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Hello and welcome to Make It Clear, a conversational podcast about all things related to water and wastewater. I'm your host, Shawn Rapp, and in each episode, I'll be joined by new guests and co-hosts as we tackle relevant wastewater industry topics with facts and expert opinions to make things clear.
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Shawn: Hello and welcome to another episode of Make It Clear. And my name is Shawn, I am the host here. And Michelle Reber is joining me today. She is my guest today. And other than my boss, what is your official title?
Michelle: I am the current training education and events manager with Orenco.
Shawn: Awesome. So it's not very often I have a chance to sit down and interview my boss. So this is kind of fun.
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Michelle: It could be interesting.
Shawn: I’m sure it will be. All right. So just for the folks who are listening, why don't you give a little bit of background on when you joined Orenco, how long you've been here and what you're basically responsible for.
Michelle: Well, I just celebrated my 21st anniversary on August 8th. So I've been here for quite a while. I've seen a lot of different things. I originally was hired on a grant that someone out in
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the production floor got to make some videos about how to repair fiberglass. I happened to just get a phone call. I was running a one-hour photo lab in Sutherlin and I got a phone call from Corky Yoder and said, Hey, are you interested in a job? I was like, well, I am quitting this or we are stopping this. So what do you got in mind? So he brought me in and I had a quick conversation with him and what he needed was someone to film these videos. And I didn't have any video experience. I had been running a one-hour photo lab
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but I wasn't necessarily doing video. I also was a photographer at that time. I did have a photography studio, but I thought, how hard could it be? So I actually bought a video camera. So I said, yes, sure. And I bought a video camera and started videotaping my kids, which they of course love that. And I came in in August and picked up a computer and I said, I can't start until September when all my kids go back to school. Cause I have had six little kids at that time.
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So they let me take it home. set it up in my basement and started running all the video in to try to figure out what the crud I was doing. I came and started and did different videos on fiberglass repair on tanks and whatever. And Terry Bounds reached out and said, hey, I really need a video on testing BOD. Is that something you could do? Can you just come into the lab and videotape it? Sure. So I did. I didn't have a clue what I was looking at. BOD, what the crud is that?
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So I videotaped that and I was still had a little office out in production and up and out and smelly N9 like resin and fiberglass and it was gross and I didn't love it. But it was a, it was a job at that point that was really flexible around my schedule with my kids. So I would come in really early and then was able to leave fairly early in the day. So anyway, I did this, this BOD testing lab thing for Terry and
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He absolutely loved it. ran it in, ran, you know, talked through the script of the things that he had written out. So I did a voiceover over top of it and showed it to him and he loved it. He thought that it was fantastic. And he said, I don't think that you should be out in N9. And I was like, yes! So he brought me over into the office and dropped me into the training department. And it wasn't, uh, it was just small at the point at that time. think it was just Mark and Angela at that point. And they,
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Actually, I think you were in the original cubby where we all sit. Right there by the back of the cubes. Dropped me in there and I started doing all kinds of different videos of different things. I think the reason I'm where I'm at today is because I never say no. I don't know how to say no. And I'm not afraid to try something that I don't know how to do. I actually kind of like that challenge and I'm not afraid to try new things.
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So little things would start happening. Hey, can you do this or hey, what do you think? Could you do a flyer for something? Well, sure. How hard could it be? I mean, I didn't have graphic experience, photography, you know, so I had a little background, but not like that. So it just snowballed and I kept, I kept doing things as needs arose. And now I am currently in charge of all trainings that Orenco puts on, whether that's here on site in house
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which can be… I think the most we've ever had is like 64 people at one time, which was huge for one of our, What You Need to Know. I think at that point it was called Bootcamp, but I'm in charge of all those. I help our sales team with whatever they need out in the field. I'm getting… we're getting ready to do three, take it on the road three times this year. We'll be in Arizona. We're going to be in Colorado and then in South Carolina. We've had a couple of dealer conferences that we've taken on the road. So I handle all the things with that. All the
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getting them ready, getting the presenters trained so that we know that they know what they're doing and they're not crashing and burning when they stand up there. And I handle all the logistics with that. So booking the venues, getting them food, whether that's catering or running around like a mad woman doing it myself, I do that. I also handle all trade shows that we do. So that's across all three divisions, controls, composites and water. Last year we attended 85, this year we're at about the same.
