451 Building a Culture of Innovation and Customer Service with Frank Lecrone
Scaling UP! H2O
What happens when you build a company around one niche, listen obsessively to customers, and never stop improving? In this episode, host Trace Blackmore finally sits down for a full-length conversation with , Founder, President, and CEO of . What started in a small 60' x 60' space in Hanover, Pennsylvania, with three employees, maxed-out credit cards, and endless Staples runs has grown into a 300+-person organization serving industrial water professionals around the world. Frank shares how AquaPhoenix became “the booth everyone wants to be next to” at...
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450 Wastewater Advocacy and Innovation with Robin Deal
Scaling UP! H2O
“The More You Know” - Robin Deal A million-gallon-a-day perspective, distilled into actionable steps. , AquaPure Product Manager at unpacks how seasoned pros can squeeze more performance—and less sludge—out of industrial wastewater systems without compromising compliance or plant uptime. From “clear water in a jar” to stable discharge in the field Robin details a practical jar-testing workflow: start from upstream processes, target pH using hydroxide/sulfide solubility curves, choose the right coagulant (aluminum, iron, calcium, lanthanum, or organics),...
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449 Michael Bourgeois on AWT Partnerships and Professional Growth
Scaling UP! H2O
Get stuck in – Michael Bourgeois, CWT How do standards get written in ways that working water treaters can actually meet? In this conversation, AWT Past President, current Related Trade Organization (RTO) Committee Chair, and Chemco Products Company Operations Manager, , explains how AWT’s liaisons collaborate with peer organizations, so guidance reflects field reality—operations, risk, and achievable compliance. From Field Bags to Board Rooms: Why RTOs Matter Bourgeois outlines the purpose of AWT’s RTO structure: volunteer liaisons track and influence work at groups...
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448 2025 Halloween Special
Scaling UP! H2O
Holidays don’t usually line up with release day—but this year they did. In this Halloween special, Trace uses the horror-movie trope of the “scary boiler room” to deliver practical, field-tested reminders for safer sampling, clearer thinking, and better decisions in high-heat, low-light spaces. Boiler Rooms, Myths, and Real Risks From Nightmare on Elm Street to Tower of Terror, pop culture loves dim steam, tight corridors, and clangy pipe-labyrinths. Trace contrasts that imagery with what matters to pros: light, ventilation, a stable work surface, and time for...
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447 Unlocking Team Potential with Culture Index with Randi Fargen
Scaling UP! H2O
Hiring in industrial water is slow, specialized, and expensive to get wrong. In this conversation, executive advisor explains how a two-question, 5–7 minute Culture Index survey becomes an ongoing management and coaching system—not just a hiring screen—so owners cut turnover risk, speed onboarding, and improve day-to-day communication. From “assessment fatigue” to a usable language Most teams dread long assessments. This survey takes minutes and measures four primary traits—autonomy, sociability, pace/patience, conformity—plus three...
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446 Leveraging the Culture Index for Business Success with Danielle Scimeca and Conor Parrish
Scaling UP! H2O
How do you make “right person, right seat” a repeatable system—not a hope? ’s (President) and returning guest (Chief Growth Officer) share how the Culture Index became a decisive tool for coaching, hiring, and a company-wide restructure. If you lead field service, customer service, or operations in industrial water, this conversation offers practical patterns you can apply the next time a role feels misaligned or a 1:1 stall on surface-level updates. From intuition to instrumentation Trace opens with the origin story and quickly moves to why Danielle and Conor adopted...
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445 Industrial Water Week 2025: Careers Friday
Scaling UP! H2O
Industrial Water Week 2025: Careers Friday brings the celebration back to first principles—mentors, disciplined training, and field diagnostics that go beyond the screen. Trace reflects on the people who invested in his craft, recognizes guest contributors across the week, and issues a practical challenge to invest in one new professional before the day ends. Foundations that Compound A candid mentorship story anchors today’s episode. Trace recalls how early-career intimidation turned into decades of teaching fundamentals and math at AWT—proof that asking better questions...
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444 Industrial Water Week 2025: Wastewater Thursday
Scaling UP! H2O
Wastewater isn’t an endpoint—it’s a decision point. On Wastewater Thursday, host Trace Blackmore, CWT sharpens the operator’s toolkit with field-tested lessons: dose by mechanism, verify by sampling discipline, and use wastewater’s fast feedback to protect quality, cost, and permits. Sampling discipline protects credibility Trace recounts an early-career moment when an inspector sampled the wrong location, triggering alarms. Immediate, methodical resampling—guided by logs and a clear process map—proved the system was in spec. The leadership takeaway: embed verification before...
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443 Industrial Water Week 2025: Cooling Wednesday
Scaling UP! H2O
Cooling Wednesday is about performance, protection, and proof. Trace Blackmore invites the Nation to get hands-on with cooling equipment and share field photos while offering a practical reminder: learn to navigate the chiller’s user interface—because it’s your fastest route to actionable diagnostics, documentation, and energy impact. Reading the Chiller UI—From Intimidation to Insight Modern microprocessor interfaces reveal real-time and historical data that matter to heat transfer: temperatures, loading, and power trends. If you’ve avoided the panel out of fear of...
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442 Industrial Water Week 2025: Boiler Tuesday
Scaling UP! H2O
Boiler rooms reward clarity: how many BTUs from the flame actually arrive in steam—and stay there to do useful work? For Boiler Tuesday, Trace Blackmore, CWT, treats boiler care as heat-transfer management across the full train, from feedwater and deaeration to distribution and condensate return, with dry steam as the operational benchmark. Heat Transfer Is a Leadership Metric Dry steam isn’t a detail; it’s throughput. Steam on its worst day carries ~1,150 BTUs while hot water on its best day carries ~180 BTUs. When carryover creates wet steam, production loses energy at the...
