water week like you as part of the collective but there are so many ways to celebrate
industrial water week it can be as a group an individual or both resistance is futile lower your Shields celebration
as it has been is over from this time forward you will celebrate like us my name is Captain
Herbert Henry oxendine the 18th and I’ll be darned if I’m gonna let the Borg tell
me how to celebrate industrial water week we can celebrate with you but not
like you nor as you in Communications foreign
[Music]
modulate phaser frequencies randomized Shield harmonics dust off those
anti-borg Photon Torpedoes and give them all we’ve got and turn off that blasted sound
what’s up report Ensign the boar cube is venting
plasma Steam and chilled water sir Shields are gone and power is fluctuating good now hail them
stop right there we’ve just kicked your Collective backsides stand down there’s
room for us all to celebrate industrial water week in our own ways my crew and I will have cake you’re welcome to join us
the point is we decide as individuals as companies as colleagues as friends
if you truly understand what we do it’s industrial water treatment professionals but we do and duster water week gives us
permission to celebrate ourselves and our Noble profession so will you join us at our assimilation
free party we find your terms of Celebration to be acceptable good I was
hoping you could see it our way by the way I see you’re inventing Steam and chilled water over there if you need
help with your industrial Water Systems just let us know they’ve ended communication sir
in the cold darkness of outer space for no one can hear you steam there is one
man who works tirelessly to celebrate what we do that man is Captain H2O best
water treater this side of the Milky Way celebrating a duster water week the First full business week of October each
and every year based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry no rights infringements intended Star Trek and all related marks
logos and characters are solely owned by CBS Studios Inc this fan production is not endorsed by sponsored by nor affiliated with CBS Paramount Pictures
or any other Star Trek franchise and is a non-commercial fan-made Audio Drama intended for recreational use no commercial exhibition or distribution is
permitted no alleged independent rights will be asserted against CBS or Paramount Pictures can’t wait for industrial water week
it’s coming up we’ve got just one month away and folks how did it become
September already it seems like we were just bringing in the New Year now we are
in September and here’s some useless information if you ever wondered where
the word September comes from that is the from the Latin word septim which
means seven and that’s how October was named as well if you were wondering
about that now here is maybe a trivial fact about Trace Blackmore if you’re
playing the scaling up drinking game I don’t know if anybody does that I don’t even know if there is such a thing but
Trace Blackmore took five years of Latin don’t know really what that did for me
actually I will tell you it has helped me out quite a bit in chemistry but hey that’s a good guidance counselor Trace
take a dead language that you will never speak and spend five years studying it I
don’t think that guidance counselor is around any anymore but it has really helped me with chemistry I will say it
really helped me my wife’s a pharmacist and when she was getting her doctor degree of Pharmacy I understood a lot of
things that she was studying just because I understood the root words of Latin so there you go there’s another
fact about Trace Blackmore that is more useless information I don’t know if you
will ever need let’s talk about some more information so I mentioned the association of water Technologies
earlier as I said we are celebrating that smack dab in the middle of industrial water week and now here’s the
cool thing I know a lot of you will be at the association of water Technologies
conference in Grand Rapids Michigan well I’m gonna be there too and this is one
of my favorite times each year because I get to see so many scaling up Nation
members so it’s my hope that if you are there we try to find each other I want
to talk to you I want to hear what you think about this podcast I love hearing about a show ideas and guest ideas we
are over 300 episodes and folks we got abandon this thing together to make sure
that we’re going to have 300 plus more episodes I want to make sure that I always keep this podcast relevant I
always keep this podcast coming to you so you look forward to it each and every week giving you the information that you
want to hear about so we can all raise the bar within the industrial water
treatment industry well speaking of the association of water Technologies they
have really raised the bar in the industrial water treatment industry awt
was founded back in 1985 and you may know this you may not know this but
several water treatment company owners got together after their liability and insurance was dropped they were unable
to get liability insurance they came together they formed the awt for the
specific purpose of getting liability insurance so it was an act of necessity
we can’t have customers if we don’t have a liability insurance but you look at
awt now and they have done so much to