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This year's looked a little different has really started looking different after our acquisition with blending Infiltrator with Orenco and making dual shows. That's added a little bit of, well, it's had a little bit of stress, but it's also just the complexity of what goes into that. At any given time, I would say I have probably 10 active trade shows, probably more accurate. I'll have five to eight active that are happening within a month. Again, it's the same.
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signing all the contracts. I'm, if it's a large show, I'm booking hotels, blocks. I'm making sure that people have dinner reservations. take care of all of the logistics of getting pieces shipped. If it's a larger show, we load it on a truck or ship it out to wherever it needs to go, whether that's to the show site or a pre-show something. And, then all the logistics on site so that if I'm not traveling, because I don't travel to every show. If I'm not traveling with them, then the sales guys have what they need
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to just set up, be successful and have an easy take down and come home. And then until just recently, I handled all company events. So every year we have a company picnic. Before COVID, we did a lot more things, but mostly recently, the last several years, it's just been a company picnic and then a company event in December, a celebration, an employee celebration. So I handled all the logistics for that, everything that goes into that. And then I usually have volunteers the day of that step up and help.
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I just stepped back out of that role and other people are going to be handling that. I'm not even on the committee. It feels kind of weird. It feels kind of weird, but I, I'm at a space that I'm, I need to be focusing more energy on really on trainings and building those and offering more. It seems like the need has grown for people that have trainings to attend. So, and then I manage you.
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and what you do, or I don't manage you because you do everything fairly well and I don't have to micromanage you. So I have a pretty easy job where that's concerned. Every now and again, I'll have to crack the whip, but most of the time I don't really worry about what you're doing or if you're doing or I can see what you're doing so I don't worry about it. So that makes it easy.
Shawn: All right. It's good to know that I'm model employee.
Michelle: Yes.
Shawn: All right. We've got a few questions here for you.
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So you spent years attending and helping coordinate booths and attendance for association of conferences and so on, trade shows, the like. Why do you think these events still matter in an age where people can learn almost anything online?
Michelle: I thought about that for a minute. I think it's easy to be distracted when you're sitting at your computer learning. I have a hard time listening to the things that we're required to listen to and not have five windows open doing other things while I'm listening.
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So I think attention is key. also think that face-to-face interaction feels different than sitting in a space with yourself and you're looking at a computer. I think that for most people, there is an added sense of connection when you can feel the vibe of the person that you're speaking with or interacting with. I think that, well, I think that COVID taught us that we can learn
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effectively when we're when it's necessary online. And I think that it taught us that there is some value there to the ease of that and the convenience of that. But I also think that the majority of people probably recognized the benefit of being in a room with someone else and connect with them on that level. And maybe that's just, maybe that's more than me, but I feel like I
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have a need, I enjoy connecting with people on a level, personal level, when I'm in the same room with them.
Shawn: Right. So with the training and so on in mind, what qualities do you think separate successful people from those who struggle in this industry?
Michelle: I think that that is a question that applies to your, to your life as a whole. I do think that it affects our careers, the way that we do things
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individually in our daily lives affects how we work in the workplace. I think that we have to want to learn and grow. So whether that's in our career or just in life in general, I think if you're stagnant, then it's a, it's a comfortable place, but I don't feel like it's a healthy place. I think in, your career and our careers and with people in the industry, you have to be able to
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know that if you find a solution that may not be the end result, there may be something that comes along that's better than what you're currently doing. I think Orenco has demonstrated that over the years that you don't just solve a problem and then sit on it. You don't just solve a problem and then think that that's the answer forever. And in some cases that may be accurate, but in most cases,
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you find a better way to do what you're doing that gives you a better outcome.
Shawn: Yeah. Keep learning.
Michelle: Yep. Keep learning. And I think that people wouldn't be as innovative if they weren't looking for ways to improve things. So I think that people that struggle in the industry or in any career lack, okay, this is just my opinion and it may not be… It may not be.
