The following transcript is provided by YouTube, mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode click HERE.
[Music] foreign [Music]
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[Music]
welcome to scaling up H2O the podcast where we scale upon knowledge so we
don’t scale up our systems I’m Trace Blackmore your host for the scaling up H2O podcast and Nation it is just
delightful for me to see all of the people that are getting more courage to
sign up to take their certified water technologist
examination now we’ve done multiple shows about the certified water
technologist exam and why it’s important to get that designation and there are so
many people out there that I truly believe can pass that examination but
for some reason just need a little bit extra courage to get it scheduled and
that is why I created the cwt practice exam course I wanted people to realize
that they probably knew a lot more than what they thought and they now have a
little bit more courage because they’ve gone through a 100 question practice
exam and not only have they answered it but they have taken a course where I go
through each and every one of those questions and I break down those
questions I teach you how to process each one of those questions through the
knowledge that you have and figure out if you don’t know the answer how do you
figure out things that are not the answer and you know that for sure so
maybe now you have a better opportunity for answering something that you don’t have the knowledge with also I teach you
techniques so you do not pick up things that kind of change your mind about what
you are thinking so I teach you how to read those questions I know everybody out there knows how to read but there is
so much that we can learn from taking standardized exams and how the brain
responds to all the pressure that we put ourselves under when we are in front of
whatever examination that we are testing so knowing those things up front we can
then do things to combat those things and I try to teach you all of those tips
all of those techniques so you can now use your knowledge to get
the best grade possible on the certified water technologist exam now a lot of
people ask me Trace did you answer questions that are on the cwt and the
answer is no I have no way of doing that because I have no idea what the
questions are that are going to be on your particular cwt exam the last time I
heard there were about 5 000 questions in a bank and there is a software program that the testing company uses to
make each examination unique for every person that takes it and they do that by
selecting so many questions from this bank and this Bank contains so many
categories and they create so many questions from each category so you will have a unique test
every time you take it if you decide you want to take it 10 times it’s going to
be a unique test 10 times I don’t know why you would want to do that but if you wanted to do it you can prove that it
will be a unique test so what this practice exam course does is built to
give you confidence and to give you tips on making sure you’re working within
your brain and you’re calming yourself down and you just get to learn some
things with me and I tried to do it in a very fun way and the great thing is is I
have received tremendous feedback from people that have taken the exam and said
that the tips really work and how to focus and focus above all else if you
are taking the practice exam course you’re going to hear me say use your
supplemental information and there are so many people that now have thanked me because they knew where to look for
their supplemental information so so many tips on there and we’re getting great feedback and that’s actually the
premise of this interview today somebody contacted me and said that they had a
really good experience with the cwt practice exam course and he wanted to
come talk to us about it so here is that experience and here’s the interview
[Music] my lab partner today is Justin Reyes of eai water welcome Justin hi Trace thank
you thanks for having me absolutely thanks for coming on the podcast and uh
I always enjoy hanging out with the eai folks you guys are a good group of people love to hear that and it’s mutual
well cool and I know you guys are listening to the podcast and even having
some questions and talking with each other about things that you hear on the podcast I love to hear when companies do
that yeah you know what that’s a that’s a great point we actually used your
first several episodes especially the pinks and blues ones as Technical Training for our team so we would assign
podcast you know 34 let’s say don’t quote me on that and then we would
listen to it and that following Friday or about a week later we would get together and talk about it and answer questions and
um so it’s been great and we’re enjoying it I love that and we’ve got way more pinks and blues on the schedule so I
know everybody everybody loves those they take such a tremendous time to write because I gotta I gotta make sure
that all my information is correct because believe me when it’s not people let me know
I believe you Justin uh let the scale it up Nation know a little bit about Justin
if you don’t mind yeah sounds good I am a degreed mechanical engineer I
graduated out Cal Poly Pomona in Southern California about halfway through getting my degree
I took an internship a technical internship with nalco and
um my current business partner now was the one who interviewed me Chris Polizzi I think the summer before that I had an
internship at Goodrich aerostructures and it was more on the design side and
while I appreciated doing that I thought I wanted to be more on the people side so I took a technical sales internship
with nalco with about two years left enjoyed it and when I graduated I stayed
with uh nalco for about eight years in Southern California in in the institutional Marketplace and water
treatment went through all their training and it was great had a really good experience about 2010 2011 eai or
at that time was economic Alternatives their two owners were looking to either sell or retire
