Nate Denny is the Vice President of Operations at Twin D, Inc., a pipeline maintenance and wastewater services company acquired by Azuria Water Solutions in 2024. He helps lead operations for municipal and utility clients across Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, working alongside his family to ensure reliable service. With extensive hands-on industry experience, Nate champions advanced technologies such as GIS mapping, AI-driven analysis, and acoustic testing to improve wastewater infrastructure solutions.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:49] Nate Denny’s background growing up in a family-run wastewater maintenance business
• [5:59] The shift from reactive sewer response to proactive rotational maintenance
• [9:16] Why preventative sewer cleaning reduces costs and emergency disruptions
• [12:03] How GIS mapping and AI are changing pipeline inspection and data management
• [21:21] Key turning points in Twin D’s growth, technology expansion, and industry partnerships
• [34:40] How emerging innovations like acoustic testing improve efficiency and sustainability

In this episode…

Technology is rapidly reshaping the way wastewater systems are maintained, but many municipalities are still stuck on outdated, reactive approaches. With aging infrastructure, rising costs, and increasing pressure to operate efficiently, the margin for error has never been smaller. What does it take to bring a boots-on-the-ground perspective into the future of sewer maintenance?

Drawing on his extensive expertise in rotational sewer maintenance and pipeline operations, Nate Denny explains how proactive cleaning programs can help prevent emergencies, reduce overtime callouts, and protect both residents and municipal crews from disruptive sewer overflows. Nate emphasizes the growing role of GIS mapping, AI-driven inspection tools, and smarter data management in helping utilities turn overwhelming volumes of footage and reports into clear, actionable repair priorities. His insights show how embracing innovation allows municipalities to move from simply reacting to problems toward truly improving sewer systems.

In this episode of Saving Our Sewers, Kwin Peterson sits down with Nate Denny, Vice President of Operations at Twin D, Inc., to discuss technology’s growing role in proactive sewer maintenance. They explore rotational cleaning, the impact of GIS and AI on inspections, and emerging tools like acoustic testing to improve efficiency.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Kwin Peterson on LinkedIn
• RH Borden
• Nate Denny on LinkedIn
• Azuria 
• SL-RAT Acoustic Testing Technology
• Insituform
• C&L Water Solutions

Quotable Moments: 

• “Operating reactively is usually caused by lack of attention to a sewer system until it’s kind of like a car.”
• “Our goal is to try to make it so that your family time is uninterrupted.”
• “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over without expecting different results.”
• “Change is hard. It’s easy to just do the same thing because it’s comfortable and it’s working.”
• “Technology is your best friend.”

Action Steps: 

1. Shift from reactive to proactive sewer maintenance: Preventative cleaning helps cities avoid costly emergencies, overflows, and disruptive callouts.
2. Implement rotational sewer cleaning programs: Regular scheduled maintenance keeps systems healthier and reduces long-term operational expenses.
3. Use GIS mapping to document sewer infrastructure: Digitizing system knowledge ensures critical information isn’t lost when experienced staff retire.
4. Leverage AI tools to digest inspection data: Automated analysis turns overwhelming footage and reports into clear, actionable repair priorities.
5. Explore acoustic testing for faster system assessment: New technologies allow utilities to cover more pipe quickly while saving water, fuel, and manpower.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by RH Borden, the leading service provider for innovative technologies that modernize wastewater collection system maintenance.

As Smart Cities evolve, RH Borden empowers communities to leverage data, optimize maintenance resources, and improve system performance. Their digital twin solutions help teams work more efficiently, minimize redundant maintenance, and pinpoint infrastructure issues with precision.

Learn more about how RH Borden is shaping the future of wastewater system management by visiting rhborden.com.

Powered by Rise25 Podcast Production Company

Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:03

The US Infrastructure Report Card gives the nation’s wastewater systems a grade of D+. Welcome to the Saving Our Sewers podcast, where we feature the practices, tools, technology and ideas that will save our sewers. Let’s get into it.

