Water Online Radio: RWL Water Group Offers Solutions To The Power Of Three

Samantha Kelman of RWL Water Group discusses the formation of the company, the unique background of its founder, and how three acquisitions came together to form one full-service solutions provider.

Todd Schnick: Good afternoon and welcome back to Water Online Radio, coming to you live from WEFTEC here in New Orleans, Louisiana. I am Todd Schnick, joined by my colleague, Todd Youngblood. Todd, finally we have a lady. We have too many men coming to the studio. I am looking forward to this conversation.

Todd Youngblood: Yeah. I am tired of the ugly mugs. It is a nice change.

Samantha: Happy to be here.

Todd Schnick: Yeah. Say hello to Samantha Kelman. She is a Marketing Manager with the RWL Water Group. Welcome to the show, Samantha.

Samantha: Thanks very much. Happy to be here.

Todd Schnick: It is our pleasure. I assure you. Samantha, before we get into it, take a second and tell us a little bit about you and your background.

Samantha: Sure. Okay. So I have a marketing background and I came from American Express, marketing consumer products like the very fancy platinum and black card and found that not sexy enough, so I moved over to wastewater treatment.

Todd Schnick: Outstanding. I love that. That is a clip we are going to use.

Todd Youngblood: We will keep that over and over.

Todd Schnick: Outstanding. Well, get into RWL Water Group. Tell us all about the organization. How do you serve your market?

Samantha: Sure. The RWL Water Group was founded by Ronald Lauder who is a major entrepreneur, philanthropist, and art collector out of New York City. He is the son of Estee Lauder, so he has a great marketing background, grew up with all the beauty products.

He has this vision to supply the world with clean water. And this is the legacy that he wants to leave, and so he has acquired three companies: AEROMIX, out of Minneapolis – you may have seen here, they have been at WEFTEC for decades; we also have Nirosoft, out of Israel; and Eurotec in Italy.

Todd Schnick: Okay. You are rebranding this whole group of companies. Talk a little about that effort and what you are doing.

Samantha: Sure, sure, definitely. So these three companies have been around for as I said decades, at least. They have years of engineering expertise. They have brands for themselves. They’ve created great reputations in their markets, but we really want them to be bigger.

So we want the world to see the RWL Water Group as the conglomerate of these three great companies. Not just one smaller company but a group of companies that can fulfill water challenges in the world, wastewater challenges, and waste to energy challenges as well.

Todd Schnick: Who is your customer? Who are you selling to?

Samantha: So we really selling to municipalities and industries. We focus in oil and gas, mining, power, food and beverage. And also cities who have limited water. We also respond to emergency situations that are needing mobile units for clean water around the world.

Todd Schnick: Talk a little bit about the synergies among the three companies. I mean, obviously, some effort went in to picking the different capabilities be it technology, knowledge, et cetera. What are the synergies among the three groups?

Samantha: Definitely. Well, I think what is great about these three companies is that they all kind of have their unique niche and their own expertise. They all have manufacturing capabilities. They have their own factories, which is great. They are definitely expert in their area so, as I said, AEROMIX is our wastewater division, so they have aeration equipment, any kind of aeration to full-scale wastewater treatment plants.

Nirosoft is more a fresh water division, so desalination – offering clean water to huge cities, serving 500,000 people at a time to small emergency units with 2,000 people.

Eurotec, finally, is really unique because they offer waste to energy solutions. So think of the food manufacturing process. You have all this waste from, let’s say a chicken manufacturer or chicken slaughterhouse. All this waste, the energy gets saved and recycled and sold back to the company or actually recycled back into the grid.

So what was once a large expense for a food manufacturer is now a new source of revenue or cost savings. Also everything is scalable; everything is a turnkey and customized solution. So these three companies were great together because they all offer something different, and instead of solving one small problem, we are able to provide a complete solution to our customers.

Todd Schnick: You mentioned that AEROMIX has been active at WEFTEC for many, many, many years.