and that time I left nalco and and joined up with Crystal Lizzy and we started phase two of then economic
Alternatives and what has now turned into eai water in uh Southern California in California California so here I am 21
years later in college I didn’t even know what water treatment was and here I am I’m sure a lot of people have a
similar experience you know it’s funny to hear how everybody gets involved in this industry
unless your parents are involved in it you almost fall into it absolutely
uh what else do you do besides water treatment what are what are some Hobbies you have I’m a husband and a father and that’s
probably where I spend most of my time outside of work and my kid my children’s activities are I think my I know my
biggest hobby so my son’s 17 years old he’s a junior in high school now and I and he’s he’s still playing baseball and
I coach him in baseball in little league and from the time he was five to about 12 where coach his coaching and his
skill set became above my pay grade so I enjoy watching him play baseball now and then my daughter she is 10 and
I’m coaching her in flag football which is an up-and-coming sport for for girls Sports and then I do Adventure guides
with her which is um through the YMCA a monthly camping group for fathers and daughters which I’m her and I are
leading and very much involved with so my kids activities and hobbies is my number one hobby so when you’re at work
what would you say your typical day-to-day is like yeah so I’m a regional manager in
California mostly Southern California for EI water and I still have a few clients left that I consult to but my my
biggest role is supporting about eight of our field team members in our core water treatment group so
supporting their development helping them with client scenarios helping them
through their own individual Journeys in this industry and then I’m a member of our leadership
team so helping our company tackle the challenges that come about and and where
we are on the west coast and then how we move forward and how we grow into different Industries and become diverse
and those are the three big things and I really enjoy it recently your team started using the entrepreneurial
operating system what’s your take on that yeah so we started that I think
about nine months ago and we have a coach and it’s our leadership team so it’s six of us and I
love it it gives us a weekly Cadence with a about a 90 minute format we have
a really good coach so we meet once a quarter in person with our coach and
then we talk weekly as a leadership team and through we’ve helped develop our core values for our company we’ve
tackled some real challenges that are that have have come in the past and will continue to come up so I’m really
enjoying it we’ve had several people on the EOS platform talk to us during this podcast
and EOS is something that we’ve been doing for seven eight years at our company and it has nothing to do with
water treatment at all right you insert your company onto that platform and now
everybody is rowing in the same direction everybody knows what the expectations are and it has changed
everything uh within what we do I agree and I’ll tell you on the EOS
group with our leadership team but I also started a small group with our account managers in Southern California
and explain the terminology and the setup with them and what you just said
is really true because I saw that in them and they’re excited about it and they come prepared and we talk about it
and I think especially in our field for the field guys sometimes you feel like
you’re on an island right so with with our account managers in Southern California now we get together once a
week and we have a formal meeting that like I said is about 90 minutes and I think it’s it’s really good for us so
yeah for those of you that are listening in and have no idea what we’re talking about I’ve done several episodes on EOS
uh the one that comes to mind is one of the first ones I did with Mark winter who wrote uh Rocket Fuel and that was an
early one that was episode 38. I know I probably have done half a dozen other ones with EOS folks but uh that’s the
only one that’s coming to mind so that’ll at least get people in the know of what we’re talking about there but again one of the better things I think I
have ever done with our company love it so you are very familiar with
water treatments and you thought hey what could I do next and there was a
particular certification out there that you decided that you wanted to go after
of course we’re talking about the certified water technologist designation so I’m kind of curious what made you
want to get that and then we’ll talk about what the process is that you’re
going through right now to get it actually those three letters behind your name yeah yeah absolutely so when I first
joined eai in 2011 coming from a larger corporation like I said I didn’t know
too much about awt but one of the first things we did in that first six months or so is we joined awt as a company so
then it was about then I learned about the cwt and it so it wasn’t it was in
the back of my mind but nothing that I necessarily uh was jumping at at the time
um but then a few years in we started seeing CW requirements on bids and quite
frankly we didn’t have a person in our organization that had that so Chris belizzi and Brian Irwin from our team
actually both did it within the last five years or so and I knew it was something I wanted to do for myself as
part of our company I think it’s really cool and I think it’s a great designation and so that kind of
motivated me to do it the one thing I struggled with a couple years back when when I knew I wanted to try and get it
was there’s no like organized training and no formal process of preparing to do
it there’s a lot of great materials especially on awt that you can self-pace and prepare for the exam but nothing
formal so when you decided to go get it what did you then do what was your first step
what was the second step and what step are you on now yeah good question so it was the
