Keeping the Water Clean

Joe Tackett is the CEO of Veolia, a water management company that works with governments around the world. Listen to the ways they work with government to make sure when you go for a glass of water, it’s clean and safe.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Joe Tackett: Over the next five years, 30 to 50% of our water workforce is going to retire. As their maintenance and preventive maintenance is not done on those $100 million of the assets. The life expectancy that should be 20 years is now five.

Our sole purpose in life is to ensure that folks have safe, clean drinking water and then the water that leaves the wastewater plant when they flush the toilet, it comes out of the wastewater plant, goes back to the waters of the state or to the rivers cleaner than what it was before they got it in their drinking water.

So we take our expertise not only in the United States or North America. Our expertise comes from France or Australia, New Zealand or other. Are there countries? We even have a robot dog now that goes around the wastewater and water plant that looks for issues, and the system.

David Martin: You turn your tap on, you get a glass of water, and you probably don’t ask yourself, is the water clean? You just expect it will be right. Well, how many of us stop to think about what it takes to get clean water? Well, today’s guest, that’s all he thinks about. Welcome to the good government show. I’m Dave Martin.

First, help us share the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are on Facebook, x, YouTube, Instagram and Blue Sky. Please share our show with your friends or in the US where you’re listening, and join our Good Government Show community. Check out our website for the link. Joe Tackett is the chief executive officer, municipal water contract Operations for Veolia.

This is a company that works with government around the world in the areas of water management, waste management and energy services. I regularly meet with mayors and other civic leaders at their conferences. I recently attended the U.S. conference of Mayors and I sat down with Joe Tackett. Government leaders consistently tell me the best way to manage and maintain projects at all levels, from building a new Little League baseball field to making sure they have clean water, is to build public.

That’s government and private partnerships. Billy is one of those companies that works with the government to help them keep the water clean, keep sanitation systems operating smoothly, and keep the lights on. As you’ll hear, Veolia is an international company, and they’re able to bring success from around the world to America’s cities and counties. And as you’ll hear, it’s cost effective.

And the result is savings for cities and counties and ultimately all of our citizens. In a minute, Joe Tocchet will explain why when cities hire outside agencies to help. It’s actually good government. Well that in providing clean water. And that’s coming up.

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Welcome to the Good Government show. I have with me. A different kind of guest. We have Joe Tackett. He is the CEO of Veolia. This is a global, international company. And why don’t you define your company better before I do?

Joe Tackett: Sure. This is an international company. We have, roughly around 220,000, employees across the world. We mainly focus in the energy waste and water business.

David Martin: The energy waste and water business.

Joe Tackett: Yes.

David Martin: That is a large business.

Joe Tackett: It’s a very large business.

David Martin: So, we’re here at the Conference of Mayors. You are one of the sponsors of this, of this event and have been for quite some time. You’ve been very active here with the mayors. And what I wanted to talk a little bit about is water management. And what you do with, water and waste management specifically, which I think are two of your larger areas.

And I want you to explain how it is that you able to work with government to help them run their water management programs better.

Joe Tackett: So good question. So we have, in the United States, I’ll just speak about the United States. We have roughly 200 water wastewater facilities, in partnerships with municipalities across, across North America.

David Martin: Okay.

Joe Tackett: One of the ways that we’re able to work very closely and partnership with them, through, you know, public private partnership or P3 is being able to come in and help them look at ways of efficiencies, look at their water compliance boats on the water side and wastewater side. We also look at their infrastructure. Do they need, funding, which we can help with?

Do they need more of a daily oversight through management and keeping in mind, over the next five years, 30 to 50% of our water workforce is going to retire. So in municipalities, 30.

David Martin: To 40% of the work for almost half of the workforce is.

Joe Tackett: Half of the workforce is going to retire over the next five years.

David Martin: That can’t be good.

Joe Tackett: That’s not good. But, we have workforce development programs in place all across the country. We partnership with colleges, schools through, curriculum to make sure that that next generation, the next workforce is coming on board. And when I talk about infrastructure, if you can think of it this way. So when municipalities go out and they say, okay, I need, you know, let’s say $50 million on infrastructure, or 80 million or 100 million, what does that look like?

