You Three minutes folks we're going to start in about three minutes
All right, I think we're just about ready to go.
Wow, thank you so much, everyone for joining us today, we have such an amazing turnout to future proof your legacy klir webinar about future proofing cross connection control programs. I think we have quite a few folks from the Virginia area joining us today from the utility side. So big shout out to all of those folks. My name is Nick Suzuki. I'm the Content Manager here at klir. And just a quick note about the format of our present presentation today before we get started. So the first part of this webinar today is going to be an interview between myself and our guest speaker, president of Bacalar Services Incorporated, Chris Mayhew. After that, we'll do a quick demo of the klir platform. And then we'll have a little bit of time near the end for a brief q&a. So without further ado, on to our guest speaker, Chris, are you? Can you hear us properly? Are you there?
Oh, yes. Can you hear me?
I can hear you loud and clear. I'm just gonna give you a brief introduction here. So this is a story Chris told me recently. So several years ago, Chris May he was at a commercial property to look at a large backflow assembly. It was practically new, and it had passed its last inspection. But the customer complained that a relief valve was leaking. Chris walked over to the device laid his hand on top of it, specifically over the number one check valve and without doing anything, or even looking at the device. He looked at the owner and said, There's trash in the check valve. How do you know that? Ask the customer. Are you some kind of backflow whisperer. And so the legend of the backflow whisperer was born. For more than 20 years, Chris has worked as an independent contractor implementing backflow prevention and cross connection control programs for other contractors, municipalities, engineers and other agencies all across the state of Virginia. For more than eight years. He's also been the president of backflow Services Incorporated, where he provides various backflow prevention and cross connection control services to cut Customers and purveyors. He's also the former president of the Virginia chapter of the American backflow prevention Association. As far as we're concerned, it's independent professionals like Chris, people who have seen it all 100 times and who have to deal directly with customers who make backflow prevention actually work. Municipal cross connection rules, and backflow. prevention devices themselves are really important, but you need someone on the frontlines actually making it all come together. klir His goal is to build software that makes backfill of programs and other programs and utility as self serve as possible. At the same time, the software that utilities use is obviously just a small part of the equation. That's why the theme of today's webinar is future proofing our backflow programs. We think that for these programs to be effective in the future, they're going to have to become better at working with and accommodating the Chris make use of the world. So that's why today we're going to have a conversation with Chris about the business of backflow prevention from the perspective of the contractor and what folks that utilities can do to make Chris's job as easy as possible. So Chris, thank you so much for joining us today.
My pleasure. But to be here, and welcome, everybody.
So Chris, before we get to the President, I wanted to just briefly, I guess, set your career up for everyone here. So as I understand it, you were before you even got into the business of backflow, you are a contractor in Virginia doing utility work on irrigation and landscaping. What's it?
Well, yes, um, back in the day when I got out of the military, and after a while, I realized that I wanted to work for myself. So I became a contractor and eventually moved up through the ranks and got my state license as a highway heavy contractor. And part of that was that we did irrigation work, we did some landscaping work. And we you know, what went along with other contractors and pipelines. And this at the other end did did resurface and work, which is basically putting everything back to where it was and everything. But as we as we progressed along as a company, it we got into sports, irrigation, commercial irrigation, and of course, residential. But it was a sports irrigation, and a commercial stuff that we started getting into see seeing the need for backflow maintenance, backflow testing, and things like that. And after a couple of those situations where we ran into one person was testing, one person was doing a repair. The person testing said it failed the person doing the repair, which was us that passed, we would test them to make sure that our work or repair work was was correct. But we're not state certified. So we couldn't fill out the paperwork, sign it, sign off on it. And so after dealing with that a little bit with finally just said look, you know, best thing to do is just get into the testing side of it, get state certified and move on from there. And so, as that went along, and with some of the other work, which was I wouldn't say economical, more economical, less economical, but it had trends and and we went through housing bubble, if you if you will back into 2000s. And a lot of work wasn't there anymore. Some of the bigger companies just wouldn't work been known as bigger jobs, a lot of government, municipalities didn't have the big, big money jobs aren't there. So we started, I started looking at, you know, more and more backflow work, and everything like that. And then of course, you know, virtually for backflow services, which is all encompassing cross connection control company.
