EW 049 – How To Build An Innovative Water Treatment Solutions Company That Is Also A Leader In Environmental Sustainability – Winning with Jerry Hanna, CEO of Clearflow Group

Gordon Sheppard (00:00.75)
Jerry, welcome to the show.

Jerry Hanna (00:03.619)
Morning. Thank you.

Gordon Sheppard (00:04.842)
It's so good to have you here. I've seen you win awards in technology, in supporting the Indigenous community, and learned a little bit about your own heritage there as well, and also how honored you were at the Technology Alberta Aztec Awards to win, and how touching it was for you and meaningful. I've been an audience member that has seen that occur and the deep sort of feelings and commitments that you have in those areas. So we are just...

Super lucky that I had a chance to reach out to you and bring you on the podcast here today, because you're such an experienced entrepreneur, scientist, doer of things, grandpa is in there somewhere too, and all those wonderful things that you do in your life, we're lucky to have you here. But there's a lot of people really that haven't met you just yet. So if you had to introduce yourself, what would you say?

Jerry Hanna (00:51.523)
My name is Jerry Hanna. I've been in the water world game off and on for about 47 years. I've developed technologies that have been world changing, guess. Environmental changing to the better. I'm just very proud of my team and what we've been able to accomplish and where we're going next.

Gordon Sheppard (01:17.846)
It's so fun to meet people with the 47 years and that modest couple of sentences, but you've actually, in fact, there are patents in play here. I know in the pre-interview, we talked about the significant impacts, the 47 years. I mean, to jump in and learn a little bit about you, because I know in the pre-interview, we were talking a little bit about some of your own journey. You built and sold a company at a relatively young age. Maybe start me there, and then tell me some of the next moments that occurred so we can get a good feel for your entrepreneurial muscles.

Jerry Hanna (01:45.528)
No.

Sure. So I've always had a business of some type on the side or ever since I was a small, about 12 years old, had something to do, whether it be a paper route or whatever. But as I got older, of course, it developed more mature type businesses and I was very fortunate to develop a business and be able to retire at 40 for the first time and had virtually nothing to do. All my friends were working. So I had to figure something else out to

So we looked at other opportunities. I developed some software with another friend of mine and I sold that because I didn't like the software game and then I got into back into the water game which I grew up in with my family business my parents had and started developing technology around that. We've got numerous patents. We're in seven countries now and growing and I've really been able to enjoy a life that took me back to where I started working with my dad and my family and things like

that so it's been a real journey to say the least and you know now the hard part is to figure out how do you retire again when when the time is right. Not when the time is wrong.

Gordon Sheppard (02:57.26)
When the time is right, because this is one of those things where you have that ability. And it's funny, you say the water game, but I need a little bit of context for that. It's water treatment, water use. Just give me a few sentences on what do mean when you say the water game.

Jerry Hanna (03:07.991)
Yeah. So what we

What we've done is we've been able to develop a technology that is passive release so you don't need a lot of big equipment, very, very expensive equipment to dose it. There's no mechanical opportunities for causing environmental impact. It's totally environmentally friendly. I worked very closely with the University of Alberta and National Research Council of Canada to do what we do and develop this technology and have them validate it.

so to make sure that it was safe for the environment. And it's basically a product that we put into the water flow and what ends up happening is it takes the solids out, the metals out, phosphorus out, takes things like, we talked about metals like arsenic, selenium, all of these things that can cause harm. And also we've been able to go far beyond that stage. That's our core technology. Everything that we've developed is built around that. But what we've now

taken is the ability to diagnose and monitor residual

chemicals that are in the water, call them cationic polymers that are used in big sectors like mining, heavy industry, things like that that they use to knock solids out, but they leave a very, very toxic nature to the water and it ends up killing fish and aquatic organisms. We've figured out through the request of clients and the regulators how to neutralize that toxicity so it makes it safe for use. On top of that, how to

Jerry Hanna (04:49.381)
for it. We have the first of its kind in the world analyzer for residual catonic polymers that will be released this coming year, 2026, and Q1 of that. The research has just finished two and a half years of field testing. It works amazing and as I say the first of its kind in the world. So we're looking for the global status of that. So we've really stayed ahead of technologies that are needed for development to make the environment safe for water.

recycle and repurposing.