Kwin Peterson: 00:20

Kwin Peterson here. I’m today’s host of the Saving Our Sewers podcast, where we feature city leaders, innovative thinkers, and infrastructure experts who are shaping the future of wastewater infrastructure. We’ve got a great interview for you today. But first, of course, we need to do a word from our sponsor. And this episode, as all episodes are, is sponsored by RH Borden, providing innovative technologies that modernize wastewater collection system maintenance.

RH Borden approaches can save mid-size and large collection systems 6 to 8 figures annually, and for small systems, they can mean the difference between reactive approaches and proactive approaches to system maintenance. You can learn more about RH Borden by visiting their website at RH. And now, with that out of the way, I am really excited to be talking with Nate Denny. I’ll give you more about his bio in a second. But what I am fascinated about, Nate, is his combination of steel toed boots on the ground experience, plus his pioneering work in transitioning basically an entire state to a new model of collection system maintenance.

Nate is the operations manager at Twin D, a leader in pipeline maintenance, and a pioneer of sanitary sewer rotational maintenance in the state of Utah. Twin D currently cleans, inspects acoustic tests millions of feet of pipe annually, and also offers services such as 3D scanning, manhole infiltration, installation and Nate has been in the industry for a long time, since 2005. It’s a family business. We’re going to hear about that. We’re going to hear about what happens when a family business grows up and leaves the house.

But first, a little bit more about Nate. He started it as a vac truck operator and a video inspector, and now he’s moved into the role of operations manager for Twin D big long bio for a long and varied career. Welcome to the podcast.

Nate Denny: 02:31

Thank you I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Kwin Peterson: 02:34

Well Nate, obviously Twin D is a family company. And obviously I gotta ask the question. Tell me about your background. Were you always destined to be in wastewater?

Nate Denny: 02:49

Yeah, I think, you know, you could probably say that I was kind of predisposed to be in the industry from birth, kind of just to get even a little brief history of Twin D, but prior to my arrival is my dad and my uncle started the company back in 1991, when my dad was working for a municipal city sewer department and saw some needs that the city had that weren’t being resolved externally and anywhere in the state of Utah. And so they took these ideas and tried to transform them into a business model that started to transform the state of Utah’s thinking on sewer maintenance. So they first started to to contact municipalities throughout the state of Utah and introduce the idea of preventative maintenance programs and doing rotational cleaning rather than reactive cleaning. And so they started to grow the business before myself and my brothers joined them in the early 2000 as we grew up and graduated high school. You know, I officially joined 20 in 2005, but I really started at 20, in 91 as a dad that ran a business in a small margin and small hometown family business, which is my cousins and my brothers and my dad.

We worked most summers. We worked on Saturdays cleaning equipment. We went on family trips across the country to Florida to pick up sewer trucks. That’s what we broke up. So it was all intertwined and everything that built me as a man from a very young age.

Kwin Peterson: 04:17

I think a lot of us have had the experience of doing a transcontinental road trip with their family, but you’re the only person I’ve met who’s done it from the seat of a factor. That’s.

Nate Denny: 04:28

Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely a unique experience.

Kwin Peterson: 04:31

Well that’s amazing. I did not realize that your father had such a role in the way sewer maintenance was done. You know, starting off in Utah, I thought you had gone through maybe one pioneering change, but it sounds like the company itself really introduced preventative maintenance to to Utah.

Nate Denny: 04:54

Yeah, definitely. We’ve tried to be forward thinking and everything as we transition from one phase of life to the next, and we tried to apply that to the business aspect of helping cities solve their problems. And originally it was just reactive maintenance. And then we turned it into proactive preventative maintenance. And now we’re in the process of transitioning, transitioning it into a more technology, better way of thinking, and more cost effective and water efficient and proactive way to lead forward into the next, next realm.

Kwin Peterson: 05:25

You know, nowadays, as I go out and visit with people who are running wastewater systems, I still find a lot of systems, a surprising number of systems that are operating reactively. It’s kind of hard to imagine a time when that wasn’t everybody. But what do you tell people? I know you still run into them because I still run into them. What do you tell people who are operating a system Stem reactively and and maybe tell us what you mean when you say operating reactively.