help the industry of course we talk about the certified water technologists
designation on this show quite a bit and you probably know awt has a handful of
awards that they bestow on deserving individuals each and every year now one
of the most prestigious of these Awards is the water technologist of the Year award and I was so humbled to receive
that back in 2020. that was just such an
amazing honor honor to receive that award and I was so thankful up there on
stage it was a virtual stage because that was during the pandemic but receiving that award so thank you for
all the people that helped me receive that award back in 2020 and they do all
sorts of different Awards and one of the newer ones that you may or may not know
about is called The Rising Star Award now this is an award that isn’t given
out every single year it is giving out to individuals that one
are under 40 and have at least 10 years or less of water treatment experience
they’ve demonstrated that the role they play has resulted in positive outcomes
from projects Publications activities and initiatives that demonstrate the
ongoing exceptional service to the association and its members it also has
where people have made contributions and having sustained a positive impact on
the association and all its members uh having demonstrated levels of
responsibility both within the association and in the water treatment industry in general and then finally
recognize for leadership qualities and potential future leadership opportunities within the association of
water Technologies now you might remember back in 2021 we invited laith
Charles who was the very first recipient to receive this Rising Star Award if you
want to listen to that episode 224 and if you’re keeping score that was the
second time that lathe was on the program the first time he was on was episode 62. so today in this interview
we are talking to the 2022 recipient of
the Rising Star Award here’s that interview
my lab partner today is Chelsea farmer of radical polymers welcome Chelsea
howdy how are you I am doing great we’ve known each other for a while yeah
probably about seven years so I of course uh met you years ago and uh
you’ve been with radical polymers since it started and tell us a little bit about what you do there what’s your day
to day so currently my title is product manager but that can involve a very wide
range of responsibilities I help manage the lab so I’ll work on developing new
technologies or doing troubleshooting or technical service projects for our customers I also meet with customers and
I do pricing for our customers so anything in between those responsibilities keeps me on my toes day
to day so what made you want to get into this industry well if I’m honest I never planned on
getting into this industry I don’t think anybody ever does yeah exactly my
parents met actually working for a chemical company 30 years ago or so and so I was kind of
raised in the industry when I was in college I didn’t really know what I was
going to do I majored in chemistry and biology and I got really into and
enjoyed entomology so that’s what I actually ended up going to graduate school for was entomology and that’s
when our family was starting the company and I didn’t really have plans to come
on board but when I finished graduate school I realized this was a really great opportunity to really learn a lot
of new skills and there’s a lot of room for growth and development in this industry now looking back how do you
feel about that decision I’m very happy with that decision it has been a great opportunity for me and I’ve
learned a lot and I’ve done a lot over the past 10 years well one of the things that we’re going
to talk about is you received recently a very prestigious award the association
of water Technologies Rising Star Award can you tell us a little bit about what
that award is and what it means yeah so it’s it’s an award that awt gives to an
individual within the membership somebody who has contributed to the industry over the past few years and it
was a very very great honor to get that award yeah we’ve actually got a picture of you
accepting that award on our show notes page so if the listeners want to check that out we will have that on
scalinguph2o.com yeah and so when I got the award again I grew up in this
industry so I’ve actually been going to awt since I was five years old and I
showed a picture of one of the very first awt meetings that I went to a picture of my dad and I at Universal
Studios when it was in Orlando I loved that so very well deserved and
congratulations from all of us thank you very much I appreciate that so what’s new on the horizon
well so our company we are now part of MFG chemical so my role over the past
years changed which is now the product manager um and so it’s really allowed us to be
able to provide our customers with a wider range of products and then also make it where I can be a little bit more
focused on tech service for our customers and not have to do it quite as
much as I was before which is which is really great so I’ve been doing that for
the past year and I’m excited to keep moving forward with that and helping our customers something we’re all dealing with are
supply chain issues and and your company has been wonderful to my company and finding products that nobody else can
find so thank you for that first of all my question is is is that the new Norm