Gordon Sheppard (05:21.805)
Remarkable and you can walk into, I've seen the flags up on your Clearflow group website. You're in multiple jurisdictions. You are in some of the largest, wherever there's water and things in big applications, you're able to be there. I love what I would describe your enthusiasm of a teenager. I met you at one of the Aztec events and you were like, let me just, let me, you met me for two seconds. You're like, come here, come here. And you took me over to a couple of plastic cups of water.

and your briefcase and you pulled out, if I call it a piece of sponge, I'm sure this is your genius patented technology, and you were showing me literally right there and then, and I saw you do that with multiple people at the event. wasn't just me, I had that chance to see that. And what's neat for me is when I meet folks like you who have this chemistry and, you know, whatever, inventor backgrounds, but you're able to then boil it down to allow someone like me to go, wow, that makes sense, I can see it in a cup of water, but I can also then imagine it down in Brazil at a mining operation or wherever you are.

doing your work, think that's quite remarkable. I just mean to step back into that pre-interview piece, you're 40, you sell the business, you build another business, you didn't like the software business, and there's a moment where somebody comes to you with a problem in around there that leads to some work in your basement. I really need to get that story out, it's a good one.

Jerry Hanna (06:30.221)
Yeah.

Jerry Hanna (06:34.499)
Well basically I was...

As I said, I'd sold a software company. was looking for something to do. My wife was saying, can't go to the lake anymore. You can't go to the golf course anymore than you're already doing. This is not working. You need to get out of my hair and do something that's, you know, reality. So a friend of mine came to me and said, look, I have a problem. We've got a issue with residual chemistry getting into the water and solids getting into the water where there's fish and a fresh breeding ground.

from a wash plant that they had had that was producing aggregates and they just couldn't clean the water enough to make it safe. So he said, could you help me? I know your background in water and et cetera, et cetera. So I said, sure, let's do something. So I started with a fish tank in my basement and started developing different chemistries, looking for other chemistries. And honestly, it wasn't my goal to make a product. It was my goal to sell somebody else's product. So I started bringing in products from all over the world.

some in from Asia, bringing some in from Europe, some from the US, and we are trying all these and all of them work to a point. But when we got down to the regulatory side, nobody could come up with the answers the regulators wanted and they're saying, well, you can't give us these answers. We can't use your product.

So I said, I went back to National Research Council of Canada. I said, look, this is who I am. This is what I do. Would you support me in developing this technology that I think we need? And they did. They gave us the support we wanted. We were able to leverage that. I went to the University of Alberta and made an alliance there, which I have now had for 19 years. And I lecture there all the time now as well.

Jerry Hanna (08:24.687)
almost feel like part of the faculty. We're actually even having our company Christmas party there this weekend coming up. So it's a big deal. We were able to validate everything that we said that we could develop. We developed. We validated it at the university to make sure that it was all environmentally safe with massive fish testing. We even went to the point of going all the way to the fish hatchery in British Columbia, the federal government's fish hatchery, and they allowed us to work six months with

their infrastructure where they were growing the fish from the small fry up to releasable fish salmon back into the ocean and we cleaned all the water and all the salmon it was a better environment for them than what they had previously. we've really the deal I made with the university was whatever they found they got to to release so if it was bad they got to say it was bad if it was good they got to say it was good. So the interesting part is when we did our scientific

study, it literally states in the paper by accredited scientists that were third party and they verified that our product was literally, it says, 1000 times safer than the catonic products they were currently using. Now think of that impact going worldwide. It made such a problem for the companies that were selling these other products, they literally phoned the university and started yelling at them, this was the president of the company.

company, this big chemical company that is worldwide. And the guys actually said, look, Mr. Hanna gave us his products, you gave us your products, we're just releasing the scientific data. His is safer.

From there the federal government asked me to go speak at the World Water Conference in Paris, France in 2015. I was the only one that was a chemistry company that was invited to speak. it was and at that meeting when I did the presentation one of the well the head scientists for this major chemical company that has caused all the grief for the university came down to the floor and said I need to know what's in that.

Jerry Hanna (10:41.827)
PhD chemist and I need to know what you just showed me because I've never seen anything like it before and I said well no you don't need to know what my formula is but thank you so much for the accolade so and that's where went from there.

