Water Water Everywhere
Waterworks Industries finds customers, employees improve company flow
Like water itself, there is much that is organic about Waterworks Industries (Waterworks) of Windsor, California, a full-spectrum aquatic management, design, repair and construction enterprise. Its success over time has yielded a legion of regular, repeat customers throughout California and Nevada. The formula for steady company growth is based on excellent work, longtime relationships, goodwill and mutual respect among clients, company Founder and CEO Rich Carnation, President Mathais Toupin and other Waterworks team members.
Contrast in Interests
Growing from a group with an initial focus on maintenance, in 1991, the company became Waterworks Industries, a name created by Rich to better reflect the expansive skills the company could and would be able to provide for clients.
Rich and Mathais first met on a building project Rich was leading in the early 1990s, through a mutual friend. Years later, the two met up again through the same friend. After successfully building some large commercial enterprises in Southern California, Mathais came on board as a Senior Project Manager, and in the next few years, earned a variety of promotions, including company President in 2007.
The two leaders of Waterworks are opposites in many ways.
“Mathais can do high-level, complex math off the top of his head. I need a calculator,” Rich says. “I don’t even try to do the math he can do. It’s easier to let him do it.”
“Rich likes to read our contracts,” Mathais says. “He’s good at arguing about the fine points that are buried in them that can change the economics of a project.” Rich answers, “I enjoy debating them.” Mathais agrees.
One man is 14 years older than the other. Rich likes soul music; Mathais likes rock. Rich is not known much for his baking skills, but says, “I’ll put Mathais’ peach cobbler made in a Dutch oven up against anyone’s…it’s the best.”
But both know that their contrasting strengths and viewpoints offer great perspective for their business, employees and clients.
Meanwhile, in ways that count, Mathais and Rich are similar, too. They look similar in appearance. Some ask if they are related. A few friends have called them “bookends,” according to Rich. Both men are family-oriented: Rich has five children and Mathais has six. And both are keenly aware that the decisions they make concerning the health of the company—which has grown to 70 employees in four locations in California and one in Nevada—impacts families just like theirs.
“When we are thinking about purchasing equipment or vehicles, for example, or make any other financial decisions, we do it with the idea that we are making decisions that affect 70 different households,” Rich said.
But having a family focus and treating employees and clients as they would family members doesn’t mean neglecting a good business strategy that the company needs to compete.
“We try and do right by each other and deliver a high-quality product to our clients,” Mathais explains. “We try and maintain a family-type work environment, but we want to deliver on a corporate scale in a market that demands that.”
Capacity Runs Deep
Waterworks designs and installs lakes, ponds, waterfalls, pools, fountains and spas in the residential and commercial markets. Some of its commercial clients include golf courses, high schools, health care facilities, water parks, colleges, residential complexes and industrial parks.
Waterworks also provides expert maintenance to take care of things like system repairs or upgrades, water quality management, including algae and vegetation control, as well as nutrient reduction and elimination. The company has governmental clients, having done work in federal and state waterways. Its retention rate for maintenance clients—some of which need weekly, monthly, bimonthly or annual treatments—is in excess of 95% over a few decades, according to Rich. “We have lost a few clients over the years, but historically, they come back to us after a few years with a competitor.”
As mentioned, Waterworks started as an aquatic maintenance firm. Rich says that the company added services throughout the years as they found that their clients needed them, taking time to cross-train employees and invest in the latest equipment and training.
The company developed its construction division slowly from customers’ requests to build their next project.
“We would be providing maintenance on a water feature and working to repair something that was installed wrong by another firm,” he says. “The client would say, ‘We want you to build the next one.’ They didn’t know why the original contractor didn’t build it correctly and would ask us to do it; so in addition to managing, we started building water features too.” This multiplication of services continued, and the company grew and added divisions.
Rich says that Waterworks’ success lies in the fact that it does so much, so often and so well. “We have grown to be the one-stop shop for our customers’ needs. There are maybe three or four firms in California that do similar things,” he says. “Some specialize in one area, some in another. We are diverse and have specialists in them all. We cross-train employees in some sectors, allowing for specialization in others.”
Mechanical Aquatic Management
Though Waterworks has had steady growth in all facets of its business, mechanical aquatic management stands out for clients who need or want to maintain waterways without using herbicides or algaecides.