Nate Denny: 05:59

Yeah. So operating reactively is usually caused by lack of attention to a sewer system until it’s kind of like a car. You can either do your maintenance ahead of time, you can change your oil, or eventually your car is going to break down and tell you to change the oil. And it’s the same with a sewer system. You either can clean the sewer system and do maintenance and manhole inspections to know what the the actual system is feeling.

Or you can wait until sewer is literally flowing down the gutters. And that’s when you react and say, oh, we should probably solve this problem. And then you have to move on to figure out what the issue is instead of trying to do it ahead of time. And and honestly, like the biggest sales pitch for me, when I try to tell people this is I try to relate it to their personal life initially and say, how often do you like to get phone calls at two in the morning, Christmas Day, Thanksgiving afternoon? Our goal is to try to make it so that your family time is uninterrupted.

And the way that we do that is we maintain your sewer systems in a way that you get to do them Monday through Friday. 8 to 5 sewer systems are an ever growing force, and there’s always going to be reactionary measures that have to take place. But our goal is to minimize that not only for the home, for the employees of the municipalities that maintain these systems, but also for the residents. You don’t want to have to have those hard conversations with residents as sewer starts to climb in their basement.

Kwin Peterson: 07:23

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s interesting that pitch, the idea. You know what? Wouldn’t it be nice to get your weekends off and not be called out at 2:00 on a Saturday morning. And that’s an easy conversation to have with most of the operators that I’ve talked with.

The problem seems to come often from the city council or from a tight fisted board of directors. Do you have any advice for them, or have you run into situations where you’ve had that conversation with those decision making bodies?

Nate Denny: 07:58

Yeah, I 100% agree. It’s a twofold problem. And, you know, the front end of the problem is the time that it takes to react and respond in an appropriate way to not sacrifice family time. And on the back end, it’s far more appealing to operate for the high end management level of a sewer system to talk about penalties, fines and financials. You know, they they worry about how much it’s going to interrupt public service.

They every operator from the top to the bottom manager to the the brand new guy boots on the ground doesn’t want to interrupt service and have a hard conversation with a homeowner. Have that black mark on their their record. But then on top of it, the high end people, they want to think about what’s going to cost the city. How do I have to respond to taxes that are available to create my budgets, and how can I use those funds appropriately and effectively? And then the fines and the regulatory side of things with the government regulations on SOEs and things like that.

Kwin Peterson: 08:57

You know, my, my hunch and I feel like it’s pretty good. A pretty well educated hunch is that proactive maintenance is always going to be cheaper than reactive maintenance. Do you agree with that? Do you have any any evidence that you’d like to share with us about that?

Nate Denny: 09:16

Yeah, definitely. I mean, even just in our pricing model, I’m I’m going to charge someone more. If it’s an emergency, call out it because I usually have to pay my guys more. They’re either going to be on overtime or there’s a service call out fee, or I pay them a bonus to be on call. So even just from a commercial side of things, I’m naturally occurring more or incurring more expense.

So I charge the customer more. Whereas if I have a normal 40 hour week on a rotational plan, we can do it not only to affect them in the pricing model, but we can also do we can react in, we can get some quantity discounts I guess is the best way to put it. So if I come out to solve one problem in one line, I still am there for 3 or 4 hours and we clean one section of pipe, clean it out, get some grease out of the pipe, whatever the the problem is, and we’re we’re going to charge them whatever that time allotment is. But if we can come and we can use our time efficiently, and in four hours we can clean 2500ft of pipe. Now you have 2500ft of pipe cleaned in an efficient manner for the same cost as cleaning one pipe in a reactionary manner.

Kwin Peterson: 10:22

Yeah, yeah. Well, you’ve been working for for your dad with your dad, and and now your your father’s retired. Tell me a little bit about the progress of Twin D over your lifetime. What are some of the what what were those early days like and how how have things changed?