Gordon Sheppard (10:55.679)
Isn't that remarkable? Yeah, isn't that so great? So thankfully the world and many fish or whatever people that use water are thankful that your wife got you off the golf course and into a fish tank in your basement. That's your wife. I hope she's got a percentage of the company because that's a pretty big gift. Also, we can hear the entrepreneur and sort of stakeholder manager in you. You're not just a problem solver chemist. You are able to rally people. You're able to convince.

Jerry Hanna (11:05.795)
Hahaha!

Jerry Hanna (11:11.201)
dear.

Gordon Sheppard (11:23.181)
Cajole, I mean, this is not sort of, like you said, it's 19 years in a sense of this stage of the work that you're doing. There's a lot of moments along there where you are the Jerry relationship builder. You are the pulling together, the project manager. You're able to get things across the finish line. And then also there's a humility in there to say, well, I'm gonna test the other ones. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. So there's sort of a explorer discoverer in there as well and how lucky.

that we can hear from someone who's put all of that together at a moment in time to arrive at these great solutions. So, well, this is just fantastic. It's really good to get sort of the set up here. You know, it's almost unfair, but I'm gonna ask you this question. If you had to describe one of your biggest wins, and you you can pick one or, and we can kind of step off there, because I know there's so many, what would that win be and how would you describe it?

Jerry Hanna (12:10.347)
I think the biggest win was kind of a combination. Number one was to be able to develop a product that made a difference. Right? That made a difference, a real difference. We save an environment. Number two is the ability to build a company around that.

and to have such like-minded people that are in my team and then that's in both our locations and then to find, because we've gone to a distribution model worldwide, so we have distributors in the UK that handle the EU and the UK, we have distributor in Australia, we have a distributor in...

sorry, in Brazil, we got one in Peru. this, every one of these companies that we're working with have this like-mindedness. And we have a group across Canada and we have some in the US as well. So the whole thing is how do you find like-minded people that aren't there for the profits first, but are there for the environment first, and then make a good living off of it from there? And the environment is a critical mass. I'm indigenous, I'm Métis.

and which is that award that I just won as you said was a real family win. As a of fact as soon as I left that meeting the next morning I sent a notification to all of my cousins and let them know that to me this was a family win something that my grandmother had gone through that was not really nice at all in her environment being an indigenous person.

literally having to move from their hometown to a different province to be born. And it was horrible things that went on. So it was a little bit vindicated. Maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe that's not the way to look at it. But to me, was, you know, people are actually listening to technologies from all over now. And it's not just segregated to one little group within a science pocket, if you will. And they're looking at indigenous and innovation. And we're looking at, you know, worldwide

Jerry Hanna (14:18.501)
sharing of information. I was a keynote at Murdoch University two years ago in Australia and I was supposed to be there again this year but unfortunately I just couldn't make it this year into another one in Australia, in Adelaide. this is, you know, we're crossing scientific information from border to border. The borders aren't there for science. And how do you globalize innovation? And how do you globalize communication? And to me,

when it comes to that and the environment and not to be ridiculous about it. know, it's okay, this is real science. So everything that we do is based on science. Whereas we're not a chemical, I don't like to be called a chemical sales company because that's not what we are. We're a solutions company, but when we're going against people that are out there just selling chemistries and don't have the background or the science, and I say, okay guys, put us side by side.

We've tested it side by side. Now ask them for exactly the same data as I'm going to give you. And almost nobody can give it. Because we did 20th, it's our 20th year of business this year, 20th anniversary in 2025. And we're able to actually give our clients real scientific data, third party proven by universities within National Research Council of Canada. We are giving you all of the top line data. And if that's more than everybody else can give us, then

that's a benefit for us and to the environment.

Gordon Sheppard (15:50.038)
Incredible. You know how lucky that your win is to build a product that made a difference of values based and you mentioned that then that how much bigger that is than you. It's about the environment, the world, the borders are erased because it's your science and values in a sense that are moving the mission forward. You're not in a corporate sort of profit driven mode. You are really about what I'm going to say is legacy building to a certain degree. And I know there's a, you know,

this is the same sort of thing that you're passing along to your granddaughter that you mentioned, because I know you've given her some incentive along the way. Do you mind just sharing what you've did with her?