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anything other than just my opinion, but I think people that struggle in whatever they're doing lack the ability to get outside of what might be comfortable to find something better. Shawn: So, what's the most important thing you've learned from spending all these years around wastewater professionals at conferences and training events and so on?
Michelle: I think that I've learned that there are a lot of very, very intelligent people in the wastewater industry, but some of them don't have a lot of common sense.
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I just think that's a pretty straightforward. I feel like the most important or the most intellectually smart people that I've met, I look at and go, huh, okay, but you can't figure out how to match your shirt to your pants. As silly as that sounds. I just, think I've really met a lot of really intelligent people throughout the time that I've been attending conferences and trainings. They, the
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other part of that is most of them, the majority are, intelligent and have good common sense and match their shirt and pants. That's kind of just a joke. if anybody that has been to any of our bigger shows with us know that that's one of my little, that's one of my pet peeves. And I really line it out for you. You're going to wear this color shirt and this color pants, and they still come with five different colors of Navy pants. So it's just funny that
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something so small can be such a… a challenge for some people who are very, very intelligent. So that's probably it. Just that there are a lot of really intelligent people in the, the industry doing amazing things. And because of that, think that that's where the innovation comes in and thinking outside the box and just coming up with new ways to do things better.
ShawnL Sure. You've had, you've had some time to think about this one, I think
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especially over all the years that you've been doing this, but what's a moment in your career that you realized that the work you're doing was genuinely making a difference for somebody?
Michelle: Well, this isn't a, I have thought about this and it took me a while to think what really applied. And at first I thought nothing really applies. Nothing that I've done really applies because I don't, the two things that I'm going to mention aren't on a grand scale. At least I didn't think they were. Now,
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several years after that, I can see what a grand scale. And I had something, someone make a comment about it in a meeting a while ago and I went, oh, I guess that really did make a difference. So the first thing that really came to mind is the first time I went to a show was I went to the International Builder Show the first year, well, it the first year, it was for me, but it was the first year that
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I went and it was held in Orlando and not in Vegas. That show rotates between Orlando and Vegas, usually every couple of years. So we had three guys that were attending and Angela said, the way that show was last time, that's not enough. I need you to go. It's like, okay. And we were taking a Prelos unit and that was one of the first shows that we shipped a Prelos unit to and had it on the show floor. What we didn't have a big booth at that point. It was a 10 by 20.
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fairly small, the Prelos took up one whole side of it. So we get there. So got it all ready, travel out there. I think I went with Jeff Pringle, Chris Holbrow and there was one other person that was there. I can't even remember who the third one was. Maybe it was just the two of us. Oh, Brian Cohen. International. That was it. So it was those three guys and myself. So we get there, we get to the show to set up and the Prelos shows up and I knew that it was on a pallet. Shows up in the booth and it's sitting on a pallet.
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And at that point was the first time that I looked at it went like, how the heck are we getting that off there? So the four of us, Jimmy, just manhandled that thing off the pallet. I should say they manhandled it. I pulled the pallet out once they tipped it to the side that had to shimmy it around in the booth. And I just thought, this is ridiculous. There's got to be a better way to do that. So that when they show up, it's just set where they needed to be. Like, why are we shipping this on a pallet? Because then the follow-up to that is we have to store that pallet.
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during the show and then wait for it to be delivered back to our booth so that then we can load it. Again, pick it up, load it back on the pallet, strap it down to ship it back. Just like, this is crazy. So I came back from that show and I just started brainstorming. I reached out to Travis McAllister, that's who does those cutaways for us. Explained it to him and I said, there's gotta be a better way for this. And he was like, well, we could put some pockets on it. Okay, so we talked for a while.
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What ended up happening as he took put two stainless steel pockets forklift pockets underneath the Prelos unit. So once it doesn't have to ship on a pallet, it's delivered to the booth. does two things that stainless steel or pocket on the bottom is slippery on the carpet. Doesn't catch. we can rotate and move that around. It still is a little heavy, but two people can move it easily on carpet. You could slide it wherever you need to be. You can rotate it around. It eliminated the reason that we had to wait for a pallet.