Nate Denny: 10:43

Yeah. So early days just since I’ve been on board. It was we were still a very small business. We were only running 3 or 4 crews total, maybe three VAC trucks and two CCTV camera trucks, and we were doing a lot of rotational maintenance plans, but we didn’t use technology all that much. We didn’t, you know, use that to try to give us leverage to be more effective and efficient and provide better products for our customers in order to really find solutions for problems.

And so as we grew up and we started to develop more, we started adding technology advantages to our system. Some of it was just equipment based. And then eventually we morphed it into using technology in the GIS realms and things like that, and then new technologies in the early 2000. So from the time of just doing standard cleaning TV stuff, some of our early on transitions came by adding lateral launchers, where we could have a secondary camera that shot off of a main line up the lateral connection towards the homes to try to help prevent cross-border problems, so that when boring companies came through and brought in fiber optic internet. They wouldn’t hit all the sewer laterals and they could locate those, along with identifying potential lateral problems, to try to identify the true root cause of a of a backup or a sewer problem.

From there, we’ll go ahead.

Kwin Peterson: 12:01

No, no, I was please do go ahead.

Nate Denny: 12:03

I was just going to say from there. Then it continued to transition as we entered into more of a technology age of the company, and we started to use more digital forms of, of advantages, like we’ve started to transition into using GIS maps where we can have more digestible data. And. The problem that we found as we cleaned and video inspected pipe in the early 2000 until about 2015, was we would regurgitate so much data in volumes to these cities doing clean and TV maintenance projects anywhere from 20,000ft to 200,000ft, and we would have hours and hours of footage that these city employees just would have to manually watch and try to digest this data. And now we have leveraged more GIS based systems and AI technology that can digest it more naturally.

And they can use filters to say, show me everywhere that there’s a crack in my system, and it’ll color code a GIS map and show you there the minor, moderate and severe cracks. So you can then turn it into maintenance projects where you can say, hey, not only are we maintaining the debris in our system, but now we are going to actually improve the system by removing the aging infrastructure and trying to maximize the dollars that were budgeted, allowed through the tax services to be able to maximize the health of the system. Before it was just a debris removal process and finding major problems. Now you’re actually seeing the health of the system be improved.

Kwin Peterson: 13:36

And so two, two, two ideas come out of that for me. One is how has this, this long march of technology changed the way Twin D operates. And then if you could also mention a little bit about you do work for cities. These are if I’m if I if I understand correctly Twin D is there as either the full time maintenance staff of a city as an outsourced provider, or there as a supplement to help cities that maybe understaffed or need services that they are not internally able to provide. Is that right?

Nate Denny: 14:14

Correct. Yeah. So we have some systems that we do 100% of their maintenance as far as the clean and TV and then kind of diagnostic portion of their system, and then we turn the data to them, and some of it they put back onto us to solve some of the problems and repair we and then some of it they handle externally their well internally or externally through excavators as they try to fix their system. And there’s other people that we do 100% of their maintenance. We do it all.

Kwin Peterson: 14:40

Okay, so how has this long march of technology changed work at 20, and how has that then changed the way your customers are seeing their system or taking care of it?

Nate Denny: 14:54

The biggest way is we found that because we were as we morphed from just being a mass data provider, that was very archaic and not very digestible to being able to digest the system that we want, providing true solutions for them. And we would say like, hey, here’s a bunch of data. Good luck. Sucks for you. You have some issues, but I can’t solve them.

Yeah. And so as we grew up and as we expanded, we started saying, well, we need to provide solutions. We want to be the person that helps them not only identify the problems, but solve them and remove their headaches so that they can sleep better at night. We did that by adding point repair services, lateral repairs, manhole rehab, and then it’s grown from there.

Kwin Peterson: 15:38

Yeah, I can’t count the number of times that I would go into a smaller system, or even a mid-size system in Colorado, which is a lot like Utah in many ways. And the public works director supervisor would open his drawer and show me his drawer full of thumb drives that had unwatched pipe video on it. And he’s like, I’m going to get to this someday. And we both know he’s he’s not going to he’s not going to get to this.