Jerry Hanna (16:22.381)
Yes.

Jerry Hanna (16:27.843)
Oh, well, yeah, shoot. It's interesting because we have a granddaughter and a grandson. Our granddaughter's just turning 18. And when she was 10 years old, we sat her down and said, look, if you do really good at school, we will take you on a trip. Grandma and grandpa will take you wherever you want to go in the world. You pick. So she was always excited. She always wanted to go to a country or whatever. And it was an incentive for her. Well, at the end of the day, she graduated just recently. She got valedictorian and honors.

And grandpa had to pay up. So we took her to France. She wanted to go to Paris. so we just recently, in the last couple of months, spent a wonderful trip with her. And now our grandson, he's eight right now, 10 years old. We'll be having a similar talk with him. But it was really, I wrote her a letter.

before we go she had to read it at the airport and it just basically stated that she made a promise we made a promise and look what happens if you keep your promise if you work hard and if you make a benefit it doesn't matter if you're female, male, indigenous it doesn't matter who you are

I mentor PhDs every year. I usually do about two, three PhDs a year to act as mentors and I'm still, some of them I've been mentoring for even into their careers. And a lot of them are from different countries. Who cares?

Honestly, who cares if you care enough about doing something good, it doesn't matter where you're from, what you do, it matters who you are. And to me, that's how I like to give back. It's my way to give back. I sit on the board at the university for various other advisories for engineering and do a lot of lecturing for chemistry and engineering. It's my way to go and have fun. I have more fun and I learn more from these people than I will ever give out. So I am extremely

Jerry Hanna (18:24.33)
blessed.

Gordon Sheppard (18:25.419)
Incredible. She made a promise, you made a promise, and you're able to demonstrate that with her. It sounds like you make a promise with the people that work with you and the customers that work with you. They make a promise and you're doing it too. There's a promise being made to the environment. I can hear that, it's bigger than you. There's a promise being made to your grandmother who you are honoring through this approach too. Isn't that just lucky that you're at that moment in time to pull all this together and again,

Jerry Hanna (18:35.542)
some.

Gordon Sheppard (18:52.173)
build a product that makes a difference. And I think that's the win that you just sort of described, but of course it's all these things coming together. How wonderful. I always like to jump into what I call the anatomy of a win to learn a little bit more about it. So if build a product that makes a difference, let's look at the strategy, the work plan, people, operations, and results behind the win. Well, if we look at strategy, vision, mission, values, sort of as a core of strategy, goals in a sense, you've been talking about them in spades. The values are about the environment.

the mission is that kind of thing. Any sort of other ways that you like to describe the strategy behind, any highlights that you want to describe?

Jerry Hanna (19:24.919)
Well, it's interesting because

When we first introduced this back, I started the company in 2005, when we introduced this, I couldn't get anybody to even talk to me for six years. Industry did not want this. They were not being pressured by regulatory constraints as much as they maybe should have been or could have been at the time. And really, not until there was a fine in, I think it was Sturgeon County, in around 2011, and it was,

in the millions of dollars. And until that fine happened, industry really didn't wake up that much. They just kept on operating as they were. Well now all of a sudden it's some pretty big fines. There were some fines in the neighborhood of $60 million. There was another one in the neighborhood of $70 million within various industries that were utilizing these negative chemicals.

we were called in to help find a solution for them by those particular sites. And you know what? We've been with the client ever since. So to have somebody not talk to you for six years is very frustrating. And then all of sudden after six years is, my gosh, where have you been?

I've been knocking on your door for years. So now we get the calls saying, I have another site, could you help this person out? In the mining industry, we do a lot of work in the mining industry for gold mines, coal mines, metals mines, all that. That's probably 70, 80 % of our business, heavy construction. And now we're in the municipal application. So the City of Toronto is a client. They use all of our products for their storm water.

