Libsyn Directory

451 Building a Culture of Innovation and Customer Service with Frank Lecrone

Release Date: 11/21/2025

460 Building Boiler Talent: Fundamentals, Online Training, and Better Partnerships with Eric Johnson

Scaling UP! H2O

Boilers can feel intimidating the first time you step into a boiler room—the heat, the noise, the pressure gauge, and the weight of knowing that mistakes can be costly. Trace Blackmore opens with a reminder that boilers deserve respect, not fear—and that learning fundamentals is how you replace mystique with clarity. The talent gap behind the boiler room door , Founder and CEO of , explains why boiler expertise is becoming harder to replace. He points to the shrinking pipeline of boiler-trained technicians—historically strengthened by Navy steam...

459 From Wastewater to Resource: Water Reuse with Dr. Veronika Zhiteneva

Scaling UP! H2O

Industrial water professionals are increasingly pulled into conversations about scarcity, resilience, and “where the next gallon comes from.” , CEO and Co-founder of frames water reuse as an implementation challenge more than a technology gap—and explains where the practical starting points are when the scope feels overwhelming. Moving reuse forward when the technology already exists Waterloop Solutions was founded to accelerate implementation: clarifying end-use quality, identifying post-treatment needs on the back end of...

458 Hiring Olympics and High-Performance Culture with J.D. Roth

Scaling UP! H2O

"Stay curious. And you only have one reputation. Guard it with your life." Hiring for judgment, not just rehearsed confidence Industrial water treatment is full of decisions made with incomplete data—on sites, with customers, and inside the business. (Managing Director and Co-owner of ) builds his hiring around that reality. His aim is straightforward: protect the team and the culture by selecting people who can think, collaborate, and lead under pressure. JD frames the organization as a group of people choosing to work toward a common goal: building a better future for...

457 2026: A New Year with New Intentions

Scaling UP! H2O

Trace Blackmore opens 2026 with a practical reset: how to plan with urgency, sharpen the fundamentals that make troubleshooting easier, and use the tools around this podcast to keep your development moving all year. The 12-Week Year: urgency you can use Annual goals often feel “far away” until December forces focus. The 12-week year flips that dynamic by treating each quarter like a year—creating urgency sooner and giving you four chances to reset and improve. Trace walks through the structure: start with a vision (he uses a three-year example), then choose 3–5 tactical...

456 The 12 Days of Scaling UP! H2O 2025

Scaling UP! H2O

A year-end recap is more than a highlight reel—it’s a practical reset. In this New Year episode, Trace Blackmore walks through 2025 using a “12 Days of the Scaling Up Nation” format, tying together performance, community growth, listener engagement, and the sponsor support that keeps the podcast and its companion tools available at no cost. Year-end by the numbers Trace explains how he used to track every stat closely—and how that shifted into an unhealthy measure of self-worth—so the team now uses numbers as feedback, not validation. He notes the...

455 Mentors, Mindset, and the CWT: Owning Your Water Career with Nella Fergusson

Scaling UP! H2O

“So one thing I never do is try to start giving remediation or advice before I truly have understood and diagnosed the problem.” Mentorship and certifications don’t replace experience—but they can accelerate it when paired with the right mindset and a disciplined approach to learning. (District Manager, Southern California, ), lays out what “growing up” in industrial water treatment actually looks like: repeated exposure to real problems, strong diagnostic habits, and a willingness to keep learning long after year one. Learning that keeps...

454 Water Recycling, Innovation, and Industry Wisdom with Dr. Kelle Zeiher

Scaling UP! H2O

Industrial cooling is one of the biggest levers industrial facilities can pull on water use—and it’s getting harder to ignore as data centers and other high-heat operations grow. Returning guest (Project Manager at ) breaks down what water reuse looks like when you move past slogans and into the realities of pretreatment, concentrate management, footprint, and cost. Cooling water reuse: the scale of the opportunity Dr. Zeiher reframes “drought” beyond rainfall, emphasizing aquifer recharge and the limits of focusing only on household restrictions. She...

453 Water Risk, Governance, and Community Engagement with Dr. Annette Davison

Scaling UP! H2O

Industrial water professionals sit at the intersection of risk, regulation, and community trust. In this episode, (“the water risk doctor”) joins Trace Blackmore to show how disciplined governance, clear supply chain thinking, and community engagement can turn fragmented water systems into coherent, defensible risk management frameworks. Water risk from source to customer Annette starts with a simple question most customers never ask: “Where’s your water coming from?” She walks through a conceptual supply chain from source to end point—collection, transfer, treatment,...

452 UV Innovation and Whole-Building Water Safety with Ron Blutrich

Scaling UP! H2O

Entamoeba histolytica nearly ended Ron Blutrich’s scientific career. Instead, it pushed him to rethink how we protect people in multi-family buildings, senior facilities, and dense urban centers from invisible microbiological risks in their drinking water. In this episode, he joins host Trace Blackmore to unpack what whole-building UV can (and can’t) do for Legionella, biofilm, and real-world water safety. When One Bad Cup of Water Redefines a Career In the middle of his PhD in molecular genetics, Ron drank from an under-sink reverse osmosis tap at an Airbnb and...

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...

More Episodes

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 Frank Lecrone, Founder, President, and CEO of AquaPhoenix Scientific. 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 AWT, why they built their entire business around industrial water treatment instead of trying to be everything to everyone, and how a simple continuous improvement system now generates hundreds of ideas a year from frontline team members. He also pulls back the curtain on acquisitions and private equity, explaining EBITDA in plain language, how to think about “add-backs,” and what owners should understand long before they think about selling.

Whether you’re leading a growing company, running a route, or thinking about your own “second chapter,” this conversation is a masterclass in culture, courage, and caring deeply about the people you serve.

Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!

Timestamps

02:20 - Trace Blackmore shares a recap from the recent 2025 AWT Conference, The Hang, and a Blood Donation Story

14:02 - Water You Know with James McDonald

15:20 - Upcoming Conference for Water Professionals

18:16 – Introduction of Frank Lecrone, CEO of AquaPhoenix Scientific (eight years in the making)

24:52 – Why Hanover?

26:59 – Supporting AWT

37:38 – Color-coded caps & QR Codes

42:30 – Learning from mistakes

45:31 – Core Values

48:26 – Acquisitions and Culture

1:03:32 – Valuations and EBITDA

Quotes

“We didn’t grow by doing everything for everyone. We grew by doing exactly what one market needed and wanted—and then doing it better every year.”

“The lack of information is almost always interpreted negatively. That’s why you have to over-communicate, especially during acquisitions.”

“EBITDA equals freedom. The more EBITDA you have, the less anybody can tell you what to do with your own company.”

“We’re not perfect. We screw things up like everyone else—but we fix it, and we fix it quickly, and we make doing business with us as easy as possible.”

“I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room. I want great people around me, giving ideas and pushing things forward, so I’m not the bottleneck.”

“Business is like standing in a bathtub while the water rises. It feels fine until it reaches your mouth. The trick is noticing when it’s at your knees and fixing the bottleneck then.”

“We give a darn. We have ‘GAS’—Give a #$%@—and if we can make it right and do it better, we absolutely will.”

Connect with Frank Lecrone