Nate Denny: 16:04

Totally. And I experience that a ton firsthand because because I was a CCTV operator for so many years, I would video inspect pipes. And we usually with TV’s most systems on a 3 to 7 year rotation. And I would TV a pipe in 2007, and I would be back in 2009 or 10 or 12, and I would TV that same pipe and the same problems are there in the same spot, and they just don’t do anything about it because they’re just so overwhelmed by the amount of undigestible data.

Kwin Peterson: 16:32

Yeah. So what were you looking for? I mean, was the were the cities having that repeat camera work done to look for blockages? Or was there some external requirement from the state that was requiring that? Why, why why were they duplicating that effort?

Nate Denny: 16:47

Yeah, I would say that both of those are pretty spot on. The initial reason why most of them are are doing it is because of either a state regulated requirement, and some of that is put on because they’ve had system problems in the past. They’ve had a lot of so sanitary sewer overflows. And so then the city, the state would say, hey, we need to catch up with our data so we know where your system’s at. We need to clean it more.

We need to inspect it more. Others are guided by their insurance. They have, like Utah Local Government Trust is an insurance provider here in Utah. They’re great to work with. They really, truly care about the environment and the cities and the homeowners and everything else.

And so sometimes they would put minimum requirements on cities that are their customers, that they would require to do so much maintenance in certain ways so that they could try to stay ahead of it. And they’re motivated by they don’t want to pay insurance claims, but they’re also motivated by let’s just make everyone’s work happier together.

Kwin Peterson: 17:45

Yeah. What advice would you give to that public works director who has that drawer full of thumb drives and is now looking at his retirement? Oh, we’re going to we’re going to go out and camera that line that we hammered three years ago and haven’t done anything to. We’re going to do it again this year. What would you tell that guy.

What would you advise him to do.

Nate Denny: 18:08

I mean you really have two trains of thought. One, you either need to hire an intern or someone that’s just going to pound through it and try to play catch up in one year, or you need to find a better way moving forward. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over without expecting different results. And that’s what we were fighting for so many years as technology wasn’t leveraged in the systems. Now that there’s technology available and advancements with not only GIS maps, but AI systems and a faster ways to digest data.

If you’re not eventually growing in and adapting to these new technologies, then you’re trying to have you’re beating your head against the wall, not growing with the times, and you’re working twice as hard for the a minimal amount of results that you’re getting. So now is the time to change and grow. And it’s a big pill to swallow. And it’s overwhelming. So find the right people to partner with.

Find someone. There’s always I like to not be the smartest guy in the room. I love to learn from someone else. I want to find that smart guy that’s already figured it out the hard way. That might be a different municipality that you know and trust.

It might be a different contractor that you’ve used for years, and try to leverage the information available by trusted peers and associates or market allies to try to grow yourself and make your life easier.

Kwin Peterson: 19:23

So, Nate, you said it was a big pill to swallow for a lot of these municipalities. What makes this pill hard to swallow?

Nate Denny: 19:32

Change is hard. It’s it’s easy to just do the same thing because it’s comfortable and it’s working. A lot of people potentially have the the concept that it’s working because we don’t have that many, so’s we don’t have that many night calls outs. We don’t have that many. We hear that many a lot in our industry, but in my eyes, one so is too many.

Like we’re never going to get to zero. But I don’t think zero is an unreasonable goal. Just like the safety world. Like there’s always injuries that might, may or may not happen on a work site, but I think zero is our goal every day. No one wants to get hurt and no one wants to.

So same concept.

Kwin Peterson: 20:11

Yeah, that that comes up a lot in places I talk to. Well we’re below the industry average on on spills or SOS. I it’s a rare system but I have heard them who said no. The Clean Water Act says no spills. And so that’s our goal.

That’s the only goal that’s acceptable. And and I’ve run into a few systems that have gone years without a spill. So, you know, on a on a limited frame time frame, it can be. Actually, I have one system in Colorado that hasn’t had a spill since 1985. That’s crazy.

That is crazy. Well, the amount of effort that they go to to make sure that doesn’t happen is is remarkable. But it can be done just as a matter of balancing it out. You know what? Which problem do you want to have?

