President's Message

Kevin Freber
Watertown, Wisconsin
June 2014

Well, they say spring is here, but this morning, May 16 we had frost warnings in the southern part of the State and actual frost up north.  

Most Communities are busy trying to get the biosolids hauled out prior to Farmers planting for the year. With the late spring again this year the farmers in my area told us that we only had a short window to haul, which was a call in the morning everything hauled out by noon of that day, fortunately we still have plenty of storage till the winter wheat comes off.  

I attended the Lake Michigan regional meeting on May 8th great topics and an awesome meal, well done. They had very good speakers that presented on pretreatment, valves and asset management software to work with GIS software. Rich Knoelke presented a very informative talk on different blower technology. Please, take the time to go to the regional meeting, as the officers put in a lot of time and effort to get pertinent information out to you.  

Regional Officers were invited to attend our April Board meeting in Green Bay on Thursday April 24th,we had two members of the Lake Michigan region come. We greatly appreciate them coming, this is an opportunity for regional officers to talk to the state Board and see what it takes to run the organization.  

We also finalized the plans for this year’s conference in Green Bay. Technical Chair Lyle Lutz is doing an awesome job putting together the Technical Program for this year.  Lyle is following in Kelly’s footsteps for the entertainment after the Awards Banquet by having a raffle and card playing, please remember all conference members are welcome at the entertainment. The Guest Program sounds like it will be a lot of fun; special thanks to Bruce Bartel and Jean Van Sistine of Green Bay. The golf outing and sporting clays are planned and sign up will start with conference registration; special thanks to Randy Herwig, Jim Thalke and Tom Kruzick Tom Mulcahy and Carol Strackbein (Manufactures and Consultants Co- Chairs) have finalized their portion of the conference. There will be 118 display booths available. The cost per booth registered by the due date listed on the WWOA webpage is $385.00. A sponsor fee of $100.00 (included in the exhibit cost) is to be paid only once per firm. It is charged to ALL manufactures and consultants attending the conference.  

Quick note about the Operator Challenge, please consider participating, last year the College team took first place and I know that our older members can reclaim the title this year with your help. (No offence to the Steven Point College Team) 

Scholarships applications are again far and few in between. As I mentioned in my last message, with over 2,000 members surely we should have a lot of requests for the scholarships that are offered by WWOA, Crane Engineering and North Central Labs.  Awards nominations are also limited. Come on everyone look around when you’re at a meeting, think of friends and co-workers; surely you know someone in this great organization who deserves to receive an Award. Every year I’ve been involved in this organization it’s a struggle when it comes to receiving Awards nominations. Please take the time to recognize your peers!!!  

Outside of the conference the WWOA training committee is working on a training opportunity that is centered on energy savings at Wastewater Treatment plants. At this time they are looking at hosting it at 2 locations in the State. If you have questions, please contact Directors Jeff Smudde or Don Lintner.  

My last message I told you to have a great and safe summer but it is May and summer still seems to be missing in action.

Enjoy anyway!

Kevin L Freber
WWOA President