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And it also, at about the same time, I realized there's a big hole in that thing. Why am I shipping a crate with all of our stuff in it and a Prelos unit? I just started putting everything in the Prelos unit. So after attending that and watching those guys kind of scramble to do that, I came up with that solution and I cut two things out. I cut the pallet out. It's being an issue and a secondary crate, everything now, whenever I ship a Prelos unit,
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everything ships the banners, all… everything that we need for that show is able to go. I've even got a cafe, three-legged cafe table in there before, because I figured out how to manhandle it, get it in there to get it out and pack around it. It just made things so much easier for them. So the second thing is along the same lines. I, again, I don't think it was that show. was probably a couple of another show I went to when we ship literature, it used to be that literature was shipped in a box.
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And when you wanted to, so you would take everything out, load your little pockets for on your lit stand and then put it back in the box. So then when you ran out, you had to dig through from the top of the box, dig through down to the bottom to find the literature to refill in the box, out of the box. And I watched somebody do that. I was like, that's ridiculous. Why? And that the literature part of it, I can help put the literature request in and facilitate that.
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I don't pull the literature or anything like or package it or anything. I just make sure that it gets from the mail room to me to package to ship. So I looked at that and I just thought, that is ridiculous. So I went to at the time it was June Sinks that was in the mail room. I said, explain to her what the deal was. And she says, gosh, I never thought about that. I just, put these blue papers in it to separate them. just, you know, but they still have to dig through that. I said, well, not only is it
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cumbersome on the front end when you're trying to load it into a pocket. But then when they pack it back up, they are guys and they're just throwing it all on the top. And then when it gets back to you, it's a mess. So I ordered some totes, plastic totes that opened up and were file folders. And we started putting them in a file folder, just in totes. And then shortly after that, she added just blank tabs in there and just put them in there.
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Oh, And then two years ago, it's about two years ago, when Andrea stepped into the mail room, she started making labels. So now when all of our show, all of our bigger shows, they get totes and they're labeled. Prelos is in a tote. AdvanTex is in a tote. Controls is in a tote labeled on the front. And when you open it up, all of the literature is labeled with exactly what it is with a file name.
Shawn: And just makes so much sense.
Michelle: File sticker.
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I've trained those guys. put it all back since it's easy to find. put it all back in there. And then we… Andrea started, even when she puts it in a box, she puts it in a box that can stand up and she still puts the file, file tabs in there. So although the both of those things seem like really small things, like especially the literature thing seems like a small thing when you have guys at a conference and the main reason that they're there is to sell product or teach people about
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Orenco and what we offer, they need to be doing that in a seamless way and they need to look great and at ease all the time And those two things helped them do that. So I alluded that I had somebody make a comment So several I think you remember several months ago. We're in a marketing meeting and Jim says something about the Literature. Oh that they were at a show and Orenco showed up with our literature
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In our totes and Infiltrator had theirs scattered in a box or something. I don't even know what, the staff said, uh, how, how do we do that? How do we get that? And he said, you're gonna have to talk to Michelle because that's who takes care of that. So that was just one of those things that kind of then snowballed and someone else noticed, wow, that's sure easy. And this is a convoluted chaos over here. So I think that those, just those two things, as small as they are, they're something that made a difference for the sales team.
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and made it so they could do their job easier because they weren't worried about or anything small or cumbersome that they didn't need to worry about.
Shawn: Yeah. And I know on lots of occasions when we've had trainings here, there have been people that have made comments to me how professional everything was and how coordinated everything was. And I think it just made it easier for them to focus on learning because of all the back-end stuff that you'd taken care of.
Michelle: I do think that people underestimate how chaos
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can inhibit your ability to do things. Whether that is living in a crowded room or not even crowded in a chaotic messy space. I mean, I think about that about my desk a lot or even out here where I have all my stuff. It's chaos out there right now. I have somebody coming to pick some stuff up this afternoon and I, for a show he's going to, and I said, you're going to have to tell me what you want. It's a mess out there and you're not going to find anything because it's chaos out there. Makes it hard to function. Makes it hard to do things
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that otherwise could be easy, chaos makes it harder. So I think that's one of the things that I've really, I mean, it falls, that's just my personality anyway, but I've really focused on trying to make things easy for those that I, I'll say serve. They're my people. And I literally talk about those guys. I never call them the sales team. They're just my guys. Because it's important to me that
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their job is easy and that I'm not making their job harder. If I can make it easy, that will let them focus on the things that are the most important. And that is them educating others about what Orenco has to offer and what the products can do for them. So, that's super important for me.