So over after over this long and storied history of Twin D, can you pick out a couple of moments that were either turning points to the company or that you’re particularly proud of?

Nate Denny: 21:21

So as we grew up, as my my uncle retired in 2018, and it was kind of a turning point for us. And it was my uncle was amazing. He was one of the, you know, pioneers of what we are today and the rotational maintenance plans, along with my father. But in 2018, it was a is a time when we transitioned a transition of power, quote unquote, from transitioning from the old ways to the new ways. And it wasn’t that they were hindering our work.

It wasn’t that they weren’t growing. It was just we, me and my brothers, who took over the company as we helped my uncle retire. We grew up with computers. We had been using computers since elementary school. We knew we were a part of the internet age.

We just were already thinking technologically, and it was more of a a hard transition for them to just think differently. And we grew up in that transition. We were a part of the information age where information became more and more readily available all the time. And so that was a crucial point for us as we transitioned from the old ways to the new ways is just bringing in new ideas. and, and it’s a little bit of skills, just natural skills because we grew up in the internet world with me and my brothers, I have I have three brothers, so there’s four of us total that all work in the industry.

We all work together and we all work in different aspects of the business. So we just kind of we do a good balancing act where we all have different eyes. Eyes on the business and the sewer systems in the state of Utah and beyond. So it’s just nice that we kind of have leveraged that technology age in 2018. And that was one of the crucial transitions for us.

A secondary transition beyond that happened in. So as a family business, there was a lot of growth that happened from 2 to 3 crew company. And in 2018, I think we had 6 or 7 crews ish. And now as we grew from 2018 to 2024, we grew at such an exponential rate as we changed into the technology world and leveraged that, that we were running 14, 15, 16 crews. And so then it was got to the point where it was too much for one family to manage ourselves.

And so at that point, we were approached by an industry partner to try to join up and join forces to maximize the solutions that we could provide. So we actually joined and we joined with Insituform Technologies and CTRL Water Solutions to basically try to be the leading sewer solutions provider in the United States. And so that was, I think, another key transition for us as we realized that we were hindering not only the growth of Twin D, our employees, but also we were hindering the growth of the solutions that we could provide to all of the systems that we managed in the Mountain West.

Kwin Peterson: 24:17

So Twin D in wow, so 2018 to 2026 and the acquisition, the merger with in situ form that was last year, right 2025?

Nate Denny: 24:29

Yeah. It was. Well, it was 18 months ago in July of 24.

Kwin Peterson: 24:32

Okay. Wow. So that’s in six years. That’s that is a significant change to the way you are operating. What what challenges came along with that period of rapid change in growth for for you as the owners and and also for your for your crews and your cities?

Nate Denny: 24:55

Yeah. So I think for just us as the owners, it was kind of a weird transition because the, the analogy that we always gave it. Well, I guess let me back up even beyond that. The only reason, one of the reasons why we even considered the opportunity to join and be acquired by Insituform Technologies was because we were looking for a route to help my dad retire and remove him from the business like we did my uncle, and we had a path in place and we were working towards it. But there was potentially some, some hardships that would happen with our family and my father.

That would kind of make it a little difficult. And so we we were looking for a we were looking for options to help us continue to grow and leverage our technology to be able to continue to grow at a rate that would not only serve us and our employees, but our customers, so that we could continue to provide the best quality solutions and service that we could offer. But then it gave my dad a worry free option to retire. So that was one of the main reasons why we even considered it. And the other reason that made it a little simpler is because we the as they approached us, it was an industry partner that we had worked for for 15 years.

So it was someone that we knew and trusted it. Plenty hardships came along that time. It was very hard for us to even come to the decision that we were going to consider something. For my dad, this was his his baby. He had four boys.

All of us grew up together. All of us grew up in the business. This was his fifth child. So this was kind of an end of an era for him. And it was like setting off the child to college to be taken care of by someone else.

And we’re here and we’re still, you know, supporting and loving this child of his. But there’s a lot less control than we’ve ever had because we were part of a big organization whom we love and respected for years, and it was the perfect fit for us and our family. So there was plenty of hardships, even making decisions. And then there was hardships on just learning and growing with a new, new company, with bigger, broader ideas and aspects. And those hardships came with a lot of growth and a lot of power.