are things going to return back to where they were before all of these issues
what should we be preparing for I think that one thing we’ve seen a
little bit of really fun is transportation whether that be raw materials coming
from overseas or Transportation just to our customers lead times and costs have gone down a lot which is really good for
everybody involved but I I don’t know if there’s going to be a huge shift in any
of the other ways that we’ve been impacted over the past couple of years or if there is a shift it’s gonna it’s
gonna be a very slow shift back to what it was I had heard that shipping rates were
almost 10 times what they were just a few years ago yes and the travel time as
well was two to three times longer if if you’re lucky so we were having to manage
that significantly I think we’ve all at least gotten better at managing it so
that’s helpful I guess so something we do is we now keep a lot more product on hand we’re tying up more
money unfortunately in inventory but I’m curious how do you deal with that because you’re supplying all of us the
same way that you’re you’re having to you’re just having to keep a little bit more inventory look Beyond maybe if
you’re looking at three months prior before now we’re having to look at six months or a full year what that’s going
to look like and go ahead and put orders in place to kind of down the line to
cover those three months out six months out when before you know you only have to look at a month or two at a time
so you mentioned doing a lot of work in the lab what is your regular day-to-day look like when you’re in the lab
so in the lab what I primarily do now is when we start a new research and
development project that’s a new procedure we haven’t done I’ll help develop that so that the other people
working the lab can then take it on and run all the tests it’s also a lot of
troubleshooting whenever any of our instruments aren’t working I have to kind of go back there and figure out
what the issue is what part we need to order how to fix it so we can keep doing all the tests I don’t know how to
describe this over the podcast but I’m hoping we figure it out because you have the coolest testing apparatus that I
have ever seen can you tell us one what that is why you built it and what it
allows you to do yeah so a couple of years ago we spent a lot of time
um and money developing these pilot systems so there are two pilot systems
that are side by side that have heat exchangers they have pumps to recirculate the water corrosion racks
controls so we can measure PTSA tag polymer we can read conductivity pH and
what it allows us to do is do side-by-side testing with our products and competitive products with synthetic
water and it really allows us to take the testing that we do in the lab which
is smaller scale so that’ll be kind of our basic field testing to see which products work or don’t work and then we
can scale it up and see how it works in a bigger system and be able to introduce
some different variables and also extend the time that we were running these tests and by having that equipment what
do you think that allows you to do than not having that equipment it gives us another big huge data set that we can
show our customers and say here is how our product works here’s this efficacy
this is how it is just as good if not hopefully better than the competitive
product and it’s I think that data is really informative to our customers and
really impactful and it really looks cool yes it looks really cool we love to show
it off definitely a cool factor with that well you mentioned tag polymers and we’ve done several episodes on tag
polymers uh I got the pleasure of working with you and your company a couple years back I did a paper on tag
polymers if there’s a listener out there today and they’re not really familiar with what that technology is how would
you explain that so the tagged polymer is a homer that
actually has a fluorescent covalently bond to the polymer so you can trace the
product not just like with how you do with PTSA but you’re actually looking at how much polymer is in your formulation
and it allows the customer to kind of see a couple things if you’re over
feeding under feeding or if there’s an upset in the system which is really
helpful and it’s an additional tool and that water treaters tool kit
something really interesting that I found when I was writing my paper I
looked at a couple different manufacturers polymers and something interesting that you do is you allow for
PTSA to still remain in the product and there’s also a tag on the polymer so you
can see if there’s any change between the two and I thought it was weird because I was seeing a change and as we
continue to do our testing we were seeing iron incursion into the system and the polymer is doing exactly what it
needed to do it was going to assist with that iron and you’re right it was just another data set to allow us to know
that things were working and the cool thing about that was our PTSA number didn’t change but our demand rate did
change so we were now able to know that and adjust for that iron incursion I
just thought that was the coolest thing that I did over that entire research project yeah and that’s absolutely what we
promote with the tag polymer is using it in conjunction with the PTSA because it really increases the information that