The Waterworks team welcomes challenges. Perhaps algaecides or herbicides were tried and didn’t work on the target in a certain body of water. Or perhaps they aren’t feasible due to insufficient holding times as they might impact crop irrigation. Perhaps water vegetation and/or algae is at an elevated level and needs to be taken care of immediately by harvesting with specialized machinery. Whatever the circumstance, Rich says the team looks for the best, most viable solutions implementing state-of-the-art best management practices and extends that to all of its clients.
A case in point is the delta water hyacinths dilemma. The company just wrapped up a four-year cooperative contract with the California Division of Boating and Waterways, to remove water hyacinths out of a delta, Rich says. The project makes the waterway more accessible to boaters and shippers as well as clears the floating vegetation from the many water pumping stations benefiting the end users, be it farmers, municipalities or water districts.
From a homeowners’ association that was overrun with vegetation to government entities that manage streams, deltas and water-conveyance systems, Mathais says that Waterworks offers an array of solutions. It also has the harvesters, dredgers, transport barges, conveyer systems and other aquatic specialty equipment that remove nuisance vegetation and destroy root systems.
Mechanical removal of vegetation or management with select chemicals, which Waterworks also provides where permitted—has a third aspect to consider beyond experience and equipment: regulations. The company constantly educates its team on everchanging laws and regulatory changes from government agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state and regional water control agencies and boards.
Whether harvesting vegetation, building pools, maintaining fountains, dredging or creating waterfalls, Rich says that Waterworks depends on its reliable and knowledgeable employees. “They get the education and training they need to excel,” he says. “We try to hire good, smart people and let them do what they are good at,” Mathais adds.
Solid Team Members
Growing companies always need good employees. Rich and Mathais both say they would love to see more trades-based programs in schools for young people who want to go into industries like theirs. In an often technologically focused world, they see a growing demand for employees who enjoy learning about the various components of things and how they work. They welcome those conversations.
“Rather than racking up post-high school debt, they can get into the trades and be able to work while they learn,” Mathais says. “Become a journeyman. Have no school debt and make $65,000 to $135,000 per year with highly competitive benefits.”
“We are not only looking at what they can do right now, but also at their potential,” Rich adds. “Sure, they might gravitate toward an area where we only do 5% of our business now. But down the road, that could be 20% of our business as times change and opportunities develop.”
Whether offering opportunity in the field or in their own backyards, Mathais and Rich give back.
With a combined 11 children between them, the leaders of Waterworks have lived in the Windsor community for a long time and stay involved in making it better. Rich was a high school wrestling coach for 25 years; he retired from coaching when he was elected to be on the school board. Mathais sits on the board for his local church and has served as a Scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts of America for over two decades. Both men list Waterworks’ rebuilding of the town green fountain in their hometown of Windsor as well as building some fountains for their church temples as some of their most personally rewarding projects to date.
In terms of one of the company’s more complex projects, Mathais mentions the aquatic facilities at the Roseville and San Jose VillaSport Athletic Club and Spa. The resort-type membership fitness establishments have water slides, a water walk, multiple pools and whirlpools.
“The work was quick and done on a tight schedule,” Mathais says. The project was a collaborative effort between Waterworks, the owner and the general contractor. “There were multiple trades working at the same time on the same project,” explains Rich of the recent work. “It’s all about scheduling and coordination.”
Waterworks has also built myriad high school and university pools over the years. The company has worked closely with the San Mateo Union High School District to rebuild six of its high school competition pools, including a $5.6 million project in 2011 comprising four campuses.
“We have clients who have dealt with other contractors in the past on other projects where things don’t go smoothly. When a project is costing in the tens of millions of dollars, paying interest and other carrying costs when things are delayed and having a project extend an extra month or so with no revenue can result in a project not being successful,” Rich says. “They are looking to work with guys like us—who are able to manage a complex project and are not looking to hit the owner with pre-planned, hidden change-order costs.”
Waterworks has grown steadily and organically, which is the way that Rich and Mathais hoped it would be. “As we treat clients and employees with honesty and respect, they will help fuel and impact the company’s direction,” Mathais adds.
“We are looking for opportunities to continue to grow and develop,” Rich says. “Much of that opportunity will come from the needs of our clients and the interests of our employees.”