Where do they get the funding for it? How are they going to get the funding for it, and how do they prioritize where that funding goes and where we’re able to help them prioritize whether that needs to go in the collection system or distribution system on pipes underground you can’t see. Or does it need to go in the water wastewater treatment facility itself, in which you can see and you can see those assets?

So we’re able to help them prioritize. And then when it comes to.

David Martin: Well, let me just let me just slow down for a moment here. Sure. So, you know, like I said, usually we talk with people who are in government, but you assist government when people hear that a municipality, a city has hired an outside contractor, the first thing a lot of citizens think about is, wait a minute, this is going to cost me more money.

Why are we paying an outside contractor? Why are we paying outside consultants? You know, which sometimes can be a bit of, dirty work. Outside consultants. How do you help cities? What do you bring to the table that the local city water water management district can’t do on its own?

Joe Tackett: So don’t get me wrong, we have a lot of municipalities and a lot of great leaders out there, a lot of great operators that manage and maintain their system very, very well. We do have municipalities and which, was lacking in the front of, investment into the systems. So we bring that expertise to them. And if you think of it this way, it’s our ability through Veolia Asset Management System.

It’s a, it’s a data management system that maintains infrastructure in a system that does CMS. So it’s it’s a maintenance management software system that allows us to help manage their maintenance system on the ground in real time, if that’s if their maintenance and preventive maintenance is not done on those $100 million or the assets, the lives expectancy that should be 20 years is now five oh.

So if you look at it, that’s a big difference. It’s a big difference. And if you look at it that way and nobody’s maintaining those assets, those assets are coming back in front of city council again or sewage and water board or whatever the case may be, to replace those earlier than what they should be replaced. And that in turn increases the rates of the citizens on what they pay for water and sewer.

Our sole purpose in life is to ensure that folks have safe, clean drinking water and then the water that leaves the wastewater plant when they flush the toilet. It comes us that the wastewater plant goes back to the waters in the state, to the rivers cleaner than what it was before they got it in the drinking water. Yeah, but we help hold the rates steady for the community, the water and sewer rates.

David Martin: Are you saying that you saved the city money?

Joe Tackett: Absolutely. 100%.

David Martin: 100%. 7%. So when people hear, oh, we’ve hired an outside agency to manage our water, their first thought should be, oh, good, we’re finally going to start saving money. Yes, yes.

Joe Tackett: So, so when you when you look at, I’ll just take it. That’s it.

David Martin: That’s a surprising way to look at it.

Joe Tackett: No. If you take if you know. Absolutely if you, if you take, well, let’s just take for example, at Atlanta, Fulton County’s water treatment facility. Okay. It’s jointly owned between Atlanta and Fulton County.

David Martin: All right.

Joe Tackett: We’ve operated that water treatment plant for many years, and we’ve won many awards at that at that treatment facility. And we’ve saved the citizens millions of dollars over the course of it. So we’ve been there through efficiencies, through our maintenance programs, through our chemical additions. We’ve saved them millions of dollars, able to maintain that system and provide safe, clean drinking water to Fulton County and to the city of Atlanta.

David Martin: And you’ve been able to do that because you’ve been down this road in 200 other places and around the world.

Joe Tackett: Yeah, not only at 22. Oh, absolutely. Not only at 200. I and I said 200 places in the United States are in North America on the on the drinking water and wastewater side. But if you look at globally, we’re in what, 47, 50 countries globally. We are the largest water wastewater utility in the world. So we take our expertise not only in the United States or North America.

Our expertise comes from France or Australia, New Zealand or other, their countries.

David Martin: Well, you’re a French based company, right?

Joe Tackett: We are. Yeah.

David Martin: So what has France brought you?

Joe Tackett: You can’t. You can’t hear the French and my my voice here.

David Martin: Non. What has France and France’s technology brought to the United States?

Joe Tackett: We just implemented and kicked off our first hub grade system. So hub grade, is is a software created and developed by Veolia in France. It was rolled out in over 4000 water wastewater facilities in France. And what it does is it takes the data out of that wastewater plant, puts it into a data lake, and let’s say in a cloud.

David Martin: Okay.

Joe Tackett: Hub grade pulls all that data out of the data lake into a computer based system that analyzes it. And real time is able to show you where your next emergency is going to be, even when how much rain you’re going to get. And predictive AI, how much rain you’re going to get tomorrow through.