Shawn: Yeah. All right. Switching gears here. Looking back over your time here at Orenco, what's something you know now that you wish you'd known much earlier in your career?
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Michelle: It took me a long time to really understand what the difference Orenco products made in the wastewater industry. like a long time. I had probably been here… I had probably been here 10 years maybe before I really had a grasp on, Oh, well that's interesting or different. it really probably has only been in the last maybe eight years.
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that I really understood what the difference between just a septic tank is and a solution to collecting, treating, and dispersing your effluent. What's funny about that is I have a septic system at my house. I've lived at my house for 31 years. Never gave it much thought. I knew where it was. I knew what it did. I didn't
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understand the, how important watertight tank was until I started working here. And my tank at the time was not watertight, but it was functioning. I have leech lines and I just didn't understand what it was. I just, and I didn't need to cause it was functioning and my husband handled anything that wasn't. it just took me a long time to kind of figure all that out. But I, I think that it was, it was probably eight years ago that I really, really understood.
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the value of collecting and treating and making it easy and making it affordable and having your water be treated, your effluent come out water. So, I mean, of course it's not drinking quality, but it's not effluent when it comes out the other end. Technically it is, but…
Shawn: it's pretty clear.
Michelle: It is. And it, looks like regular water. And it just took me a long time to understand all of that and to really
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I guess, see the value of that. The other thing is I remember somebody, it might have been Angela, doing a presentation about rainwater and the cycle of rainwater and how that water, we only have the water that we have. And we're not necessarily getting a lot of new. It's all the same, you know, recirculated. And that was an eye-opener as well.
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So I think just melding all those things together and just recognizing that it really, really is an important thing. And probably enough people don't put enough importance on it or the value of really caring about what you're doing, how you're disposing, how you're getting, you know, how are you treating that? Like for me, I was thinking the other thing. So I have a leech line, so I don't treat
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necessarily it's gravity, it goes down to the leech line. does its thing out in the field, but that's just one way to do that. have to, I do, and I do recognize that people below me, if they are running off groundwater, how my effluent is treated can affect water down the hill. So that's another, I guess, connection I have. I don't have a spring at my house. I don't even, I don't have a well.
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Our water at our house is strictly groundwater. So if there's no water in the ground, if it hasn't been raining, I don't have water. I also was never concerned about where my water was coming from until again, eight, 10, 12 years ago. And I was like, well, we need to find out where our water is. If we're coming up and get water on the ground, who's septic's up above us? Well, there's nobody’s and where we're situated, they wouldn't have let us have water. wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't all be there if it wasn't healthy.
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But it was something that I, again, I've lived at my house for 31 years and for the first 20 of it didn't give much thought to where my water was coming from. But as soon as I put two and two together and the puzzle pieces started falling in, was like panicking about how good is the water that we're getting? Which I have very, very good water and we have lots of good minerals and good things in it. So yeah, I think that that's it. It just took me a while to just understand or recognize the value.
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And how important it is that we do whatever we can to protect the world's water.
Shawn: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm kind of glad that that's been our company mission for all these years.
Michelle: Yep. I don't know how that's going to change or if that's going to change or if it's going to merge or meld, but I do think it's something to always keep in the forefront of our mind.
Shawn: For sure. Well, thanks for joining me.
Michelle: Sure.
Shawn: It was fun to talk to you like this. It's, I mean, we…
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We normally interact on a regular basis, very informally anyway, but it's just kind of fun to sit down and do this with you.
Michelle: Yeah, this just seems a little weird like this though. It just feels a little awkward off the beginning.
Shawn: All right. Well, thanks folks for joining us. Appreciate you joining us today and we hope you will tune in for another episode here very soon. But thank you again and we'll talk to you again soon.
We want to thank you again for joining us today. Before you go, don't forget to subscribe where you listen to podcasts so you're notified when new episodes are posted. Also, if you have any comments or suggestions, you can leave us a message through the contact link on our website, www.orenco.com. Until next time, have a great day.