you can get out of the system yeah I think I called you guys I didn’t know what was happening and uh and by
looking at that it was doing exactly their job so speaking of that you probably get a lot of calls where you’re
helping people understand the products better or maybe use them better so how
do you consult with people and make sure that they’re using your products in the best way
every customer system is different everybody is working with different Waters which is one of the great things
because it keeps us busy and on our toes but that’s the first step is always understanding the system that they’re
using and the water chemistry that’s going to be the first step that’s going to help you dictate which product you
recommend at what dosage if it’s a combination of a couple products what are some of the biggest challenges
that you have when you’re developing a new product the challenge is at least on my end
because again I’m doing the kind of research and development for the application side of it so we’ll get a
bunch of samples right because we’re trying out these different ratios these different variations and we want to try
them in a bunch of different settings for different scales at different temperatures so it’s a lot of tests to
run and it’s a lot of data to manage um and so you have to stay very organized or you can get very off track
quickly if you lose data you got to repeat those tests and if you’re using the pilot system that we’ve that custom
one that we have built in our facility those tests are 30 days other tests you know they usually at least take one to
two full days of work so it takes a lot of work to do that a lot of times water treaters will
change something in their products and some people are very good at keeping their data sets to make sure that they
know things are working but I found the majority of water Traders are more
Sensational more anecdotal and that kind of reminds me of my days in chemistry classes where we talk about inference
versus observation so if we were changing from product a to product B
what would be some things that we needed to make sure that we weren’t just thinking it was working well but we were
paying attention to make sure that it was I keep all my retains for a year of anything that we make because I feel
like that’s usually if you’re making something and you you’re using it within a year so I try to keep all of the
samples that we make for a year data wise I keep my data forever it’s keeping lab notebooks or if I’ve
been put it into the computer I keep all of it indefinitely what would you say has been one of the
biggest advances you’ve seen in water treatment since you’ve been in this industry I think that the tag pauler being widely
available from multiple manufacturers is a huge step it’s the same thing that we
saw with PTSA which is now a standard in everybody’s formula for the most you know or a lot of formulas so that’s a
huge shift um and I think it’s really starting to push manufacturers and suppliers to
provide new technology to the customers I remember when PTSA came on the
marketplace and there were so many people that were resistant to it and you’re right today pretty much everybody
has it in their formulation why do you think we’re so slow to accept change in
this industry agree with that that comes to the
members I think that the awt member is actually embraced the change a little bit quicker
I think that what slows it down when it comes to like the PTSA and the tag
polymer is the cost there’s a pretty big upfront cost to our customers because
they’ll have to get the equipment to be able to read it the tag polymers are a little bit more expensive and so it’s an
investment that maybe you know they’re not they don’t have the right fit for it yet but they will maybe have it fit
later and then see the benefit of it and really adopt it do you think it’s the community aspect of the association of
water Technologies where people can see what that return on investment actually
is through talking to their neighbors absolutely yeah I think that that really
helps with the growth of those kinds of Technologies I think that’s huge Community is huge
and there’s so many folks out there that I think oh I can’t talk to somebody they’re a competitor and when you do
that you’re now an island and you’re not sharing information and let’s face it
there’s just too much information out there to learn it all yourself if we’re not talking with each other I don’t know
how we’re ever going to get close to knowing what we need to know agreed yeah I think that you know it’s
again especially in awt it’s very much a community and a family and it allows for
that growth and for everybody to kind of succeed there’s there’s room for everybody out there in this field
so besides awt are there any other organizations that you recommend we
attend HSC and we’ll present papers there sometimes and that’s
the very good property for us are you going to IWC this year that is the plan well I am
looking forward to seeing you I am their keynote speaker oh awesome that’s great I thought so as well now I got to figure
out what I’m going to speak about yeah any ideas oh maybe the rising
temperatures and how that’s going to affect cooling towers and the use of those that’s a good one I’m going to