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Industrial Water Week 2025: Careers Friday brings the celebration back to first principles—mentors, disciplined training, and field diagnostics that go beyond the screen. Trace reflects on the people who invested in his craft, recognizes guest contributors across the week, and issues a practical challenge to invest in one new professional before the day ends.
Foundations that Compound
A candid mentorship story anchors today’s episode. Trace recalls how early-career intimidation turned into decades of teaching fundamentals and math at AWT—proof that asking better questions grows better practitioners. Careers Friday becomes a prompt to text the person who built your foundation—and to be that person for someone else.
Fieldcraft Over Flash: A Detective H2O Lesson
The Detective H2O case distills high-value diagnostics for cooling systems: TTPC biocide can mask PTSA and fool controllers into overfeeding inhibitor; missing blowdown lockout during biocide feed wastes product; and stabilized bromine can become over-stabilized in long-HTI systems—driving ORP spikes, corrosion risk, and poor microbial control. Technology is essential, but interpretation is the craft.
Community Voices and a Career Pledge
Careers Friday features greetings from industry professionals and closes with Water You Know, a reminder that water often carries purchased energy (heat, cooling, pressure, flow, pre-treatment) that leaders must account for. The day ends with a clear ask: celebrate your mentors, share your origin story with #IWW25 and #ScalingUpH2O, and pledge to help one newcomer discover industrial water treatment.
Durable careers are built on shared knowledge, thoughtful diagnostics, and intentional mentorship. Use today to do all three.
Listen to the full conversation above. Explore related episodes below. Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!
Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!
Timestamps
02:20 — Opening: Industrial Water Week recap (Pretreatment, Boiler, Cooling, Wastewater) leading into Careers Friday.
03:15 — Community recognition: Scaling Up Nation “20,000+ members” and daily celebration via #IWW25 and #ScalingUpH2O.
05:20 — Careers Friday actions: take photos with equipment, mentors, or customers; share to celebrate the craft.
05:29 — Team traditions: the Industrial Water Week cake (including the infamous “water cake” anecdote).
09:16 — Mentorship story: meeting Bruce Ketrick Sr. and Jay Farmery; intimidation becomes investment.
13:12 — Writing the Fundamentals program with Mark Lewis to build durable entry-level foundations.
14:18 — Personal note: when Trace’s father passed, how Bruce showed up—mentorship beyond the classroom.
16:15 — Careers greetings begin (Lee Bainbrigge, SMS Environmental): be open-minded, keep learning, focus on customer assurance.
18:07 — Episode reference: Lee’s prior appearance (Ep. 370) for Legionella perspectives.
18:21 — Careers greeting (Kalpna Solanki): environmental operator roles as purposeful, global, and essential.
21:39 — Detective H2O — The Case of Knowing It All begins.
38:21 — CWT pathway: free prep resource and 100-question practice exam walkthrough .
42:46 — Water You Know with James McDonald
44:38 — Gratitude for James McDonald’s ongoing community impact.
45:04 — Careers Friday challenge: thank your mentors; post your origin story with #IWW25 and #ScalingUpH2O.
46:15 — Final pledge: help one person discover industrial water treatment this week.
Connect with Mike Taraszki
Phone: 510.368.4549
Email: michael.taraszki@wsp.com
Website: www.wsp.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michaeltaraszki/
Connect with Kalpna Solanki
Phone: 778.688.9196
Email: kalpnasolanki1980@gmail.com
Water Environment Federation (WEF)
LinkedIn: in/kalpnasolanki
Connect with Lee Bainbrigge
Email: l.bainbrigge@sms-environmental.co.uk
Website: https://sms-environmental.co.uk/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lbainbrigge/
linkedin.com/company/sms-environmental-ltd/
Connect with James Courtney
Phone: +1 443 878 2407
Email: james@csctech2o.com
Website: https://www.csctech2o.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-courtney-cwt-leed-ap-379a6877/
Connect with Laith Charles
Phone: 941-301-1309
Email: laith@ewatermark.net
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMuigehZdcquaY14QtGm
Connect with Mark Lewis
Phone: 704.322.5406
Email: MLewis@SELaboratories.com
Website: https://www.selaboratories.com/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mark-lewis-01a3b56
Connect with James McDonald
Email: james51471@gmail.com
Website: chemaqua.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-mcdonald-pe/
Links Mentioned
AWT (Association of Water Technologies)
Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses
034 The Other One With Mark Lewis, CWT
062 The One with the Pulsafeeder Guy
112 The One Where Trace Is Interviewed By Mark Lewis
141 The One About Neglected Accounts
149 The One About Some of the Lesser-Used Technologies
224 The One About The Internet Of Things (IoT) Augmented Industrial Water Treatment
355 Backflow Prevention: Safeguarding Water Quality
362 Navigating 97-005: Insights and Impacts on Potable Water
370 Unlocking Legionella Solutions: Perspectives on Regulations and Best Practices
394 Visibility and Value: Enhancing Sustainability in Water Treatment
404 Eight Tips for Business Management: Part 1 – Essential Strategies
406 Eight Tips for Business Management: Part 2 – Essential Strategies
Water You Know with James McDonald
Question: What forms of purchased energy may be present in water?