That's really interesting. So it sounds like you know, certification and regulations. Were part of the story from the very beginning. You just seem to, I guess fall into that world. Learn more about it, and then you became the backflow guy.
Yeah, it was it was one of those things where and I've been involved in other industries that required certifications and training and different things like that. And you know, you kind of you first of all, you see it as a need. Also you see it as from a business standpoint, you No, it's you're a little bit higher on the food chain because of the certifications and training requirements that are required. Not that anybody can't do this work, it's good work to do. But a lot of people either wouldn't qualify in Virginia, you got a minimum four years of waterworks experience and things like that, that may or may not disqualify or qualify somebody. But, but yeah, we started, I started seeing, you know, more and more of a niche, we started seeing some of the local jurisdictions put more emphasis on residential testing, and things like that. And so I pulled the trigger and just said, Hey, I've got my certificate, but I'm gonna form a company and do do nothing but bachlor.
So that's interesting, I want to talk a little bit about, you know, working with cities and jurisdictions. As I understand it, there are a lot of different jurisdictions across the state of Virginia, a lot of boundaries and, you know, lines to be wary of different forms, different procedures, working across all these jurisdictions in the state, it seems like it would involve a lot of research. How do you how do you do that research right now? How do you, you know, become aware of all these different regulations? Do you use Google? Do you phone people?
Well, yeah, well, and for us, because this is what we do. And we do it all over the Commonwealth, we are crossing boundary lines, a lot more than, say, an irrigation company with a backflow tester, or even a mechanical company that works a specific area. So yeah, the biggest thing that we we do is when we know we're going into an area that we're not familiar with, we you know, we try to research, I'll even ask customers, who do you pay your water bill to. And that helps me point me in the right direction. Because we do have certain areas in Virginia, and it's across the nation, same way. You have areas that have intertwining waterworks, if you will. And so depending on what side of the street you're on, or you know, work where the property lines lay, depends on where the reports go. So we'll get to get to looking at that. And, you know, we talked to the customer, if we don't know exactly straight off, then I'll reach out because I've tried to make acquaintances friendships with a lot of the Water Authority folk, either through our nonprofit, or just in business in general, I've always felt like it was important that the tester or testing company, you know, make contact with the water authority, and, you know, have a good relationship there. And so we just, you know, we just investigate, do a little private work and make sure that, and every now and then just had one this morning, I sent a report to the wrong guy. And he had emailed me and said, Well, I think this one probably goes to such and such. And as Yeah, I guess you're right. You know, based on the address and everything, so we just make a correction, send it to the right one, it's done taken care of. But yeah, so in Virginia, you do have quite a few different jurisdictions, every jurisdiction is a little bit different. Some are more strict than others. Some are. Some are very basic. And some don't even have a form to fill out. They'll just take your, your generic form or whatever form that that you have. So anyway, we have a pretty good spectrum.
Right on, Chris could actually ask you to turn your camera on, if you don't mind.
Well, you could ask me. And it was on before we connected and now it won't let me come up. All right. Okay. So sorry about that, folks. I know everybody just loves to see my smiling face. And I have no idea without having to disconnect and reconnect to do whatever. I don't know why it's
not working. We'll try to make do without
my apologies. was all good. best laid plans.
No, so it's interesting. So when we spoke last time, you mentioned you know how sometimes it can be difficult to work across these jurisdictions difficult to get a hold of the right information. You mentioned that, at some points. You've had to file freedom of information requests to get to get the hold of the information you need it if you could wave a magic wand and have access to all of the information you need to do your job. What would it be?