write that down where do you see the biggest advances if we were to look at a
crystal ball we could see 50 years into the future what do you think water treatment will be like I think that’s that’s what really is
pushing it or what’s going to read is the regulations that we’re
starting to kind of see especially like with the zero p in certain areas so that’s really going to have to force
suppliers and water traders to start thinking of something a little bit different that’s going to suit
everybody’s needs so if I can think back correctly and and this is way before my time we eliminated
Chrome a lot of places have eliminated zinc a lot of places have eliminated
molyb dates and now we’re on to phosphate so we’re just going right on down the road what’s next
oh probably 10 if that’s already one because that’s what we’ve kind of started replacing the zinc with is 10 so
probably gonna have some regulation on that at some point so we have a customer that they’re
having issues where they’re sending out discharge water that’s actually better than what they’re bringing in with the
city but the city’s not giving them what they want back so they’re having to do all this extra stuff just to make the
water better that the city is giving them so they really are cracking down yeah it’s always interesting when we’ll
get customers who are doing 0p or the happy and it’s Europe application and the city water that they’re using has
more phosphate in it than they’re asking them to not discharge and it’s like well
you’re already starting with so much right right and that’s so frustrating for customers but the municipalities are
not very flexible with that no they are not Chelsea we have a lot of people that
are in school they do listen to this podcast and they’re considering a career in water treatment what are some things
that they should consider and is this a good choice I think it’s a great choice despite my
being very resistant to it in the beginning it is a field where there is
endless amount of possibilities there’s so much you can get involved in there’s so many things that you can do whether
that be research and development for products being a water treater out in the field working in a lab doing quality
control there’s so much you can do and it’s not a field that I think is talked
about enough and there’s a lot of open opportunities right now too because we have older Generations that are getting
close to retiring and we need people to fill their shoes so you were a little resistant in in
coming into the water treatment world and you said now that you did you thought it was an amazing decision what
were some of the things that you did to maybe check some boxes to say yes this was a good choice and maybe they can use
those to guide their decisions yeah so I think the biggest thing was
typically in this industry especially if you’re working for the smaller independent water treaters you often get
the opportunity to do a lot of different things so you’re usually not just stuck
doing the same repetitive job because they’re smaller companies and so you’re also going to work in the QC lab also
maybe get a little bit Hands-On with manufacturing because you’re going to kind of be that middle man between that
so you get to experience and see and be Hands-On with a lot of the process
that’s involved in it which I love because I I don’t want to just be doing the same thing day in and day out
that’s what I love about this industry you’re not doing the same thing and it doesn’t get bored and I tell people on
this podcast all the time that if you’re bored you’re doing this job wrong absolutely absolutely Chelsea I get a
lot of questions from people that I work with and they have questions about blending blending is probably one of the
the voodoo magic things that we do in the water treatment industry there are a
couple of books out there that maybe help with that but it’s really experience and trying to figure out what
goes in before something else and I always struggle other than telling people about my actual experience where
they can go to learn more information about blending do you have any resources
I wish there were more resources I agree with that because it is a lot of trial and error the awt website does have a
lot of great papers maybe not specifically on blending but if you look at different product types it’ll give
you a feel of what they’re usually used with and at what ratio so it kind of gives you a good jumping off point but I
agree it is one of those things you just have to learn from your mistakes a lot of the times I was helping another awt member not too
terribly long ago and they were building a product they told me what was in it and everything should have gone in together and then I asked what the order
of addition was and immediately when they told me I could say oh well you’re not putting those things in the right
order and their answer was how do you know that and I knew that because I messed that up too
yeah exactly and that is probably one of the more frustrating parts of the job is
when you’re running into these issues a lot of the stuff you can’t just Google the answers are not there
well that’s a question now so do you think eventually we’ll be able to go to chatgpt and say build me a water
treatment formulation yeah if it gets enough information maybe