Jerry Hanna (21:14.245)
testing it for the last two years, we've now done so well with it. So we do City of Toronto, the City of Los Angeles, we've got I think three more cities coming on board right away, helping their stormwater, taking phosphorus out so you don't have downstream allergies, taking solids out so they don't have downstream negative effects on the aquatic environments, because these all release into water spotties, right? You're looking like the Thames River Project releases into where the Great Lakes go in and things like that. how can we help? And people are now, we're just now

after 20 years starting to get recognized and recognized internationally. it's not strategy is patience, a large part of it. And sometimes you just want to grab a pillow and scream into it for a little while and then go, hello, my name is Jerry.

Gordon Sheppard (22:02.466)
Because you know you've got the solution, you know you're ready to do, but the world's not ready for it until whatever, whatever those pressure points are that make the world ready for it. And then you're there, Johnny on the spot as well to make that occur. So interesting to hear that strategy is patience. That's actually a very good wisdom for any leader that's listening. Cause I hear that often on this podcast. I hear 10 years, 20 year overnight success stories. I hear that frequently if you're going to build something substantial. So that's a really good point. Anytime we have a strategy, we need a work plan.

So there it is. I don't know when you got sort of your fish tank invention sort of done, but the timeline for getting it up and running and then deployment to get the win, was it six years, seven years? Is that sort of the roughly, if we look at the...

Jerry Hanna (22:44.483)
well.

Yeah, probably six years to get everything to the point where people would now recognize that there is an opportunity. We had a major mining site in Alberta say, look, we'll let you use our site for a test site. And we've been with them ever since. We support all of their requirements for their surface water treatment and water management. And they've been part of most of our research projects because they love to be able to say to the regular,

look, we're trying to make a difference as well. And we've brought other mines on that want to do that. So we work quite heavily with that. The pipelines that are being built now, and hopefully more are being built from the level of what we need to do. We've been there for those clients. We're working with the new ones that are upcoming and really helping them develop the technologies, I guess not develop the technology, but institute the technology to help them meet all their requirements.

and especially as they're going through First Nations lands and other Metis properties and things like that. it's how are we working with them? We've brought an indigenous solution to a industrial problem. And it's just been such a great benefit. We're launching into a new category of research coming up right away. Hopefully everything's gonna be all approved.

by startup for this spring, but we are adding in a new technology that will solve tailings pond issues. So honestly, taking the tailings ponds and making a repurposable, recyclable product from the tailings. And that's something that's very new and innovative. It'll be the first of its kind to really hitting the market.

Jerry Hanna (24:40.516)
And so again, more world changing because there's tailings all over the world. And how do we sequence that?

Gordon Sheppard (24:45.644)
It sounds like you're not allowed to retire, because you just keep inventing the next best level. And so I'm not sure if that's going to be a possibility given if we look at that timeline, there's invention, there's six years to market with the first one. And then you're like, well, then we built another one. It was a natural thing. And you are solution providers. So then somebody walks in with another problem, and you and your gang are ready to step up to the plate there. Isn't that interesting as we look through the timeline? Strategy, work plan, there's always people involved in a win. How would you describe?

Jerry Hanna (24:50.472)
you

Gordon Sheppard (25:14.338)
Let's just start with you. There's something about 05 and you're like, got your fish tank, you're start a new business and whatever you're gonna get going. How would you describe your attitude through these years? Has it all been easy sailing up and down or what would you describe, how would you say?

Jerry Hanna (25:26.487)
Totally not easy sailing, totally not inexpensive. I had to invest a massive amount of money to develop it and get it because we're from scratch technology that we had to do.

And at the end of the day, I didn't look at a payback right away and I was able to, fortunately enough, to be able to hold back and say, look, I don't need anything out of that right away. Let's just develop a technology. And so that has been a big one. But going forward, the team of people that I've put together are brilliant. Really, really, because I can't just be one brain. Like they say, you know, when I went to the doctor and I have a brain issue,

and they say, well, we found that on the right side, there's nothing left, and on the left side, there's nothing right. So it's one of those things that we have to deal with. But having multiple people, and we're very empowering in our company, everybody gets to say, we have weekly meetings, this is what we're working on, everybody has a comment on it, so that there's no ivory towers. By taking away those ivory towers, we're able to develop the very, very best of technology and move very quickly on getting

getting it out there. And as a company, that's important. We stayed as a small company. We did really go into a big growth phase and really realized that that's not the model that we wanted to do because there was too much fluctuation in what was happening. So we went with a keep a very tight model B instead of installers. We wanted to be manufacturers, developers, technical support. We do some installs, but we basically went out and found other groups that could

operate as installations for us, as installers, and not that we don't want to carry the iron. So we have a company that we deal with that does all of the dredging and the heavy equipment work. We have another company that does our fabrication for us. have a company that, so we did outsource to give a lot more people employment, but also gives other businesses a chance to rise up and grow as well. So from our perspective,