David Martin: So it sounds like a technology, AI based sort of a data compilation, and distillation system that allows you to get quick results in real time.

Joe Tackett: Absolutely.

David Martin: How’d I do?

Joe Tackett: You did absolutely fantastic. It’s almost. I like to describe it as like.

David Martin: I used to work for a tabloid newspaper, so I’m good at breaking stuff out really quickly.

Joe Tackett: Like like an like a smartphone. You got on your smartphone, you got multiple apps on your smartphone, you can click on it and there’s data inside that app. How great is like that? There’s multiple apps inside a hub grade. We pull everything from the water wastewater facility. We look at water cleanliness. We look at water going to the river.

We look at trending data. AI provides us an excellent avenue to look at what tomorrow holds for that water wastewater facility. And that’s in turn where the savings comes in, because we’re able to control the chemical feed systems. We’re able to control the energy use at the plant through the hungry. Now, I say this hungry was developed in France.

We just started rolling that out in the United States called Hub Grain at scale. We’re at about 53 locations in the United States right now. We opened our first hub that’s controlled in the central region, the US in New Orleans. Our second hub is opening in September in Phoenix, which would control all the West Coast sites. All right.

So yeah, it’s it’s come a long way.

David Martin: Are you excited about this?

Joe Tackett: I’m excited because the hub great itself is a system in which is ultimately going to save the US citizens money through their rates. We’re able to control those rate.

David Martin: So when people are home, they turn their tap on. They hope and expect for clean water. How do you help deliver that?

Joe Tackett: We deliver that through our maintenance data system and our maintenance system. As you can imagine. So I right before I came here in Bolingbrook, right before I came here, I woke up and I had very low water pressure. And the first thing I did was.

David Martin: CEO of a water company, had low water pressure at his.

Joe Tackett: House, at low water pressure on my home, I go downstairs. The first thing I did was go to the basement and thinking, hopefully I don’t have a leak in the basement. I go to the front yard where the water’s connected. I look outside and see if somebody was running fire hydrants outside, and then I get an alert on my phone saying there’s several water main breaks in the city.

So that’s why I have low pressure.

David Martin: Okay.

Joe Tackett: Now, Veolia doesn’t run the community that I live in. Yes. It’s owned by a private company. Okay. If you take those water lines that are, you know, 80 to 100 years old. Mayor Dickens in Atlanta talked about this a while ago. I say a sort of predictive AI into some of the technology that we have today. You’re able to tell when you’re going to have a break and how big that break is going to be.

Is it going to deplete your water tanks in the city, or is it going to be a small break on a on a four inch line or an eight inch lawn?

David Martin: I want to get back to something that you talked about before a little bit. You said that in the next five years, almost half slightly less than half of the waste managers in the United States are going to go away. How do you get somebody excited, a 22 year old, 23 year old guy person to go into a waste management high?

You’re going to deal with sewage the rest of your life.

Joe Tackett: It’s a great point. So I am, I’m a I’m a believer. So I came out of, the marine Corps. I joined the Marine Corps at a young age. I came out of the Marine Corps. I got my first job and a, wastewater treatment facility making $8.50 an hour. This is long ago. Just 30 years ago now making $8.50 an hour.

Through leadership development programs, through workforce development programs, I was able to get my certifications and licenses and grow in a business like Veolia. And which makes you, extremely proud of the work that you do day in and day out. Now, if you go backwards for a second, who said that? How do you get somebody that’s a senior in high school excited about going to work in wastewater?

That’s when we pull folks out. We say, okay, we now have AI. We now have data driven processes at the wastewater facility. We have we even have a robot dog now that goes around the wastewater and water plant that looks for issues. And the system. Right. You take that and the components of our digital world today, and you take that and you show that to the kids that’s coming out of whether it be college or whether it be, high school that entices them to come look at, see what, what you’re actually doing.

Now, the rates of the job when I started was $8.50. But today, if you’re looking at a retirement plan, if you’re looking at a great salary plus incentives, you can’t be going in the water industry. And the reason why I say that is because it is stable. Water is never going to go away. No, it’s a whole career for your entire until you retire.

David Martin: Okay. There’ll always be a water.

Joe Tackett: There’s always going to be a water plant that’s not going to go away.

David Martin: So it’s you’re seeing technology, good benefits, a good future, and you just have to put up with little sewage.