Well, in slight correction on, I didn't actually have to follow for you. But there have been a couple of times where we thought we were going to have to do something that screen to get, you know, some information that we're looking for. But I respect the water authorities. Opinion on not giving our customer information and stuff to just whoever calls up and things like that. But But yeah, the way with each different water authority, jurisdiction that you go into, they have different rules regulations, most are kind of, you know, across the middle of the board, they they're looking for generally the same information, obviously, a fail or pass the thing with a situation where you cross multiple jurisdictions like we do, if there was a standard outs for it, it would just make our job so much easier that we know that we fill this format and submit it to XYZ county, or XYZ Service Authority, they will accept as long as it has their information that they need on it. And, and we've talked about it in the past, Virginia just recently had a regulatory change in waterworks rigs. And there was a little bit of talk about possibly coming up with a state standardization form. You have some water authority people out there that's that would, you know, it was all for as long as it's got the information that they want or need? And everything, but it just didn't it didn't come to fruition on this past. But But yeah, I would think that standardization of the form. And we have we have jurisdictions of basically just want to yes or no? And I'm not, you know, I can't say I'm a huge fan of that, simply because, you know, there are no numbers, there's no kind of a historical record other than just saying, yes, it passed, no, it failed type of thing. But, but you get everything you get there folks that are still asking for a 3.0 buffer. Owner reports. And of course, USC put a white paper out years and years and years ago, concerning the 3.0 buffer and how it no longer should be considered a pass or fail criteria on an RFP test. And there's little more to it than that. But just basically on an annual test, the 3.0 buffer is really not applicable anymore. But we have some jurisdictions that still still ask for it still require it. And the numbers are there is just another little block that you got to you know, fill in and do the math. But again, going back to some jurisdictions that are just, you know, virtually whatever you got, give it to him and we'll take it.
But consolidated state form, statewide standardized form would be at the top of your wish list.
I would definitely like to see a standardized form. I've got folks that I deal with across the nation, we you know, the there's a COC of folks would like to see a national standardized form a national standardized test, and everything and I'm not sure we'll ever get to that point. I don't think I don't think it's completely out of the question. But you have different levels of authority, and each level wants to put their little, you know, taste on on on on their, their progress. So,
right on. Okay, so we talked a little bit about forms. And we talked a little bit about standardization. One of the thing I remember from the first time we spoke was that within 10 minutes, you're getting a call from a technician in the field who couldn't get into a building. This sounds like a big problem and backflow in general, across the country, in your experience, when when does that usually happen? Why why are we getting locked out of building so much? And is there something we can do to prevent that?
Human nature we run into it quite often we will set up appointments. We, you know, we're having to we're at the point now to where we will set up appointments. And I'll say appointments basically tell somebody we're going to you know, if it's residential or commercial stuff, we can pretty much say we'll be there at eight o'clock Tuesday morning. and we'll be there at eight o'clock Tuesday morning. And nobody knows where we were coming. Whoever we talked to wasn't in the right chain of command. And so the maintenance guy didn't get the word or somebody was on vacation, the security folks didn't get notified that we would be coming through, and different things like that. So we do we do we do we deal with that quite a lot. Believe it or not. During COVID, when things were pretty much locked down, we had better access to commercial properties, because nobody was there. And we would walk in and say, Yeah, we're here to test and they hand me a key and said, you know, where everything's at? Yep. So Okay. And, you know, we would go on and do our thing. That was kind of just a little weird tidbit of cause and consequence, if you will, but, but now, that people today, commercial residential, municipalities, were were so busy, and we have so many different means of communication, actually had to talk to one of my property managers, that had pretty much given us about seven or eight emails, two, or three voicemails several text messages, over getting one job scheduled. And it's like, you've contacted me so much, I've put in more man hours communicate to you about when we can get out and do this job that it will have on the job. And so the, you know, not trying to be polite and everything, but he's just like, yes, we'll do it, we'll let you know when we're when we can get out there and take care of it. And, and we show up. And of course, it's at a time that's inconvenient for the owners. And we can't turn the water off, so we can't do the repair at all. So that's a loss, you know, and then we get into whether we charge cancellation fees, or how to reschedule in this hour. So it's a little bit of human. Just, you know, the human being, scenario, we got too much going on. And then setting the other. But another thing too, is, and when it comes to backflow, honestly, we we in the business, take it seriously, we look at it, and we try to make sure we do things when they're supposed to be done. And all the folks that are not in it, the property managers, the property owners, the maintenance personnel for the properties and stuff is just not that how on their priority list, especially for annual type testing. That's gotta be done once a year, it's kind of like getting your your car inspected. And you keep driving, you keep driving, and you realize you're three days past to the deadline is like, Oh, now I gotta get in here and get my car inspected. So I don't get a ticket.