Jerry Hanna (27:40.309)
It's a network. So anybody calls us and they say, oh, well, we have an issue here. Do you provide this, this, or this? And say, oh, absolutely. We'll come in as a whole team. And there you go. We have everything from road building to dredging to.

water treatment to the whole nine yards. And now we're building the iron on a JV venture with another company that we're building wastewater treatment plants now that I developed. we're now looking at removal of other contaminants beyond just wastewater.

We are developing the clarifiers, portable clarifiers. Everything's portable and can move around. But now we've got these other companies involved here so that we have a plethora of supply of resources to our clients.

Gordon Sheppard (28:28.534)
I love it. There's a woman, Metis woman who was on, her name is Shawnee Gwynn, runs her own communications firm in Edmonton. And she talked about getting clarity in an ambulance when she collapsed from overworking as a leader who tried to pull everything to herself and then learned and got back to her indigenous roots and got into when she came back after three months and having gone to every guru till she was almost knew them all or whatever to come back stronger and.

moved to what she would have called an indigenous distributed leadership model, which allowed all the voices to be at the table. What I'm hearing very clearly in what you're saying, I'm not sure if we call it distributed leadership, but certainly if that stakeholder map that you're involved with, like you said with your team, everybody gets a say. You've got this chance to build out values driven subcontractors, dotted lines, whatever those things are. And then if we had the whiteboard out, couldn't even.

have enough whiteboard space to hear where you're making an impact at the global leadership conference level, you would be impacting, I'm gonna say, actors in the government levels, at different levels, in all the countries that you're in. And so there's those factors as well, right down to your grandkids that you're sort of bringing up along the way. So how lovely that all these people are involved with sort of making this world a better place. So we've got strategy, work plan people, operations you've described quite a bit. You are wonderful inventors who do patentable things.

and make those things occur, you describe some of the science and the ways that you go about it. Any other kind of operational highlights outside of, again, this wonderful way you communicate with your team and the world that you want to point out for building a product that makes a difference?

Jerry Hanna (30:00.833)
I guess really the big thing that we focus on is what's next. The what ifs what's next.

try to keep ahead of the industry. try to understand what the political landscape is in each of these countries because that makes a difference on whether or not you can even sell something into that country, especially now in today's world of tariffs and things like that. So we have to be cognizant of what's going on around us. So what we've done is we actually just redid our reorganization chart. And in that, I've put one whole section for science and engineering, and I'm in charge of that. We have one whole section that's set up for sales and resales.

support and we have two divisions within that process that have you

mandate to take care of new sales and things of our gel flocculant products and our other systems that are available. And then we've got another section that we've set up which is new that we developed actually through really somebody came to us and said how come you can't clean swimming pools? So we said sure we can never thought about it. So we developed the whole line just for swimming pools so that's going to become a separate company right away but we can reduce chlorine use by up to

86 % We can reduce acid use by up to 60 % and so it really takes away the harmful chemicals and takes all of the nasty metals and things like that and out of the water to to treat and be enjoy enjoy your swimming pool again and not have all that harsh chemicals on your system or ingesting it which all the chemical today and this is interesting because it goes across every value of water that is being treated today is

Jerry Hanna (31:45.813)
even swimming pools are using what we call copper based products and those are listed as a toxic product but they've ran further them in because there was nothing else and we've now offered them to something else so

Gordon Sheppard (32:02.839)
And so nice to move from an, you know, take those old ways and move it in. It sounds like operationally you've also been disciplined. There's a shiny objects of like, we could be in the dredging business, but we figured out we don't really want to be in it. So then we're going to get people there. We're going to build out our teams and grow reasonably as we kind of go along and stay in our lane of expertise in a sense. And then also then get those stakeholders that are related to us and build them out as you kind of go forward. Love it. So the operations are getting well.

