Posted on August 3, 2015
by Ari Raivetz, CEO of Organica Water
When I came in as CEO of Organica Water in October 2011, one of the things I started doing was sending a “weekly update” email out to the entire staff. As we are a rapidly growing global business, the primary goal was to promote cross-department and cross-geographic transparency… to answer the question “what is everyone else working on?” In addition, given the long sales cycles typical in our industry, wins can be few and far between. However there are A LOT of “little” battles along the way that in the end add up to signed contracts, so the weekly was intended to recognize these successes and instill a sense of pride in our accomplishments given how hard the team is working every day.
I have sent the weekly email every Sunday since October 2011. Being consistent is not easy (sometimes it is a major pain in the ass), but it has proved to be a great way for me to step back and see the big picture each week. And by most accounts it has been a great success internally, as feedback from the team has shown it really helps people understand what their colleagues are up to, and it has become a coveted way to receive recognition for individual or group achievements.
One of our core values at Organica is transparency. I clearly can’t share every item in the weekly update with the public, but when we launched our blog this week I decided that I will try to post portions of it – when relevant – on our blog. The goal is to share with all of you some of our experiences as we work towards our long term goal of becoming the dominant “operating system” for wastewater management in the 21st century. I only have one small item from this week’s email to share right now, which is included below.
During the week of 2/7 we completed the installation of the Bio modules, the testing of the aeration system, and the commissioning of the instruments and control system for our pilot plant at Melbourne Western in Australia. The green plants are now being put into the plant racks, and we expect to receive wastewater on 17-February, when our man on the scene will take over process start-up and operation. We plan to have this 58 m3/d FCR pilot plant fully operational in early April, which will enable us to demonstrate the advantages of the Organica FCR on the site of Melbourne Water, one of the largest wastewater treatment utilities in Australia.