beginning of 2022 so just over a year ago there was a group of our team members
about four of us that I was leading and we decided to start to prepare as a
group to take the cwt exam and we started to pull together materials and have a a call every week or two and it
was going okay we were all different on different places in our with our experience at technical expertise and we
didn’t really see it through for for a couple of different reasons but at right about that time as we were doing that
ice I had heard through a mastermind group from Michael and Chris belizzi
that you guys had launched the cwt exam Prep course so I was immediately drawn
to that because like I said there was no organized thing I was trying to do it with a small group and I didn’t do it so
great so when I when I saw that come out I jumped on it and it was funny because
you guys it was like your preliminary launch pure yeah I think I signed up for it and paid for it and then it was just
like I was like in in a virtual line almost like waiting for a concert waiting for concert tickets right so I
knew I had that course coming our small group had kind of disbanded for a couple of different reasons so I was just
studying on my own I’ve registered for the exam paid the fees and I and I did
like how you have a full year so when you register for the exam you pay for it and then you have one
year so to schedule the exam with Pearson view system and I liked that because it didn’t feel immediate but
there was still like a due date so I knew I had your exam prep course coming and I studied my own and then probably
October or so Q4 let’s call it I got a link from one of your team members that
was ready so I I jumped on and kind of mapped it and I scheduled my test and I mapped it
out where I thought the prep course would land right before I took the exam so really enjoyed the course took the
exam in the sterile environment of a testing center which is its own
podcast subject walked out was very challenging exam walked out I felt like
it was a coin flip and got the got the paper that said I had passed and
well it was a it was a great feeling it was a really really cool feeling so I passed the exam caught my breath sat
down for a few minutes and then now I’m going through the certification process
which asks for four referrals one of which is a current cwt and then the
other three I took as clients so I’ve gotten three of my four referrals uh
submitted they basically fill out a a questionnaire just confirming I am who I say I am and then they send it into awt
on their own without me seeing it which I think is a good thing so I sent three
one more to go and then um I think my package will be reviewed by a current cwt and hopefully next time we talk I’ll
have my cwt number yeah that’ll be great and then you’ve got to make sure you get
your continuing education units there are so many people that forget to do that and then they have to do the same
process you just described over again yeah yes I would prefer not to take that
exam again so those uh those will be on my calendar and the best time to start is as soon as
you get that number because uh trying to make up it’s not 25 hours it’s 25 units
so uh that could take you a lot more than 25 hours so trying to cram to do
that sometimes that’s not possible so great great advice I’ve heard from people that have done that well you gave
us a lot to unpack so uh one I wanted to explain a little bit to you because I don’t know if I ever did we came out
with the original course early last year and truth be told I have been one of the
awt trainers for well over a decade and I can’t tell you how many times people
have taken uh the mock exam that’s been circulating around and said Trace help
me with this question and I’ve just done it so many times for so many people I
just thought you know what I’m gonna I’m gonna do this so everybody has access to it and awt said that well hey that’s our
exam you really can’t do that and honestly I wasn’t even thinking about that so that’s why we had to put the
brakes on the first one so the course that you actually took we actually
rewrote uh our own mock exam and that’s what you went through and I of course
don’t know what questions you’re going to get on the exam I I’ve heard the pool of questions is over five thousand and
of course there’s so many in each category so when you go to that Pearson VUE testing center you’re going to get a
randomly generated unique test that only you are taking there could be five
people in that room taking the cwt they’re all going to be unique tests because that’s what that program does so
when I got together with my team we talked about how do we make sure we’re
getting a good sampling of all the different areas because after all we don’t know what questions you’re going
to get but we know generally what type of questions so that’s what we tried to put together with that 100 question
practice exam and uh it sounds like through talking with you and some other
people it gave you some good general knowledge that you weren’t surprised
when you actually got the real questions absolutely it did yeah and I enjoyed the
format of it because it kind of felt like this it felt like you were talking to me or you were teaching in a class and I enjoyed how it’s first explained
like how the test works and how the questions are asked and then you’re a grep course actually
gives the 100 questions right so not the full 200 but half of them because the
200 is on the on the exam so I went through and I answered those questions as part of the course and then
the close of the exam or the the final portion is you going through each question like you like you just
described early and then you kind of talk your way through it which I think really helps people and students or
people who are studying for this and then you give resources too that you can download so I enjoyed the course and
I felt well prepared after taking it I will tell you one of the things that we asked for is feedback from the students
that take that class and uh through that feedback we’ve actually added something