Right, I guess the only other way you would be contacted by someone about backflow is if you're about to get a water shutoff notice or something that doesn't sound like a right foot to get off on in a relationship?
Well, for us, it actually helps. If you wanted to put a term to it, it would be what you call pre qualifying the customer, they definitely want it done. They don't care what you do when you do it is just get there and get to get the water authority off their back. Now it's their fault. They've gotten a notice they've gotten a second notice. So third, notice, I just looked at a report that I submitted this morning. And it was their final water shut off notice and everything. So they do they wait to the extreme. There months, some in certain cases, months past their due date own inspections, and they call us and we'll come in and unfortunately, maintenance may not have been as good as it should have been. So they fail. And so we got to them, we got to turn around and do the estimate process and get parts and get rescheduled and get back up there and get it tested. And everything like that and everything. So it would be so much better across the board in this. This is a customer now not not the not the water authority, but it would if they would just heed that first mother's Hey, boom, they want to test within 30 days, whoever you call, ABC backflow Services Incorporated. And hey, we need a backflow test prior to you know the suspense date. everything, and I don't know if that will ever change. We just did a job, Northern Virginia, and required quite a bit of work quite a bit of money, the whole process trying to get them into compliance, and the individual is out of Connecticut. And so we had to coordinate with that individual, because they comes down from Connecticut to Virginia, to let us into the building and do this an hour. So I mean, you know, sometimes it's tough, it's not just walking over and open the door and go in and do what you need to do.
Yeah. What about the water authorities? Is there anything they can do on their end to make working with customers easier? Is there any way they can like prepare the customer for you better?
See, when it comes to the water authority, there they're doing, you know, it's not their job to make my job easier, per se. And if I had any comment at all, on the Water Authority side, it would be that if you were putting your notices out there, and you've got a steady program, keep it up. Where we run into a situation is we have a next if you this water authority A has a program they send the notices aren't they send in Saket notices, third notices water shut off notices, and neighbor B is, you know, be water authority is lacks. They're not sending any notices? Aren't they don't care whether the residential is get tested or not? If you fail a device or assembly, I should say there's no follow up. There's no you know, any, is basically just report comes in, they take it fallen into fall camp. And, and I know that to be true on some because they're virtually they their water authorities aren't there that have nobody in charge of the cross connect control department. That's like the town manager or the assistant town manager. And you walk in and hand them a test report. And and they go well, we don't know what to do with that. Yeah, it's like, well, where's your where's your cross connection? People? Well, we don't have one, but you know, I'll take it and upload it in a file and everything. And I get to their rural areas, areas that are you know, less fluid than other areas, and the budgeting is not there. And everything like Yeah, but if the state could maybe possibly help our, or other agencies nonprofit, to help out those folks. Because, yes, we have, you know, municipality a be a very strict by the book, following the Rick's municipality be nothing, very little written no repercussions, and everything. So when we walk in, we tell the people, why don't have to have this done. You know why we're gonna pay all this money to have his back load tested every year. And we go through our little elevator speech, and this is what it does. And this is how it protects the drinking water, and so forth and so on. And for a lot of folks, you know, they don't understand what a backflow does. And that kind of helps them a little bit, but then you get the argument of, well, you're just you just are here to make money. Well, yeah, I'm a for profit company. So that's, that's neither here nor there. But this is a regulatory thing. And so, you know, well, I've gotten an irrigation system in my house, and I've never had it tested in the county never sends us a note. Like, it's not right, you know, yeah. gratulations you've been driving your car for six years without inspection sticker and hadn't gotten pulled over yet. But there's gonna come a time. I mean, you know, that's kind of how I always paraphrase it to an extent is like, you know, we all speed when we drive. I say, we all I can pretty much guarantee most everybody has sped at one time when they were driving, did you get a speeding ticket? No, we did know, if you're speeding, and you run over somebody, then that's gonna come into play, and that's going to add to you. So if you're not getting your backflow test, and there's a backflow incident, and they trace it back to you. And they can, you know, show negligence or whatever the case is, is going to be harder on you. Then if there was a backflow incident and you've been doing your annual testing and, and maintenance and stuff like that, so we try to explain it in that term, especially for the commercial properties and Just let them know you're reducing your risk by keeping a good maintenance program and everything but you can't, you know, you can't stand out there for every customer and talk to them an hour about why they should and should, you know, it's like, I hear you go, it's time for test. Let's do it, get it over with.
