NEWS

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Riggs Eckelberry.

Riggs was once a happy tech executive. In 2005, he helped take a security software company public as its president. Then, he pitched a fund and─long story short─Riggs ended up as CEO of a small public company working to disrupt industrial water, a huge, but slow-moving trillion-dollar global market. Riggs is uniquely qualified to disrupt this industry, having learned management in the nonprofit space, captained oceangoing ships, and achieved several tech exits during the dot-com boom.

by  Lisa J. Huriash

"The trend of increasing chemicals in the groundwater means there could eventually be a problem," said Dan Early of OriginClear, a Clearwater company that creates water treatment equipment.

by Daniel M. Early

"The underlying issue that plagues most large, centralized potable water utilities is the simple fact that it is nearly impossible to provide “completely safe” drinking water."

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MCKINNEY, TX / ACCESSWIRE / October 22, 2020 / Riggs Eckelberry, CEO of industrial water company OriginClear, has had nothing short of a life-changing year. With their latest invention the Pool Preserver™, a trailer-mounted machine that uses reverse-osmosis to purify pool water without using any chemicals and only minimal energy, it's clear that innovation is their specialty.

Conceptually it makes a lot of sense to farmers and oil producers alike: Use the latest filtration technology to turn one of Kern's most troublesome waste streams — oilfield produced water — into a safe irrigation source.

OriginClear, which has already disrupted water treatment infrastructure, sets its sights on an even more imaginative way to operate.

Is water set to become a hot new commodity for investors? Can the infrastructure model that delivers clean water to people — traditionally the domain of large, government-subsidized utilities — be privatized and decentralized?

Millions of jobs have since been lost due to the pandemic, and with clean water a vital resource, (consider that some 80% of sewage in the world is left untreated), Eckelberry saw an unprecedented opportunity for good.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention touts the country's public drinking water as "one of the safest" in the world. But drinking water experts say that tap water isn't always as clean as it may appear. They say drinking water contains all types of contaminants that aren't easily detectable and can make people sick.

"There’s nothing better than a rearview mirror, but since you can’t drive backwards, you’re going to have to develop the ability to evaluate in real time. It means being willing to make mistakes — FAST." As part of my series about the leadership lessons of accomplished business leaders, I had the pleasure of interviewing Riggs Eckelberry.