Like it gave us so much information that we didn’t have at our fingertips before. It gave us with other brilliant partners that have great ideas and people that I’ve learned and grown from in the last 18 months, just because they think differently than I do. So it’s been hard and awesome at the same time.

Kwin Peterson: 27:14

Wow, that is a really interesting aspect. So often when you when a family company gets acquired, it’s it spells the end of the original ownership. You know, the family that owned it. Everybody splits up and goes their separate ways, and it ends up just very often just being about the money. But it sounds like this was actually a.

A natural progression, you know, starting from the, the technology that you started to bring in in the early 2000, which greatly accelerated under the leadership of you and your brothers. And starting around 2018 to now, you’re tapped into, gosh, a national organization that has a wide variety of other technologies and approaches. Is that an accurate portrayal of the growth?

Nate Denny: 28:07

Yeah, absolutely. It was very natural for us because we had almost hit our ceiling of what we were able to provide for the state of Utah, and their growth would have either been really painful, or it might have even ended up taking the floor out of Twin D, and it would have crashed and burned. So to be able to have them reach out. You know, I’m a fairly religious guy, and I truly believe that this was part of God’s plan for our family and to have them reach out in the perfect moment where we were transitioning my father out of the business and transitioning into the next phase of growth. For 20, it was it was absolutely perfect timing for us to be able to reach the potential of how much we wanted to be able to provide solutions for cities.

That’s really what it came down for us, is we had maximized the solutions that we could provided, but we were still not providing everything that they needed to solve all their problems. So they were either trying to solve them themselves, themselves, or the problems weren’t being solved and they were just going to get older and older and heavier and heavier out. Burden on the city. The infrastructure in the United States is is aging tremendously, and now is a crucial turning point, not just in 20, but in the entire national infrastructure of underground pipe solutions. It something needed to change, and it needs to change fast because the infrastructure is aging in such a rapid rate that we need to start rehabbing some of this to be able to take us, even as a country, into the next phase.

Kwin Peterson: 29:27

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That’s that’s really what this podcast is all about. So give me an example of one thing that your partnership has changed your mind about, changed the way you operated or just blown your mind to say, wow, that’s something we would not have run into or discovered on our own. If you’ve got one of those.

Nate Denny: 29:49

Yeah. So one of the best things that I could say about the partners and how they changed my way of thinking is I used to just I used to be a little bit closed minded to being able to say, here’s the problem, it’s not my problem. And I still want I have great relationships with our with the cities that I work with. We work for over 100 in the state of Utah. And I never was just saying, like, here’s the problem, good luck, fix it.

But I kind of was, you know, Indirectly because we couldn’t help them find those problems. I would maybe help them point them in the right direction. I’ve got a lot of industry connections in the Mountain West, so I would point them in the right directions. But our partners with Insituform Technologies and CTRL Water Solutions, they truly have a let’s figure it out and let’s conquer the problem for them. And it might be that, like we never turn a problem back to the city without clear direction on how we can help them.

And it might be directly with us or one of our sister companies to be able to solve the problem. Or it might be another third party partner that we have externally in the market that can help provide that solution. But we truly want to come and say, hey, here’s what we found, here’s a great solution, or here’s 2 or 3 great solutions. Let us know how we can help you solve this problem. They really think big picture on how we can solve the problem for them, and even guide them and direct them, instead of just turning it over to them to say, hey, we’re happy to help you.

Let us know if you need something. Here’s the data. Good luck.

Kwin Peterson: 31:18

Okay, well that’s interesting. A great source of power to be able to offer solutions where previously you didn’t have the ability or confidence to do that. I got two more questions and then we’ll wrap up. There’s a lot of people retiring right now, which means a lot of younger people are coming into systems that they often know very little about. What’s 1 or 2 pieces of advice that you would give to a person in that situation?