Joe Tackett: Put a little sewage, a little smell. But at the same time, if done properly and maintained properly, you shouldn’t have that smell.

David Martin: All right. Well, that’s good to know. So we’re going to get your ideas on government even though you’re not in government. We’re going to get your ideas on government in just a minute. The Good Government Show is sponsored by our that’s oh are for our community. Get involved. We hear that all the time from government leaders. Our co-branding with your governments name and logo, your staff and the people you serve are connected and part of your community.

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David Martin: All right. So we have on our show something called the Good Government Show Questionnaire. And I’m going to change it as we go along because you’re not in government. All right. However you work with government. You work with government regularly. So the first question I ask everyone is what is good government?

Joe Tackett: Good government is making sure that the citizens in your municipal city, or ones in your state have the necessary resources and tools to succeed, and you’re able to do that effectively through public private partnerships in order to help lower your taxes or keep your taxes stable, and keep your rates of water and sewer stable.

David Martin: If people don’t like what they see in government, if they’re not happy with the way things are going, if they don’t think, you know Veolia is taking care of their sewage treatment plant properly, what should they do?

Joe Tackett: I would encourage anyone to reach out and have a conversation. It doesn’t hurt to have a conversation. Just have a conversation around why they think that way and I’m not. I wouldn’t try to change anyone’s mind, but I would try to help. I would like to understand why they feel that way and how do we change it?

David Martin: What got you into this industry?

Joe Tackett: Well, coming out of the Marine Corps, I was looking for, a career path. And this is a true story. I had two job offers at the time. I had applied, as you can imagine, for many, I had two at the time. One was at a Volvo dealership selling cars. All right. The other one was at a wastewater treatment facility in southern Indiana.

I was talking to, my dad at the time, and he said, look, you know, completely up to you. My dad was in, safety. He was a coal miner for 20 years.

David Martin: Tough job.

Joe Tackett: But went into, underground mine rescue and a bunch of other stuff. And he’s like, look, give, give to give the wastewater. Try. So that’s what I did, right?

David Martin: You never sold a Volvo.

Joe Tackett: Never sold a Volvo.

David Martin: Do you drive a Volvo?

Joe Tackett: I do not no.

David Martin: But did you ever consider a career? I mean, you you were a marine. Did you ever consider a career in public service? I mean, even the police department or fire department, something like that.

Joe Tackett: I did, and and at the time, coming out of the Marine Corps, I was looking for a career I did consider in police department. I applied at the local police department. I applied state police, I applied for, you know, Secret Service or, Homeland Security type roles, which would have been at the time, private law enforcement roles that that helped embassies and things like that.

Joe Tackett: But yeah. Like what?

David Martin: But water, metal, water waste.

Joe Tackett: I ended up in a wastewater plant and,

David Martin: Went out that went out over. I was like.

Joe Tackett: Yeah, out of out of everything that came about, you know, and as, a young marine, getting out newly married with a pregnant wife, you’re looking for a job.

David Martin: Gotcha. All right. And so, I guess working on commission to sell cars did really appeal to you. I can see that now. Yeah. What would you like? People, if you could sum it up? What would you like citizens to know about a municipality, a city, a state that does hire an outside contractor? What should they know about that process?

Joe Tackett: Well, first, the municipalities should go through a request for proposal or RFP process. Right. They can also do, to go.

David Martin: Through all the proper channels. Right?

Joe Tackett: And proper channels. I don’t like the term contractor.

David Martin: Okay. Consultant. Pick your.

Joe Tackett: Word. Not even consultant.

David Martin: What’s your word, then? I’m sorry.

Joe Tackett: So when you when you look at a contractor consultant, that somebody that comes in that’s hired to do a task and then they leave. Yes. They get paid, they leave, they go on. I like the word partner, because we like to partner with municipalities and we share risk with them. And we also share in the words and the success of things that happen on a daily basis.

Like I said, our sole purpose in life is to ensure that we’re good partners in the community. We not only manage and maintain the water and wastewater systems, but we’re also in the communities and in Milwaukee, for example, sponsoring the bubbler bikes. We have several stations along the bus route that we sponsor to make sure that citizens get picked up the mayor’s building and 50 miles of bike lanes.

