Kappe Associates Demonstrates Payback to Municipalities

For Brian Fenstemaker, sales is in his blood. His first sales gig in fact was selling popcorn at the Williamsport Little League stadium: He was 13 at the time…His love for sales (and baseball) continues to this day, and as VP of Sales at Kappe Associates, Inc. (KAI), he has responsibility for an expansive territory from PA to VA. Grounded in the water industry, he understands the pressures on municipalities and the hierarchy of customers’ needs in the wastewater industry.

Born and bred in Pennsylvania, Brian moved to Pittsburgh 17 years ago. He got into the water business through his father who was also a lifer in the same industry. After taking an operator’s wastewater plant course, Brian’s career path was set. “Brian has come up through the ranks and has a deep understanding of the water and wastewater industry,” observes Tyler Kunz, EnviroMix’s VP of Sales. “He has a fine-tuned understanding of the higher process benefits and knows out of the gate exactly what’s important to the customer”.

“The Municipal market is always looking for ways to improve efficiency,” says Fenstemaker. “Municipalities are being challenged to bring down costs throughout the entire water purification lifecycle. They are looking for efficiencies across the board from transport through headworks, treatment, de-watering and also the disinfection stages of the process. And there are very few products that result in true financial payback.”

“Technology needs to solve a problem within the process of treating wastewater,” he continues. “It’s a high wire act. Technology needs both to serve a purpose and solve a problem — and it needs to do it in an energy efficient manner. EnviroMix gets this balance right.”

“The EnviroMix team has a vast knowledge of the industry and years of experience in process technologies. Based on this experience, they’ve built a guaranteed, engineered mixing solution. In most cases, you can show customers that you can work with them to achieve a fast return on investment by reducing both energy and maintenance costs. There is a detailed formula presented in the Enviromix proposals that estimates the reduction in HP and energy use versus what is currently in place, which results in drastic savings to the end user.”

“By way of example we have ongoing discussions with a large customer in Western PA currently using a combination of older technologies in their treatment plant. In one particular area of the plant, they use channel mixing with coarse bubble diffusers and they are pumping roughly 600 hp of air. In this instance, we can take one or more of their blowers completely offline, and we are projecting a power reduction of 300-400 HP, which will yield massive energy cost savings.  The payback period is quick so it’s a win-win, but there’s also a secondary benefit; we’re adding longevity to the existing system. The money saved each year can then be reinvested into improving other areas of the treatment plant or handed back to the municipality. We are projecting out on a 20-30 year lifecycle and decades of savings.”

Fenstemaker remarks, “EnviroMix is the only manufacturer in the marketplace to provide a complete, guaranteed, engineered mixing solution with these type of savings”.

Outside of his work for Kappe Associates, Brian likes to travel with his wife and family to interesting places such as Belize, Turks & Caicos. He mentions that traveling outside of the US. has reinforced his belief in the importance of the need for clean water. “We’re fortunate to have such a plentiful source of water and the regulatory agencies and the technologies in place to ensure our water supply,” he concludes.

Brian Fenstemaker can be contacted at KAI via email, [email protected]