455 Mentors, Mindset, and the CWT: Owning Your Water Career with Nella Fergusson
Release Date: 12/19/2025
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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
info_outline“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. Nella Fergusson, CWT (District Manager, Southern California, Garratt-Callahan), 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 you employable
Water treatment evolves. Nella contrasts today’s challenges with what she faced 15 years ago and explains why complacency is the fastest path to getting left behind. She describes water treatment as industry-specific by nature—food processing cooling and commercial real estate operations don’t behave the same, don’t shut down the same way, and can’t be serviced the same way.
Diagnosing before prescribing
Her troubleshooting process starts with questions: the system’s history, what changed, when symptoms appeared, and how critical the impacted use is. She emphasizes water sampling across different times of day and refuses to offer remediation before a proper diagnosis—because misdiagnosis creates extra problems instead of solving the original one.
Career decisions, culture, and the 80/20 risk
Nella shares a candid career detour: leaving Garratt-Callahan for GE Water/Suez, then realizing quickly what she lost—support, resources, and “family”—before returning. She frames many job moves through an 80/20 lens: chasing a missing 20% can cost the 80% that already works, especially when recruiters’ incentives don’t align with yours.
Credentials that signal competence—and protect end users
Nella explains why she pursued the CWT: an industry-agreed benchmark that reflects years of varied problem-solving. She also discusses ASSE 12080 recertification and why correct sampling, shipping, labeling, and interpretation matter—particularly in Legionella and water safety work. Customers may fear testing; she argues the goal is to find risk where maintenance is weak, then build site-specific procedures that facilities can actually sustain with their staffing. Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!
Timestamps
02:22 - Trace message: CWT prep course + planning for 2026
09:17 - Water You Know with James McDonald
10:48 - Upcoming Events for Water Treatment Professionals
14:49 - Interview with Nella Fergusson, CWT, (District Manager, Southern California, Garratt-Callahan)
16: 27- Ongoing education + how the industry has changed
21:06 - Nella’s troubleshooting approach: history, what changed, sampling, impact, don’t prescribe before diagnosing
31:00 - Nella’s 80/20 rule for deciding whether to leave a company
34:22 - Why she pursued CWT + value of certifications in the industry
40:15 - Getting results immediately + confidence while testing
Connect with Nella Fergusson 
Email: nfergusson@g-c.com
Website: http://www.garrattcallahan.com/
LinkedIn: Nella Fergusson, CWT | LinkedIn
Guest Resources Mentioned
ASSE 12080 Certification – ASSE International
Why ASSE Certifications Matter – Garratt‑Callahan
Impact of Cooling Tower Downtime in Food & Beverage Operations – Aggreko
Scheduling Off‑Peak HVAC Maintenance – Facility Response Group
Scaling UP! H2O Resources Mentioned
AWT (Association of Water Technologies)
Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses
Water You Know with James McDonald
Question: What is the piece of equipment called that is a heat exchanger placed in the gas passage between the boiler and the stack designed to recover exhaust gas heat into the boiler feedwater?
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.