new from where you took the course and now we actually have a section after you
take the exam or the practice exam initially and then the you see me
teaching each one of the questions then you’ve got the resources for each one of the questions well what we’ve added is
at the very end you take the exam again and people wanted to know hey how do I do how did I do after all of this and
and what we found is people were going back to the beginning of the course and retaking the exam anyway
so we went ahead and added that feature on and we’re always looking for ways to
improve that would that have helped you that feature it would have yeah and I actually specifically remember that I
got a 70 the first time I took it and that made me a little nervous because I think 75 is passing but it would it
would have been nice to go back and take it to see if I could bump that up a little bit so so we’re always trying to
improve so with that feedback we’re we’re trying to put that back in the course and we’ve also added a few little
tweaks to some of the lessons that we’ve done so far so always trying to keep it new and and learn what uh what we didn’t
know when we first put it together I love it yeah continuous Improvement the one thing I’m not sure how you would
attack this in exam Prep course but I was surprised how little time I had I
thought three hours would be plenty of time but I was within minutes of finishing that exam so and I know people
are different test takers as far as timing but the the time was a real challenge for me that I did not expect
um so for what that’s worth so you know I’ve heard it from from just other people said that they have plenty of
time other people said they they wish they had more time yeah um but let me ask when you actually finish did you
take the advice that I give where you mark all the questions and then you go back once you actually looked at your
mark questions how much time did you have yeah I did um I used the marked
questions and that was very helpful because it helps you prepare for the course I don’t recall how much time I
had to go back at the market questions but I’ll I’ll tell you the moment when I was halfway through is it three hours
long I think it’s four is it four okay so so let’s call it four so at the two
hour mark halfway through on time I had more than half the questions left so halfway through I had 130 questions left
or 120 and that’s when I mini panicked inside my head in the sterile environment and that was the moment
we’re like okay I gotta Kick this up a notch so it was more like time per question for me throughout throughout
the exam was um something I could have prepared for a little bit better but that’s a personal thing like you said
well I will tell you I had the opposite of that I way over prepared because I
was really nervous that I was going to have to face somebody that knew I was taking it and I was going to tell them
no I didn’t pass it and I went in there and I want to say I finished it about an
hour and a half and it was back when it was still on Scantron and I I happened
to glance as I walked up to turn in my paper and one guy was still on the first
page and he wasn’t finished with because it was double-sided Scantron I was like oh my gosh I have blown this exam and
you had to wait like a month for them to score it at that time and I was sure that I had failed it in fact I was
picking dates out when I was going to take it again and I was shocked when I got that letter because taking it so
quickly I I didn’t think I had a shot so I think however you take tests you’re
not going to be comfortable with when you finish yeah yeah great point and man I cannot believe you had to wait a month
uh that would have been tough well it’s tough now where you where you just hit the button and say you’re finished and
you’ve got to walk up to the front and and they print out a paper I’ve heard so many times that the Proctors there will
kind of play with people and say well how do you think you did or or they’ll say well I’m sorry you didn’t pass it no
I’m just kidding you did so I guess that’s how how they have fun they did not do that to me but I think I was
afternoon I was like one of the last people in the testing center and they I think they were ready to go home so they hand me the paper and ushered me out so
now the testing center you mentioned it was very sterile and I think that is something that can be a little shocking
to people yeah so if we could let’s paint that picture for the scaling up
Nation so when they go into one of these Pearson VUE centers they’re not shocked they know what to expect so you show up
on your first day there what do you see yeah I was shocked so that’s a good
point so I had my materials I had a book and my notepad and I had intended to
walk in there and sit and kind of study but when I walked in it’s almost like
you’re going to jury duty it has that like courtroom feel so she immediately
um says you here’s your key or you check in with your license so I didn’t have time to study
um she’s like there’s your locker put everything that’s on you like everything no papers no cell phone no gum no like
uh toothpicks or dental philosophy you know have oral fixation or whatever um so I immediately took everything put
it in the lock cabinet and so I’m there with nothing but this key and then she ushers me and so I would say the advice
I would give is is go uh study in your car or study well before show up with
just your keys and maybe your cell phone and uh be ready to rock and roll when you get into that courtroom environment
that sterile environment because they’re going to Usher you through pretty quickly so they’ve had you put everything in the
locker they then walked you into the area where all the computers were and
once you sat down you were in front of your machine what did you do then
so for me I was fairly prepared so I immediately took the one sheet if they
give you a sheet of paper like blank paper with uh I think it was an erasable
um dry erase marker and a small calculator and then your machine so I immediately
