By Kay Nolan
For WisBusiness.com
MILWAUKEE — Attendees at this week’s Water Summit at Discovery World repeatedly heard calls to nurture entrepreneurship and creative thinking in order to advance new water technology systems that will solve the twin challenges of maintaining clean water supplies and conserving energy.
Milwaukee’s goal of becoming a water industry hub that will attract clusters of scientists, corporate executives and investors could be tied to those advancements. Eventually, if new technology can be invented and companies and investors can be persuaded to support it, jobs will follow, and the cycle of innovation and investment will continue, speakers and attendees hope.
Discussion among the roughly 250 educators, students, business representatives and community leaders in attendance involved calls for changing educational programs — from kindergarten through college — to nourish scientific curiosity and risk-taking. Businesses and municipalities were also urged to be open to new ideas.
Enthusiasm for solving water issues remained strong at the two-day conference held by the Milwaukee Water Council — even if answers were few.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson gave conference attendees a rousing pep talk on Tuesday, saying: “It’s hard to overstate the need for innovation in the face of today’s water challenges.” She cheered existing efforts in Wisconsin and said, “The EPA supports everything you do.”
But Jackson said unlike 40 years ago when the EPA was created, today’s water issues are difficult to describe, much less solve.
“Years ago, we knew something was wrong when we could smell untreated sewage in our water or when we saw fish kills in our lakes and streams,” she said.
“Today,” Jackson said, “water problems are tougher to dramatize for the people for whom you work and to whom you sell. Some of the problems are invisible. Some are tasteless or odorless chemicals that can damage our human health or — even harder to explain — ecosystems in a way that’s a little more pernicious, that comes in and starts destruction from the bottom up.”
Industry executive Chris Sacksteder of Dow Chemical Co., who spoke at a session on how to identify and develop talent in the water industry workforce, predicted that jobs will follow, once new technologies are adapted.
“In 2008 and 2009 — that was a tough period for everybody — there were two businesses within Dow that hired, and we were one of them, because the water business continues to grow,” he said.
“Until water scarcity is not an issue and those billion people who don’t have access to good water are sitting drinking Perrier, industrialization and population growth will continue to drive the fundamentals of this market.”
Future jobs accompanying this growth will likely involve sales, installation and repair, as well as instructors to train customers to use the new technology, Sacksteder said.
But at the same time, Sacksteder acknowledged that his company, like many big corporations, “can be a very tough company to sell to.”
He advised entrepreneurs who devise new, water-related products to research a corporation’s existing customers and business goals before trying to sell an idea. “Find something that helps the company in an area in which they are already making money,” he advised. “At the end of the brainstorming, ideas have to become part of business plans.”
That prospect sounded daunting to aspiring water-technology engineer Sara Marciniak, a senior at Marquette University. After completing a recent internship at the City of De Kalb (Ill.) Sanitary District, Marciniak is convinced she wants to work in the water treatment field — but now realizes that city councils and other political entities will be involved if exciting new concepts are to be adopted.
“I don’t know anything about government or policy,” she said. “I think engineering students should learn the basics of that.”
“It goes both ways,” countered Amy Heart, solar program manager for the city of Milwaukee. “Majors in public affairs and public policy should take engineering classes — so we can work together.”
Joel Brunner, who recently enrolled in the UWM Freshwater Sciences graduate program, said he studied everything but engineering as an environmental studies major at Carthage College in Kenosha. “I really need to learn about water technology,” he said.
Michael Carvan, who directs the professional sciences master’s program at UWM Freshwater Sciences School, said his curriculum already stresses cross-disciplinary subjects.
“But too many students are entering the program and the first thing they ask is, ‘Who am I going to go work for?'” he said. “I want to instill a sense of entrepreneurship in my students. I’d like to get them thinking, ‘What can I do to make a contribution to this field?’ ”
Companies don’t have jobs — or even ideas — waiting for young graduates, he suspects. Graduates will either be the ones to introduce new ideas to companies — or start their own.
Others at the conference argued the need to teach creative thinking should begin much earlier, in elementary school.
Diana Glassman, board member of the New York-based World Policy Institute, said American schools fail to teach pupils to think creatively — “It’s not a flexible education system,” she said. One answer? “I’m a big fan of competitions,” she said. “Establish goals and have people compete.”
Steve Bryan’s San Francisco-based non-profit agency, Imagine H2O, does just that — offers prizes to entrepreneurs in the water industry, which in turn can spur them to market their ideas and obtain start-up funding. For example, one prizewinner suceeded in implementing her idea of refining fat, oil and grease from wastewater into biodiesel fuel that the treatment plant can use to generate power, he said.
A new competition is in the works for high school students, he said, noting that such ideas do create jobs, such as wastewater equipment operators and installers.
“There will be blue collar jobs, but they’re going to be a different paradigm,” he said. “They will be green collar jobs.”
Along those lines, two major funding announcements were made at this year’s Water Summit.
* $500,000 from the National Science Foundation to Milwaukee Area Technical College to develop water-technology training programs.
* $1 million from the U.S. Commerce Department, to be shared by UW-Milwaukee, UW-Parkside, UW-Whitewater, Milwaukee School of Engineering and Marquette University, to promote water technology and entrepreneurship.