Jerry Hanna (32:29.005)
How do you complement their industry? And that's what we've tried to do.

Gordon Sheppard (32:33.999)
Love it. And so again, very disciplined and you're in a position to be disciplined as well, because your patience in a sense has paid off through those first six years. And you've got to hear where, you know what I'm going say, somewhere in the back there and we don't need to examine it, but there's cash flowing, there's things happening now that have paid off for those early years. Strategy, work plan, people, operations. Finally, there's results, quantitative results, qualitative results. You'll take my little brain and I just don't know the science in your world, but you're going to say.

Jerry Hanna (32:40.012)
Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (33:00.257)
Our product, there's the new product that you were describing in a pre-interview where you said this product, if I say microns or small measurements, it was getting it to a certain standard and now it's getting it to be even better. This is where your science is pushing the limits into regulatory and maybe even setting regulatory standards to a certain degree where you're actually able to be way better than the expectations of many governments. Is that fair?

Jerry Hanna (33:18.135)
Yeah.

Jerry Hanna (33:22.935)
Yeah, actually that's the last kit that we've just developed, this test kit, that will analyze for residual cationic polymers in water. It's the first of its kind in the world, as I mentioned. But nobody's been able to test for cationic polymer residuals below 10 milligrams per liter. Now, we are now...

The government came to us, regulators, said, can you come up with something that will get lower than 10 milligrams per liter? So about 10 years ago, 12 years ago, we developed a kit that you could just take a water sample, run a test kit, and it'll show you a visual in the jar. And that got down to about three milligrams per liter. So they said, that's great. That'll really help us a lot. Can you come up with two things? Number one, a way to neutralize that residual cationic toxic polymer.

And then can you be able to get it down to a one milligram per liter test kit? So we can actually see the residual at one milligram per liter. So we went back to drawing board, took a few years, and we were able to make a new test kit.

and this new task kit which is being launched this spring will go down as low as 0.05 milligrams per litre so a couple hundred times below what they asked for. It now puts it in a full range of safety and then on top of that we were able to develop a neutralizer so we can analyze for the residual tell you how much is in it and then neutralize it upstream so now you have totally safe water being released to the environment. First of its kind ever. So that's

Gordon Sheppard (35:02.265)
Congratulations.

Jerry Hanna (35:03.081)
release of spring. Yeah, it's big deal and it's a world changer, right? And again, it's an industry changer. So when the regulators come to you and say, look, we've got enough faith in the, we think you could do this. Could you help us? That was probably the biggest stamp we could ever get in support, even though they're not allowed to, you know, and justifiably so, they can't say, we're, we are.

promoting your product. not at all. They say we can't promote your product but if you could come up with something then we at least know it's out there and then you know it's something that's not lost because that's a problem that industries have and nobody seems to have a solution. So that's what we found was a new solution.

Gordon Sheppard (35:51.118)
And so again, when we talk about quantitative results, you've just demonstrated that. said, okay, there was another problem that walked in the door. So whether you're with a fish tank and it's so fun that you modestly say, yeah, we took a couple of years. There's a bunch of work to cut. When you say it took a couple of years, that means there was a lot of science involved, a lot of starts and stops and all of whatever that takes. But because you are solution seekers with your group, a problem walks in the door and it sounds like there's maybe not a water problem that you can't.

tackle, which is remarkable because you're getting these things. And then every time it's advancing, every time it's correlating to the values that you're trying to drive forward in the world. Thank you so much for that quantitative one. The other one is quantitatively I've heard is you're creating employment for your team, employment for these folks that are dotted line again, that are carrying out some of the work parts. There's lots of people that are being influenced at conferences, for example, in audiences quantitatively. Any other quantitative highlights that you'd like to point out?

Jerry Hanna (36:46.083)
I think that's, you know, for the most part it's how are we doing our business model? How are we getting the message out? And the message is now, so we're, there's a time of quantitative values.

I've got my team now working on saying, we need to show a visual and make it simple because we're so sciencey and, you know, engineering driven. How do we make it simple for somebody to just read? So it's okay. Here's how many, if you did liquid volume, which is what they do now, how many liquid totes at a thousand liters per tote that it would take to equivalent of one box of what we generate.