started writing things that were on the front of my brain like that um you know notes or things I had
memorized or equations or just helpful notes that I had to get out of my head real quick so that’s the first thing I did and then I got comfortable with the
um the program and I started going I almost felt like I put in earplugs because the room is silent and all you hear is mouse clicks with a with a bunch
of people around you so that is a strange environment because we’re not usually in that kind of world so I think
I put in my earplugs or some I did something just to help me navigate that that room so
and one of the pieces of advice that I give and I talk about it almost on every
other video is make sure you look at your reference material so tell us about
that yeah so I I dug into that after your exam prep course and I started going
through that it’s on the it’s on the computer in front of you so you got the blank Pad but then on your computer in
the testing program there’s a tab with it’s almost like a book with multiple
tabs of all the all the resource materials so I just went tab by tab making sure I saw everything that was in
there just to get the initial reference and all sorts of equations and basic information charts and stuff you need is
there so I I got familiar with that in a few minutes and then was happy with that and went on with the test taken
I’ve had several people come up to me and complain about a particular question that they had and said how would I ever
know information that’s that obscure and I will say to them what sounds like
they’re just asking you to reference your reference material and they normally almost always say what
reference material oh gosh yeah I could see that and when I and when I did get to those questions because there are
some questions that you know depending where you are in the country or what how you are in this profession there might
be some things you’ve never seen before so yeah that’s great that’s a great idea great advice first thing you do is when
you see one of those questions bounce into the resource material see if there’s anything that could help you and there are a few opportunities to get
quote unquote easy answers from from the reference material so did you have the opportunity to use the
facilities while you were taking the test I did and it’s funny you say that because remember I I thought I had more
time so I took a bathroom break I took my time taking a bathroom break using the
facilities took a deep a couple deep breaths walked back in and it was after that when I had that moment halfway through where I had more than halfway of
the questions done so you do get that opportunity they sign you in and sign you out like with your hand print I
think handprint or fingerprint so it’s very regimented but yeah you can you can do that if you choose so I would just
say for us slow test takers be careful and that time keeps ticking even though
you’re not in front of your machine and they warn you of that yeah they say you’re welcome to use the bath the
restroom or yeah do whatever you need to do but the clock does not stop great Point I’ve had so many people come up to
me and say one of the reasons they don’t take the exam is because they can’t hold their bladder for four hours so it’s
good that you have confirmed you can use the bathroom during the exam I am one of
them and it is confirmed [Laughter] so I truly believe there are so many
people listening today that could go and sit for the cwt exam and pass it but
they don’t sign up because they lack confidence so you’ve gone through the process what
are some things that you can say that could give them some more confidence so they can sign up and take this thing
it’s a great point and what you said earlier really resonated with me I didn’t want to not pass and then talk
with somebody about it so I would say a few things I would say talk with your manager or
talk with your peers or talk with someone within your company maybe there’s someone who is interested too so
so I would lean on the people in your at your company or in your circles talk with them about it ideally
companies are funding this funding the preparation funding the exam so hopefully that’s an easy check but I
would talk with people about it and I would use the awt materials to study and just kind of get a feel for what you
think about the technical materials the cwt prep stuff and then I would get the confidence just
to do it so I think my advice would be sign up for it just do it like I said
hopefully your company will pay for it and then it you at least have a starting point then you at least have a starting
point and it’s a year out but you’re committed to it and then I would start to prepare with people and I think what
I would tell our team members in talking through it I think the ideal scenario is is a few things
I think number one is having the confidence and the courage just to sign up for it and do it and then I think you
kind of study on your own but I I think there’s two important things that we’re gonna have our team members do first is
we’re going to have them attend the Technical Training from awt in that one
year window as they’re preparing for um the cwt exam and then the second is I
I would do the scaling up cwt exam prep not because I’m on here and I’m plugging it but I really enjoyed it and I think
those two levers are are really good tools to prep for
the exam and then just be prepared for it and do the best you can and there you go
yeah it’s great advice I do want to go back on the comment that I made because I feel differently now than I did when I
took the exam but that’s how I felt when I took the exam so that was back in 2003
and I was worried that I wasn’t going to pass it and I was worried about what
other people were going to think more than what the actual process I was going
through now this is how I coach people and I realize that that feeling is real
because I’ve had it myself but anybody that’s taken the exam they know that
this is a bear of an examination uh you don’t know what’s going to be on it because there’s a bank of questions and