but I I think all of us are pretty safe with our jobs at least for the next several years now if we could put Mike
standish’s brain into chat gbt maybe we would be able to get it now I’m all for
that so let me know how we can raise money or find out how to do the Vulcan mine meld or something with that I love
talking to your dad he’s he’s one of my favorite people we met each other on the
board of awt uh probably two decades ago maybe even longer than that and just a
super nice guy and that’s course where where you and I met at awt functions for that so it’s really been cool to to
watch you grow up to watch you become such a formal uh person within this
field and create so much knowledge to help make the field better so I just I
just want to thank you for all that it’s just been amazing to to be able to see thank you very much and I I think going
back to the the discussion we had about Community within awt I absolutely would
not be where I am obviously without my dad and all of his experience and this
opportunity when we started the company but also all the members at awt have
always been very supportive and anytime I’ve wanted to get out there and learn a little bit more they’re always willing
to put me out there and and help us out too specifically me as I’m kind of still
learning I mean there’s I will never be done learning in this industry so it’s a
lot of thanks to everybody out there I love that my dad would always tell me if I thought I knew everything it was the
day I needed to leave yeah absolutely well I’ve got a few lightning round questions for you are
you ready for those yes all right so here we go if you could go back to your
very first day doing the job that you’re doing now and what advice would you give
yourself I would kind of just tell myself
a lot of days are going to be very frustrating you’re going to go into that lab and nothing’s gonna work this
instrument’s just going to have decided it didn’t want to do what it wanted to you’re going to have to repeat a lot of
stuff you’re going to have to put in a lot of time and effort but it’s worth it and you’ll you’ll really enjoy it
because those first year or two was a lot of a lot of hard work
so same question but now we’re going to send you all the way back in time to when you were five years old and you
were at Disney what would you tell that person
what are the last few books that you’ve read I am currently reading a book is called
the liberal redneck It Is by these three comedians Trey Crowder Corey Ryan Forster and Drew Morgan
um and is kind of just their perspective on the south The Good The Bad in between
um it’s very funny very smart and then I think the book before that I was reading
was Davis adares’s new book what are some of your water treatment reference resources that you go to
I do use awt website a lot because they have a lot of the papers that were published I
often refer to Jasper Gill and Rob Ferguson’s papers
sometimes I’ll find them on the awt website or have them send them to me directly there is also the standard
methods of examination of water and wastewater that was the most recent reference I used it was just looking at
on my bookshelf it’s very large thick book that’s very helpful as well do you
have a dog-eared and highlighted I have a couple of methods in there yeah for sure
so when they make a movie about your life who do you want playing Chelsea Emma Watson good answer last question
you now have the ability to speak to anybody throughout history who to be with and why
um who would it be with and why so maybe somebody like Michelle Obama a woman
who’s been in power but maybe a little outshined by their partner and how they
kind of handle that how to kind of make yourself known and stand your own ground and Know Who You Are
what question do you think you would start out with asking her if you had that opportunity how did you do that
how how did you have your sense of self during that or still now
well I want to thank you for coming on the podcast it’s been a pleasure and congratulations on your recent award I’m
sure that there are many more Awards in your future and if somebody wants to
find out more information about you and your company where should they go they can go to
radicalpolymers.com has our product list on there a little more about us as a
company yep then check it out and I also want to thank you you guys for my very
first sponsor to this podcast that’s great well I really appreciate you having me and I’ve enjoyed this very
much it was my pleasure you take care and I’m sure we’re going to be having you back when you get your next award or
the next paper you write thank you [Music]
nation’s some of the most technical conversations I have ever had at the association of water Technologies
conference have been with Chelsea it is amazing all of the technology all of the
different technical questions that she knows about and I’ve just had some great
conversations with her so if you are at the association of water Technologies conference stop by the radical polymers
booth and strike up a technical conversation with Chelsea you will be
very impressed and you’re going to go away knowing a lot more information than you started within that conversation and
I’m a huge fan of radical polymers I’ve known Chelsea’s dad for decades that’s
hard for me to say that and Mike stand is just an incredible guy and he was the
