446 Leveraging the Culture Index for Business Success with Danielle Scimeca and Conor Parrish
Release Date: 10/17/2025
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...
info_outline
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),...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
How do you make “right person, right seat” a repeatable system—not a hope?
Fact Water Co’s Danielle Scimeca (President) and returning guest Conor Parrish (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 the Culture Index. Conor outlines the survey’s core traits (A, B, C, D), EU (energy units), logic, and ingenuity—and how those readings map to daily work. The team now enters 1:1s with data, not guesswork, and uses pattern shifts (e.g., crossing the bell-curve center line) as objective prompts to discuss burnout risk, disengagement, or role fit.
Coaching that respects how people actually work
Quarterly surveys provide a shared language for conflict and pace. Danielle and Conor show how “high-D vs. low-D” disagreements de-escalate when both sides name the pattern and adjust the level of detail or speed. The same framework helps leaders spot “quiet quitting” signals (e.g., EU changes) early, address them with empathy, and—when necessary—make seat changes with clarity.
Hiring with a C-Job—and holding the line
For open roles, they build a “C-job” (ideal pattern) and filter applicants by percentage match before reading résumés. That slows the front end but saves cycles by preventing mis-fit first interviews, reduces turnover, and improves team performance. The hardest lesson? When they ignored the pattern and hired outside the profile, they regretted it.
Restructure at scale—faster, with fewer re-hires
Armed with data, Fact Water accelerated a difficult restructure (significant field and customer-service turnover) and refilled seats against the right patterns. Outcomes included better alignment, happier team members, and fewer escalations. The same insights even improved communication at home—proof the temperament model applies beyond work.
Tools don’t lead—leaders do. The Culture Index gave Danielle and Conor the transparency and conviction to act sooner and coach smarter.
Listen to the full conversation above. Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!
Timestamps
02:24 - Trace Blackmore shares Industrial Water Week recap & #IWW25 highlights
13:37 - Water You Know with James McDonald
14:53 - Upcoming Events for Water Treatment Professionals
21:22 – Interview starts: Danielle Scimeca & Conor Parrish of Fact Water Co
24:46 – Why Culture Index
26:16 - Culture Index Overview
36:11 – Coaching Use: Data-Drive 1:1s and pattern shifts
44:36 – Hiring Use: C-Job Profiles
47:49 – Slower Hiring vs. Lower Turnover: lessons learned
53:46 – Real Example: High- D vs. Low-D communication conflict
Quotes
Conor Parrish: "High level culture index is a tool that we use. It starts with the culture index survey."
Danielle Scimeca: “The program forces you to make tough decisions… you deserve to be in a job that you find fulfilling.”
Conor Parrish: “HR isn’t doing first interviews with 30 people—they’re doing first interviews with three to five.”
Conor Parrish: “There’s so much more to it the more you go… I’m learning something new every day”
Danielle Scimeca: “If you’re not ready to make changes, it might not be the right time to do it.”
Connect with Conor Parrish 
Email: cparrish@factwaterco.com
Website: https://www.factwaterco.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conor-parrish-cwt-15208251/
Connect with Danielle Scimeca
Email: dscimeca@fctwater.com
Website: https://www.factwaterco.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-scimeca-esq-519604279/
Guest Resources Mentioned
Randi Fargen (Executive Advisor)
Scaling UP! H2O Resources Mentioned
AWT (Association of Water Technologies)
AWT 2025 Convention and Exposition
AWT 2025 Business Owners Meeting
008 The One with Conor Parrish
186 The One where Conor Parrish Interviews Me, Part 1
187 The One where Conor Parrish Interviews Me, Part 2
Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses
The Hang (November 20, 2025 - 6 PM Eastern Time)
Water You Know with James McDonald
Question: What do we call the liquid formed after steam does its work and has cooled below its dew point?
2025 Events for Water Professionals
Check out our Scaling UP! H2O Events Calendar where we’ve listed every event Water Treaters should be aware of by clicking HERE.