Yeah, that's interesting that when you do have a bit of time to talk to a customer about backflow, and you're trying to educate them about how important it is to prevent and, you know, not not have an incident, what do you tell them about the cost of a backflow? Incident? Do you tell them it's like a potentially million multi million dollar problem? Like, how do you paint that picture for them,
um, my go to, for, for lack of a better term has been Corpus Christi, Texas, they've had several backflow incidents, culminating in a serious one that calls you know, over 300,000 customers to be without water, not a bowl of water, but a Do Not Use Water event. And it went on for days and days and days, and, and everything. But what's even more sad than that event was they had multiple incidents prior to that. And rather than what I would say, learn a lesson. It seemed like they just didn't, you know, they they moved on from that incident and didn't put anything into it. I heard a story couldn't swear it is true, not. But her story of a Water Authority was a Service Authority. So as a nonprofit services already, that got fined heavily. on on on the wastewater side. And so the director or whoever the head, head honcho, was stepped in and says, Listen, we're not getting a multimillion dollar fine on the water side. So let's get our act together. Let's get backflow in the cross connection, program up to speed, let's do what we need to do. Because you know, the wastewater we've gotten hit on that, and we're making correction corrective actions there. But you know, the fine is the five, do not want to get a fine on the waterside. And I hate to say it, it's the buggy whip, you almost have to, you know, just give it a little crack above the year. And it's like, okay, get you up here a little bit. And let's, let's get this programs, you know, snapped in and type of thing. For some, and for others, they're doing the best they can as hard as they can. And they've only got the, you know, they have a very finite budget, or no budget at all, they have very finite resources, though no extra people to do nothing but backflow. And unfortunately, some of the directors and managers and supervisors, they don't look at backflows, being all that much of a big deal. And they'll pull what assets they have in cross connection, and put them to some something else, or add to their responsibility. So anyway,
yeah, that's really interesting. I had to decide one more question here before we move on to our demo here, specifically about subterranean vaults, because I know you've spoken on this topic before, about how they're kind of more dangerous and inconvenient for the inspectors. Despite that, architects, engineers and contractors still continue to incorporate subterranean vaults into the designs of new buildings should focus on the authority side. Should cities be pushing these folks harder to build above ground?
Yes, just as real quick, you know, here you go. Yes, I'm in Virginia, as in most areas that deal with freezing you know, weather when you get below the frost line, and that's, you know, where a lot of our stuff is that is generally in Virginia, we consider our water far just a simple water system, no chemicals or anything as a low hazard. And so double check is allowed and double check is the only backflow assembly that's allowed to be installed below grade. And also they purchased the double check, put it in put you know, put a vault out there the highway heavy contractor or whoever's doing the site work can do that part of it. Okay. And then you know, pipe the building and then the plumbers take over and or the fire service companies take over and start running the fire service lines. But yeah, that the drawback on bringing everything above ground is cost. That's, that's, you know, so in our culture, you have to make things almost at a either cost benefit, or a punishable, fiduciary punishment type of thing. And so one of the things that we run into is that when you're testing vaults, and they're considered confined space and entry, you follow all the confined space entry protocols. Well, to do that, you could possibly be looking at, you know, several $100 for a backflow test. Whereas if it's above ground, and all individual has to do is open the door step in test it, you know, then we're talking, say, $100 test, or whatever dollar figure you want to put to it. And so that's one of the things we're not treating the vaults as permitted confined space entries, as we probably should have should be. The the thing with an vaults comm some of them are deeper than others, some of them are really relatively shallow. But when they're large, six, eight inch stuff, they don't have the tendency to freeze and everything, the cost additive to above ground is now we got to put a pat in, we come above ground, we got to do an appropriate enclosure, that enclosure, you know, Bob regulations, you have to protect the backflow from freezing. So it either has to have a heating element, or heat tape or whatever method, that means you got to bring electricity in. So now we got electricians. And this is this gets expensive. If all new construction, everything was required to be above ground, it