~ by Crispin Fletcher, Relationship Manger & Founder
Even though we’ve been in business for 26 years as of 2015, some ideas have to wait for the right conditions to germinate. Secondwind has always been very personal and focused on our customers, and over the years we felt pretty good about our success in that regard. But three years ago we had an awakening. While we felt we embodied this value, we had never actually measured how we were doing with it or several of our other core values, actually. And the company was changing internally as we were bringing in new skills and people to carry Secondwind forward. The new employees needed to understand our deeply held values and to embody them as never before.
So, Secondwind created a new management team approach and began the hard work of building a new system that will be able to let us know how we were doing in our markets and our world. Lest you think I am talking the usual business metrics here, this is very different; I’m talking about human relationships and supporting our customers and our communities.
We decided to start with one part of our mission; to educate our customers about the water quality issues in our region. We realized that our residential Water Specialists did this every time they interacted with a customer (or potential new customer), but we quickly realized we would never be able to do that in any meaningful way until we engaged entire organizations. So Marie Degulis and I became the Business Development/Relationship Management team for Secondwind.
Marie has a Certified class she teaches to Realtors that trains them on how water works, how residential water systems work, and the best practices available today for treating water. Note that this is not equipment specific, but rather an overview of the best technologies and practices for solving water problems in our region. To date, she has trained hundreds of Realtors, Mortgage Originators, Home Builders, and now, select Home Inspection companies.
I have been contacting many of our Commercial customers, and the companies who also support them with plumbing services, HVAC services and property management services. We have educated Architects, Mechanical Engineers, Mechanical Contractors, Construction Managers, and Hospital Facilities managers. We are educating Public Water Supply owners and their Property Managers, from restaurants, to school systems, to communities. Many Consulting Engineers and staff of the NH Department of Environmental Services benefit from our hands-on knowledge of water treatment systems.
For me, this is tremendously rewarding. Marie and I will continue to work with each of you to help improve our collective abilities to better understand how water works and how we can best manage the systems we depend on for our water. If you have any thoughts or comments for us, please contact me. I would love to discuss this personally with you.
Great initiative and collaboration with the community! Way to go Crispin! And the site looks really great. XO Alice