I don’t know if you can truly study for it and become an expert at the exam because it tests your knowledge
throughout a five-year water treatment career and it assumes that you’re doing
everything within core water treatment in order to achieve what they want you
to achieve within that five years so a lot of stuff’s going on there it’s okay to be nervous how how couldn’t you be
nervous with that absolutely but if you take it and you don’t pass it that is
also a win because now you have gained so much more experience and I think if
people could shift from where I was back in 2023 and I was so nervous service
that I wasn’t going to pass it but if I could go back and talk to my former self so I can borrow one of my questions that
I ask all my guests if I were to ask that for myself on this I would have told myself Trace even if
you don’t pass it it’s a win because you’re getting the experience you’re going to get direct feedback on how you
did on the examination and now you’re going to have a more laser focused study
approach to when you retake it and now by the way when you retake it you’re not
going to be nervous about the testing center you’re going to know how the program works you you’re familiar with the reference material you know about
the Biometrics to check out and and go to the bathroom you know to leave all your notes in the car because they’re
not going to let you bring those in and most people if they don’t pass it the
first time they almost always pass it the second time because of that yeah I
love that that’s a great that’s a great point and to further that as a company and our CEO said this because we’ve had
team members who are in that boat and as a company we’re like it’s okay you know what we’re happy you took it you took
the first step and guess what we’ll pay for that exam indefinitely until you pass it because we know you will
anything else you can remember about the process you think will be helpful to our listeners
so for the listeners that are going to take it and then have technical degrees I think the math portion comes easier to
those folks so if the math part and the equations isn’t your strength I think
that’s okay but I think I would prepare for that and just really understand like unit conversions a key point to that
would be to go to the awt Technical Training so that would probably be my my biggest one is the the equations come
easy for some but for others just prepare because there’s quite a few math questions on the exam when I was writing our Praxis exam uh
the math questions were one of the easiest ones to write because in order
to find wrong answers I just did the common mistakes that people would make
and normally that was unit conversions absolutely and and the exam does Trick
you a little bit because if you make one misstep like the right answer is there
but something that could be the right answer on one little tweak is right next to it so for me if I’m going fast and I
see an answer why but the real answer is X and I Y was in part of my equation I I
could easily my mind could easily oh y is the answer instead of taking my time and double checking or working through it where X is the right answer if that
makes sense during the practice exam course one of the techniques that I teach is teaching
people how to reach each answer and making sure that they’re applying that
to the actual question because they’ve only asked you so much don’t add anything to the question so I spend a
lot of time during the course teaching you how to read the question but then also how to answer it with each one of
the possible answers was that helpful absolutely yeah understanding how to go
about each question in preparation is very helpful so it was so with that
what’s next so for me as far as the cwt or just in life in general and life in general so
you you’ve gotten your cwt of course you’re you’re waiting for your letters of recommendation to go through then the
committee will approve that and you’ll get your number and you’ll be able to have those three letters behind your
name what are you going to do then yeah so I’m excited about having that on
my email signature and my business cards so that’ll be nice and then as far as our team’s concerned in the field I
think I’ll just be prepared to help them Usher them through this process I know we have a couple of guys who are
preparing for it and probably a few more after that so I look forward to helping our team
members get their cwts as far as eai water is a company we’re growing growing
through acquisition we’re growing into new markets both in water and air so our
company is in a real fun uh growth period where our company started as just
water treatment in Southern California and now we’re growing outside of that geography and it’s an exciting time for
our company and I’m looking forward to that do you have a requirement or a guide for
when people on your team should get their certified water technologist designation
nothing formal that’s a good question we don’t I think people are on their own
journey and we have we have some people who are just on a
countdown so once they get to five years uh they’re doing it we have other team members who think it’s kind of cool but
it’s not their thing and that’s okay too so we have we have a mixed group I think definitely The Five-Year Mark is helpful
and then what we do and I think you talked about this in a prior episode uh maybe with Chris golden from Taylor we
believe in in the compensation part too so we encourage people who want to do it to take have the confidence to take the
exam and then we give them or we’ll give them a bonus for passing and achieving
and becoming a cwt and then certainly a merit increase or a pay raise once they
achieve it as well so we’re putting on as a company we’re putting our money where our mouth is and um not only
encouraging people to to do it and then but then rewarding them as well I love hearing that more and more companies are
doing that that is putting your money where your mouth is and it’s ultimately benefiting your company
absolutely yeah there’s no doubt the episode you mentioned was episode 297