So if you think about the Tide Pods versus the amount of powdered soap that you would do, right? It's kind of that same process, but we reduce shipping costs, we reduce chemical usage, we have manpower reductions. They don't need the equipment anymore to do the dosing. So all of these intrinsic values come to the client. And on top of that, our product is environmentally safe and is proven scientifically. It's in scientific journals with all of the backup.

Everything we do is backed by science and we're one of the very few companies that do that. So we didn't develop a product to just go and do something, we developed a product and proved it first and then brought it to industry. So that was our process was everything's about the science and the environmental safety first and then we'll go make the sale. And that's our biggest difference probably between us and our competitors is that's been done.

Gordon Sheppard (38:27.213)
Remarkable. So again, we got to hear the win. We built a product that made a difference for all those big reasons that you talked about. We talked through the strategy, the work plan, the people, the operations. We got down to some of the quantitative results. Qualitatively, how does it feel to be at this moment with this type of win?

Jerry Hanna (38:44.459)
It's a little bit surreal at times. mean, when I get these awards, I have won multiple awards. Our companies won multiple awards. know, cleantech international competitions. And you know what? Somehow we haven't got the message out there. Enough.

We're just starting to take off and that's probably because we're a little sciencey. We want to keep things here and we say it this way. Maybe we need to say it in a way that people just get more out. So, you know, we have a number of clients, all of them been with us for a long period of time. We help them find solutions even when they come up with new problems. So how does it feel? It feels that we're doing something really good. I appreciate that. We are looking at, you know, how are we

legacy planning, how are we bringing in new scientists and stuff to the fold. I'm hiring two more this year. I just hired two last year. Plus we support these students through the Indigenous Ice Team Pathways program and supporting Indigenous students as well. So how do we support everything? How do we become this big piece? And when I get these calls and people are going, you've done so good, you've done so good, and then going, no, I've just done.

You know, I've just done it. To me, it's this is my day to day and I don't mean to be rude. I appreciate everything that we get and I appreciate all that we've won. But I don't think I look at it that way. Maybe it's too humble or I don't. I'm not trying to be humble. I'm just saying it just has to be done. So let's just do it. Maybe.

Gordon Sheppard (40:26.071)
It has to be done, so let's just do it. I mean, that's, and again, how lucky that that is your approach because of, look at what you've done. It's remarkable and it's funny that you said you hear the people from the outside, but that feeling is kind of, you know, this is just what we do. This has been a fantastic interview. I'd always like to say, you know, there's leaders that are listening to this story. There's people from, you know, Aztec around the world that are gonna hear this interview. And if you had a couple sentences.

to say to that next leader. Is there sort of any leave behinds that you like to sort of make, you know, a couple sentences you like to leave behind for somebody to think it, to be encouraging to them?

Jerry Hanna (41:06.051)
Well, for somebody that's new into the world of entrepreneurship, cetera, and I actually, I lecture on this, I teach this in a workshop, but the first thing that I always mention is don't ever lose you. Because the biggest thing that you can lose because of excitement or because of, only way I'm gonna get this money is to do this. Don't lose you.

Don't lose you. Keep you in there all the time. Keep that passion. Keep the way why you started it and got into it for the new Rockne story. Get out there and do it guys. You know, that's the kind of thing. Sorry, probably nobody knows who new Rockne is, I'm going back too many years. But anyway, the bottom line is that don't lose you. I think is a big thing for the leaders that are there existing.

Are you current? And are you having to deal with all the current struggles that we all are? And how are you managing that? And find a point in time or a place that you can just take a deep breath. Calm down with what everything that's going on, trying to overwhelm you. And then come back at it look at it. Have somebody you can talk to.

have a mentor and you scale your mentors as you scale through time. I try to mentor, as I say, a couple of people a year and it keeps me young by mentoring the younger groups, but it also keeps me current. So I guess that would be the message I would give. And to anybody out there that needs help with water, us. We're here to help.

Gordon Sheppard (42:35.385)
Well, I just can't say thank you enough for so many different stories, for putting together this body of work that's making a huge difference, for building a product that makes a difference for your approach. It's just been so great to have you. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Jerry Hanna (42:49.793)
Thank you Gordon, really appreciate this and thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate all of this.