I’ve inherited this aging or maybe rapidly growing system, aging and rapidly growing. I don’t know much about it. What what’s the first thing I should be thinking about?

Nate Denny: 31:58

We see this a ton in small, especially in small municipalities in the state of Utah. We have a lot of rural cities that have very small systems. And the best thing to know is that technology is your best friend. I used to use the analogy back in the early 2000, probably in the 2010 range where we would go into these small cities. It’d be a town of 1000 people.

They would have a couple of miles of pipe and a sewer lagoon processing system, and they would have one guy that has been doing the system since it was built, and he would they didn’t have an official map of the system when we would take over and start helping these cities. And we used to joke that like, well, farmer Bob has all the information in his head, or it’s written on the side of the barn of the Christiansen’s house down the street. But that barn burned down three years ago, so we don’t have a map anymore. And now the biggest leverage that you can use is you need to get every manhole, GPS, every sewer line in a GIS system. That way, it doesn’t matter if Nate Denny dies in a plane crash tomorrow.

Heaven forbid there’s 30 other people that can look at a map that’s digitally protected and have the same data that Nate has in his brain available for anyone. There might be a little bit of a learning curve. There’s someone that knows the system really well and can find you the the manhole that’s hidden behind the sycamore tree in the Joneses house. But there’s a digital map that will guide you right to everything you need to know. So the first step in a transition is what technology do you have to leverage to make to be your brain so that so that data is transitional from one employee to the next.

Retirement people leave for other opportunities, whatever it is. How do you make that that information transferable so that data isn’t lost at every transition?

Kwin Peterson: 33:45

Yeah. Well, Nate, I want to take up any more of your time. You’ve been you’re a wealth of knowledge. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. Before I ask one last question, I do want to point people to your website.

You’ve got two of them. There’s http://www.twind.net, which is the legacy website. Depending on when you hear this podcast might not still be around. So let’s point you to Azuria azuria.com which is the parent company. You can access all of Azuria’s properties and solutions there, including Twin D in the Mountain West.

My last question for you, Nate, is you’ve seen a lot of changes both to your business and in the industry. What’s one thing that you see coming that you are either really excited about, or you think people need to be aware of?

Nate Denny: 34:40

The thing that I probably love the most is the growth with. We didn’t even touch on acoustical testing. It’s probably one of my favorite things. That was one of our crucial transitions that I failed to mention earlier. So I’m glad that you gave me this opportunity.

There’s technology that’s growing and evolving to be able to identify blockages and problems in your sewer system, or in your small diameter pipe systems that are continually changing. Acoustical testing allows you to test 20,000ft of pipe a day, where cleaning and leaving you’re limited to 2500 to 5000ft a day, so you’re able to cover your system at a much faster rate, which reduces your costs, and you’re able to then deploy resources like vac trucks to go clean pipes and use crucial resources of water and fuel and other, you know, pollutant based systems that allow you to more efficiently, not not only financially, but also resourcefully be able to use manpower, be able to save water, be able to save gas and pollution on the on the environment. There’s technology that’s changing the game that allows us to not only protect our resources, tax dollars, and budget systems, but also the environment as we transition to this next phase of life. Super exciting. The technology is called SL rat for those that want to look more into it, it’s super cool.

We’ve been using it for three or I think it’s actually been five years now. RH Borden is one of the leaders of the industry. You know, we’ve worked hand in hand with them for quite a while, and it’s just really exciting to see the transition of technology that just continues to grow. Always learn. There’s always something cool coming.

Kwin Peterson: 36:15

There is. This is a super exciting time to be in wastewater. Well, Nate, I’ve appreciated our conversation. We’ve been talking with Nate Denny from Twin D, now an Azuria company. Thanks for mentioning acoustic assessment.

I’ll put in a plug for the next episode of the Saving Our Sewers podcast, which is going to feature Alex Churchill, who is the CEO and co-owner of the company that makes that tool that Nate was just talking about. So tune in to the next episode to learn more about that technology. And as always, feel free to to join us here every week. Learn more tips and tricks about how we together as an industry can save our sewers. Until next time, have a great week!

Outro: 37:01

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