And the next couple of years in the city of Milwaukee, we sponsored electric bikes there to help ensure that these bicycles can can be driven and rode to the city.

David Martin: Milwaukee electric bikes, I like that. What’s the best part of your job, people?

Joe Tackett: I love dealing with people. I get to meet. I met you today. It’s.

David Martin: Yeah. That’s good. Right?

Joe Tackett: Yeah. Right. I get to meet, a lot of mayors. A lot of city council members, a lot of board members, a lot of citizens. Veolia has what I would consider the highest qualified technical people in the world. We have folks in the United States that work for me, that’s come all over the world. But yeah, the great part of my job is dealing with people I get to.

I get to talk to mayors each day about, you know, what keeps them up at night. I get to talk about, to city council members or to board members and what keeps them up at night and their families and their communities. How do we how do we become better partners in the community? So, yeah, it’s it’s, my job is absolutely amazing.

David Martin: You hear a lot, a lot of mayors talk about the fact that you need a good public private partnership on projects, to get stuff done that you can’t the city can’t do it alone. The municipality can’t do it alone. You need a good public private partnership with you on the on the private side. How is it working on the public side?

How is it working with the government? Are they always great partners?

Joe Tackett: So great question. We have crossed the 200 sides. Amazing partnerships. I will say that when you have a, you’ve been let’s say we’ve been there for 15, 20 years. We’ve been great partners. We have a mayor that’s, our city council members is elected not to run again. You have a new mayor come in. They’re wondering who Veolia is and what they’re doing there.

And then you start the process all over again of, educating and being great partners. We have other municipalities that look at Veolia is, global company. You guys have money. Maybe you should fund this and not charge if you want to be great partners, not charge anything for it. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s it’s it’s, it’s a great dynamic there that’s, that’s being created and the P3 space because we do want to be great partners.

We do want to share in the reward and risk along with the municipality. But at the same time, you can’t be a bank either.

David Martin: Okay.

Joe Tackett: Once you start becoming a bank’s and the partnership starts to go away because we’re not a nonprofit company. So we like to be great partners, but but also not taking advantage of it, if that makes sense.

David Martin: This is the good government show. We always end the conversation with discussion about some good government. Tell me about a good government project that Veolia has able to, start, maintain and and really change turnaround. What was going on in that city?

Joe Tackett: I’m talking about I’ve been talking about larger cities such as Tampa, Milwaukee or New Orleans. I’ll talk about a small one, a little town called Marshall, Tennessee. We were able to connect to them through an RFP process. They were looking for somebody to come in and partner to come in and help change the course that they were on the track that they were on, which was they’re having to raise rates.

They’re going to have to look to replace all their assets. They’re going to have to a lot of their assets were off line at the time or not working or going a different direction. So we’re able to come in and partner up with Marshall and Tennessee to make sure that not only did they not have to automatically raise rates, but we got their equipment online, we got their equipment running, got their plant back in compliance.

And it was a it was a very it was a great success story. I still see it in the media probably weekly. There’s something coming out about my time Tennessee in the turnaround. Okay. It’s been and that’s the that’s the other great part of my job is to be able to, to, to assign the best to the best in the industry.

And then people will Veolia to projects like this to go in into a small community like that, where they don’t have the federal funding or they don’t have the state funding, or they can’t raise rates and be able to help them realize that partnership that we can do for them without having to go through a lot of rate increases.

David Martin: Well, I think that the citizens of there would be very happy to hear there were no other rate increases. So I guess that alone is good government. Joe Tackett, you were the chief executive officer of the municipal water contract operators for Veolia. It was a pleasure having you on any hearing from a different side of how government should work.

So thanks for coming on.

Joe Tackett: Yeah, thank you very much for having me.

David Martin: After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for Mayors Kasim Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts.

We help hold rates steady. That’s what Veolia CEO Joe Tackett said. He went on to explain that by bringing technology from around the world, they’re in some 50 countries and 200 cities around the United States. All that experience, all that knowledge, impacts each locality they serve. That saves money for everyone. For cities and for the people who turn on their faucet and get a fresh glass of water.

Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like us and share this with your friends and review us right here where you’re listening, and check out our website Good Government Showcase some for extras. Help us keep telling the stories of good government and action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the good Government show.

The Good Government Show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me, and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe then share and like us and reviews. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

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**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.