and that’s where I interviewed Chris golden uh all about the cwt and he is
the chairman of that committee so the entire process that we’ve been talking about today Chris is in charge of making
sure that that’s being handled as it should Justin anything else you can think of that you can let the scaling up
Nation know about the process I like the confidence part just have the confidence to at least start talking
about it maybe that’s step one a and then one B is registered for so talk with people about it I think it’s it’s a
good thing and um it’s something that benefits not only the individual but the company in our industry in general so
well thank you for being committed enough to the industry to spend a lifetime in it and to get your certified
water technologist designation and then taking that information and sharing that
with us today uh but we’re not quite done yet I’m going to shift gears slightly and we’re going to go to the
lightning round question so these are the same questions I Ask of all of my guests and we kind of get to know you a
little bit better through those questions so my first question is if you had the ability to go back in time and
speak with your former self on your very first day as a water treater what advice
would you give yourself okay so talking to myself here so I would
probably tell myself that this you don’t know it but this is a really great industry to be in
and with this industry you’re going to survive some recessions and some other really tough Financial things and your
career is not going to be it’s going to be minimally impacted so it’s a really strong good career that’s really
flexible and really fun and probably the biggest thing I would tell myself is it’s way more technical than you think
it is in the beginning um especially when I was working for the big Corporation previously their sales
training and their like front their leading skills so people skills are really good but it wasn’t until I got to
the awt world where I realized how technical it was so I would probably tell myself your degree mechanical engineer and
you’re going to need it because this is a sneaky technical field what are the last three books that
you’ve read the last three books so I do listen a lot more podcasts and that kind of thing
on the road but the specific books I read was the five dysfunctions of a team
that was part of the EOS training and I really enjoyed that book it’s a it’s an
easy read it’s it’s a fable but it’s about a corporation that’s kind of Shifting gear so if I just function
dysfunctions of a team and then the Jack Reacher books the Jack Reacher books I’ve read probably 12 of them and I
think I just read the hard way so fiction Action Hero books is uh right up
my alley did you see the Amazon was it Netflix or Amazon that did the it was
there’s so many of them how did you think that that character lived up to
the character in the Jack Reacher books I think they did a pretty good job because these are larger than life character and that actor is a a really
big dude so I think they did a good job and I think they did a better job than the movies did so kudos to them I
totally agree with that I could not agree with that more uh I like Tom Cruise but not for that character yeah
exactly all right what’s so we’re talking about movies so let’s uh let’s go on to that
when they make a movie about you who do you want playing Justin yes and they’re certainly going to make
a movie right um without a doubt I think it I think it would have to be Matt Damon like Circa
Goodwill Hunting okay because that movie was I was in high school and that was
just such a good movie and I really thought their character was cool and it made me it made me kind of proud of
being a kid who was into physics and math and stuff in high school and I think he’s a very good actor so Matt
Damon for sure final question uh you now have the ability to speak with anybody throughout
history who to be with and why um I thought about this one just a
couple of hours ago because I thought you might ask it and um I think for me it’d be William Wallace and sticking to
that movie that that the movie Braveheart I I had never been so moved
when I first saw that movie and his character is true and you know they embellish a little bit but man that
would be cool to hear or to talk with him about the revenge and what they went through and how he turned it around for
Scotland so I think that’d be my answer it’s a great answer well I want to thank you again for coming on the scaling up
H2O podcast and I have no doubt that people really know what to expect now
when they’re getting their certified water technologist designation so thank you for that yeah I hope so and it’s
been my pleasure so thank you trace Justin once again thanks for sharing
with me on social media that this practice exam course was a tool that
really helped you and of course you sharing all the information with myself
and my team we’re able to make it better and we’re doing that all the time we’re learning how we can say things better or
what are some different tools that we can use what are the experiences that people are having so the course is
constantly evolving now maybe this is something that you are thinking about
doing maybe you want to get your certified water technologist designation and you just haven’t you need a little
extra nudge well I’ve got a nudge for you you can take the first few chapters
of the certified water technologists practice exam course for free and what
this is this is a free course that the team and I put together that goes through the informational booklet that
you will get when you want to learn more about the cwt and how to become
certified so I just go straight through that booklet with you so I can answer
all of the questions that you have and they actually have a mock exam within
that booklet so you can get a little taste of what we do with the hundred
question course where I answer those 10 questions and I give you the feedback of
how my brain is thinking about that so you can get a little bit of flavor of what we’re going to do in the larger