Samantha: Yeah.

Todd Schnick: Is this the first show that RWL is exhibited at as the big company?

Samantha: Yes, yes. So people keep coming by and they are saying, “Well, that looks familiar,” but they have not actually seen RWL Water Group. And so, right, this is the first time AEROMIX has really shown to be a part of the RWL Water Group branding.

Todd Schnick: Yeah. Go deeper on that. Obviously, this is a great opportunity to kind of help with that rebranding effort and getting exposure to the whole market.

Samantha: Sure. So I think that we are probably the most known now for our unique hourglass imagery. So all of our industries are showcased within hourglasses. We like to portray this as that – you can see within the hourglass a very customized approach, very visually appealing.

Also we have strategically capped the company names next to the RWL Water Group because, as I said, these names have been around in the industry for many decades and we want to make sure that people are recognizing that and their reputations are still with us.

Todd Youngblood: I am really intrigued by your comments about the synergies among the three companies, how they work together, complement one another. Is that part of a larger partnering strategy? Are you are reaching out to other members of the industry, other pieces trying to get more and more collaboration among all the players?

Samantha: We are not actively looking for new partnerships, although if a new company came up and we felt that they really solve the problem that we are looking for, we would certainly welcome them and welcome them as part of our portfolio. But for now, we feel really good about our three strong companies. We have really become somewhat like a family, which is really nice.

Todd Schnick: We are nearing the end of Day 3 of the exhibition itself. What are the observations of your team here? What are the big takeaways from this event?

Samantha: I think it has been a great event. I mean it is really, really interesting, at least from a marketing perspective, to see how everybody is branding themselves, everyone is positioning. What I find really interesting is that I have seen a lot of equipment.

I have seen a lot of pieces and I think how we’re different is that, you’ll walk by our booth and you won’t see any equipment. You will just see this image, this image of No Water, No Future. And so I think that it takes an extra step and you actually have to come in and learn about us, what we stand for, and what we do.

We would really like everyone to know here is that we are a full solutions provider. We do not just supply a piece of equipment here and there. Of course, we can and we will, but we are solving larger problems.

Todd Youngblood: Samantha, most folks come here, virtually all folks come here to learn. They is just so much technology in this one giant building. Let me turn the question around a little bit. What have you learned that you can take back and use?

Samantha: Oh man, I have learned so much. It is really interesting for me to see, since I sit in an office all day, how some of this equipment actually works and cleans water – it’s really fascinating.

Todd Schnick: Talk about what RWL is doing in terms of innovation. I mean obviously what people really love about WEFTEC is kind of seeing a glimpse into the future, and what’s coming down the pike? What are your observations on we should be looking for both with technologies and innovations in the next three to five years.

Samantha: I think certainly, you know I had a chance and a privilege of visiting our company in Italy and what they do in the waste to energy area is really fascinating and, unfortunately, it is not as large here in the United States.

But I think that our goal would be to bring it here, and whereas there are tax incentives for recycling the energy that exist in Europe, there are still many, many benefits. So I’m interested to see in the near future how that technology becomes more visible in the United States.

Todd Schnick: A lot of people have talked about that, Todd, on this show as the future, but it sounds like you guys already have a leg up on that, doing it over in Italy.

Samantha: We do. Our company Eurotec has been operating for 30 years and it is really amazing what they have accomplished.

Todd Schnick: Yes. Samantha, I hate to say it, but we are out of time. Before we let you go, how can people get in touch with you and, more importantly, where can they get information on RWL Water Group?

Samantha: Please feel free to reach us in the website www.rwlwater.com and, of course, any email can be sent to info@rwlwater.com.

Todd Schnick: Samantha Kelman, marketing manager with the RWL Water Group. It was great to have you. Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon.

Samantha: Thanks, Todds.

Todd Schnick: All right. That wraps this segment for Water Online Radio, live from WEFTEC in New Orleans. We will be right back.