one at an awt conference to say hey Trace why don’t you offer a way for us
to support us being the water treatment vendors of the world to support this podcast he said this is
the podcast is the talk of this convention everybody’s talking about it there are a lot of people here like Mike
that wanted to help support it and Mike said hey you need to figure that out and
I gotta tell you I was so nervous that that was gonna water down the podcast
that really wasn’t a pun that was intended but I think it works and I actually put a podcast out that you I
said Nation what do you think about that and overwhelmingly people said yes this
is an Endeavor that costs money and with the more resources you have the more resources you’re going to be able to
give to us and that’s what we did Mike Stanish was the very first person to
support us and now we’ve been extremely fortunate it seems like the scaling up
H2O podcast is the place to go if somebody wants to get their Wares aware
within the scaling up Nation with all the listeners that that we have strong and we’re just very fortunate that
that’s the case and if you’re wondering we came up with guidelines on how we
decided on who we would allow to be a sponsor and who we wouldn’t so this is
what we decided one if I personally have used the product and I’ve seen that it’s
made a difference in my life as a water treater as a company owner it is definitely fair game but then there’s so
many things out there that I haven’t used so if I see the potential for that
happening that also qualifies so if you’re wondering how we choose who gets
to be a sponsor on this podcast it’s not just a here’s our check we’re going to be on the podcast we want to make sure
that when you tune in to the scaling up H2O podcast that we’ve got real
information for you we’ve got things that we really believe can move the needle in your life with the things
we’re talking about and the people that are helping us sponsor this program all I have to say that all came from radical
polymers having a very nice conversation on the trade show floor at the
association of water Technologies I think that was when we were in Palm Springs but I don’t remember I’m pretty
sure it was but Mike if I’m remembering wrong you can probably let me know so
there it is and folks one of my favorite things to do is bring you this podcast I
asked for this in the top of the show I’m going to ask for it again if you have an idea of what you want to hear on
this show don’t keep that to yourself you can go to our show ideas Page by going to scalingup h2o.com navigating
over to our show ideas page and you’ve got not one but two ways to get that information to us the first way is you
can just simply type that in and that lets us know everything that you want us to know the second and more exciting way
is for you to record your voice asking your question and as you’ve heard before
I A lot of times play that very voice and then I will answer the question and
we use that content to allow us to do our pinks and blues episodes and I have
heard that those are some of our most anticipated shows so we’ve got lots of
those in the future planned out for you but for now I want to introduce my
friend James McDonald with a brand new periodic water table with 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 [Music]
hydrochloric acid or HCL how is hydrochloric acid used in
industrial water treatment how is its dosage controlled how is its concentration measured
is hydrochloric acid ever produced as a byproduct from other industrial water treatment applications
what are recommended safety precautions when handling hydrochloric acid why would hydrochloric acid be used
instead of sulfuric acid and some pH control applications are there material compatibility
concerns when storing pumping and applying hydrochloric acid that you need to know
how will the use of hydrochloric acid impact the level of chlorides in a water system
why is it sometimes called muriatic acid 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 thank you James next week’s episode is a
special episode it is an Insider’s look of some of the things that we do within the rising tide Mastermind I think this
next week episode is going to teach everybody who listens something you
don’t expect to learn but something that you will use in almost every encounter
that you have and it is my hope that next week’s episode inspires you as much
as it has inspired me until then have a great week folks I’ll see you next week
Skyline Nation you asked for it and it is here so many of you are taking the
certified water technologist examination and you’re wanting to get better
information on how to better answer the mock exam now this is the exam that you
get when you sign up for the cwt exam well I have heard your request and I’ve
done exactly that I have recorded a class that has exactly what you’ve been
asking for it is me answering each one of the questions and letting you know
why I chose certain answers and of course everybody wants me to do math and
I do all the math on the mock exam so you can see how to get the right answer
and I hope this is something that will help build your confidence so you can
get your certification you can go is scalingup h2o.com forward slash cwt prep
once again that’s scaling up h2o.com forward slash cwt prep get out there and
get your certification today