course it’s my hope that you see value within that free course and you decide
to sign up for the certified water technologist practice exam course and if
you’re wondering how to do that you can go over to scaling up h2o.com forward
slash cwt prep once again that’s scalingup h2o.com forward slash
cwt prep and you will see not only the two courses that we mentioned but all of
the different courses that we have up there on the scaling up H2O Academy it
is our goal to take all of the things that our listeners have said that they
want to learn more about and create courses around that so you can become
the best water treater that you can be because we’re going to make it easy for
you to start at a particular place your Learning Journey eventually we’re going
to have an entire platform that you can use to help train your people to help
maybe update some of your people if you haven’t done work on a particular piece
of equipment in a while so here’s my ask of you we are building right now I think we have 133 potential courses that our
team is currently working on but let us know through your feedback what do you
want to see up on scaling up H2O Academy and we will try to get that on the
academy website for you so it’ll make it easier to train new team members to make
it easier to make sure your entire team is staying up to date and it will make it easier for your team to continue to
learn to become the best water treater that they can you can do that by going
to scalingup h2o.com and going over to our show ideas page and just let us know
what you’re thinking that feedback is and valuable as we are trying to plan
what the next course is that we are going to add on the scaling up H2O Academy platform
Nation everybody’s favorite week industrial water week is right around
the corner it is going to take place October 2nd through 6th and we are going
to celebrate a couple of ways as always we are going to have a brand new episode
for you each and every day of industrial
water week so we are going to celebrate pre-treatment on Monday boilers on
Tuesday cooling on Wednesday waste water on Thursday and then careers in this
fine industry on Friday so join us for a brand new episode each and every day
that week but that’s not the only way that we’re celebrating because the association of water Technologies
conference also takes place right during the middle of industrial water week so
hopefully you will have your cost costume on for industrial water week and
all I don’t we don’t have costumes yet so anyway I would love somebody to
invent a costume to wear to the association of water Technologies for
industrial water week and I promise I will showcase you on this podcast
because I think that’s the next level of us celebrating industrial water week I
will tell you a great way to celebrate industrial water week is for you to
catch up if you have not heard all the different installments of periodic water table with James this is where our
friend James McDonald helps us each and every week with learning more about the
chemistries that we are working with so here is a brand new installment of
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 borate today’s topic is a little basic
but what is worried what is it used for what’s its chemical formula is there
only one how are borate and borax related in what products is borate used
what are typical dosages for borate how do you measure the level of borate
in a system what are the common pH levels maintained when using borate
what could a high level of borate but a low level of nitrite indicate in a
closed loop system remember knowledge is power and taking the time to learn more about water
chemistry each week will help make you a force to be reckoned with be sure to post what you learn to social
media and tag it with hashtag water table23 and hashtag scalingup H2O I look
forward to learning more from you Nation we’ve already mentioned a few
things that are coming up on your water treatment calendar but here are a few other things that you might want to add
the Smart Water Summit is taking place September 10th through 12th in Scottsdale Arizona so this is about
water utilities and Industry concerns all around technology and extreme
climate events and political hurdles so if this sounds like something that you want to attend we’re going to have all
that information on our events Page by going to scaling up h2o.com the water
quality Association is hosting AquaTech Amsterdam taking place November 6
through 9th in Amsterdam so folks if you want to go to Amsterdam or if you are in
Amsterdam by all means check that show out that is definitely one that gets a
lot of talk around process drinking and waste water and then finally the water
smart inner Innovations conference taking place in Las Vegas Nevada October
3rd through 5th hosted by the American Waterworks Association so this is all
around efficient water products and alternative Water Supplies so with that
information please go to our show notes page once again that’s scalingup h2o.com
and go over to our events page Nation if you ever miss one of our events don’t
worry about it we are trying to create a One-Stop shop for you to go to learn
about every single event that we know about on one place scaling up h2o.com so if
you know about something that we don’t know about don’t keep that to yourself let us know what the conference is and
we will add that to our events page now you will find there are a lot of events
up there that I do not mention on this podcast because there’s just so many of
them so if you have not been to scalingup h2o.com forward slash events
it will be well worth the journey folks if you’re looking for anything more
about anything that we talked about here today with scaling up H2O Academy we’re going to have that information for you
on the show notes page but if you’re looking specifically for the cwt practice exam course you can go to
scalingup h2o.com forward slash cwt prep Nation it is a pleasure to bring this
podcast to you each and every week and I will have a brand new episode for you next Friday until meantime have a great
week folks [Music]