all gets put in to the nut right at the beginning. So the site prep is done, it's all done planned to be above ground. And that's, you know, of course, with most things, that's the way it should be. And then everything that subterranean should be looked at as a pre existing condition. With the understanding that, hey, you're gonna have so many years, as long as this thing passes, it's okay you leave it, but once it fails, it cannot be replaced or repaired, it has to be replaced, hence then has to come above ground. And so you know, we need to work, start working our coding, to say that and basically start making these things, you know, noncompliant after, you know, a period of time, it is expensive, it is a cost incumbent on the owner, I don't know if there's government money, or you know, any type of thing like that, that could be put in to try to correct and change some of these things. We're fighting right now. Big time with residential irrigation. With backflows and crawlspaces of homes. And OSHA, I've got a fact sheet right here, where they're talking about crawl spaces and attics as being confined space. And where people have been injured,
either through flash fires, or, you know, entrapments or whatever. And we we, as a company had to, we wrote a couple of letters this year, to homeowners saying, you know, it's just too tight of an area to get into too far to travel. And we are letting our technicians make that decision on their own if they get dinner and they said, Nope, it's too tight. I'm not going in there. So we're just we're not testing, of course, we're not charging the customer either. But they're getting a letter from us and saying, you know, I'm sorry, it's just not an accessible for us, type of thing. So yeah, I would like to see, and I know, you know, Shawn Perry and the good folks at safety cover, and a lot of people out there are, you know, working towards bringing them out of the ground. I'll be honest with you, between what's in the buildings and what's below grade. I think before it's overwhelming, it'll probably be the insurance industry that that drives that force to get Yeah, either somebody's gonna get hurt in a pit not following confined space procedures. Or who knows what, or somebody's gonna beta build and one more of these large things, you know, burst are go to full discharge and flooded building art. And it'll basically get to where the insurance company says, Hey, or the industry says, Hey, you got to pay too much, you're better off, just put it above ground and be dominant.
That's really interesting. Well, Chris, thank you so much for leading us on this quite wide ranging discussion about your day to day work and things that authorities can do to make your life easier. I think what we're going to do now is we're going to switch over and do a quick intro and demo of the klir platform. For that, I will hand it over to my colleagues.
Hi, everyone, it's so lovely to meet you. By brief means of introduction. My name is Jess, I've been with klir for about a year and a half now. And I'm largely responsible for expanding our customer base out west, I guess, to kind of get us kicked off a little bit. I'd love to launch a quick poll, Nick, if you could help me out, just to get an understanding of how everyone is managing their their backflow programs today. So again, how do you manage your backflow prevention program? We have paper digital spreadsheets, dedicated system, a mix of the above or other?
We'll give it 10 more seconds here for everyone to get their answers in.
All right, should I end it here?
Yeah, let's end it. That's perfect. All right. Fabulous. So it looks like we have a relatively are, are you able to see these? Or should I? I can recount the results? Or you can Nick whatever.
I can see them. Does everyone see these results? Just can you see them?
I can see them? Yeah, we see them. Fabulous. Okay, perfect. So it looks like we have an innovative bunch, which is wonderful. But I think Chris said it best. He said, If you have a steady program, keep it up. And I'm definitely not here to tell you that we can make your life and make everyone's life better. The reason that people take steps and kind of the innovation journey, whether it's from paper to digital spreadsheets, or digital spreadsheets to a digital dedicated system, or one dedicated system onto a better dedicated system is because there is pain or there is a problem that currently exists or they see existing down the pipeline. Some of those examples are you have someone retiring soon, and you want to make sure that you get all of their knowledge into a system and you don't lose that valuable, that valuable mind. Second is you're spending a ton of time on administrative work, whether it be on paper, or kind of chasing different Excel spreadsheets, perhaps you don't have a clear view of whether things are in compliance. All of these are reasons why, you know, it might make sense to talk to a provider like klir, and see if there's some benefit there. So I just kind of say that to sum it up and say like, first and foremost, we so so respect and admire the work that you do. And we'd love to kind of show you a little bit about what we do at klir in honor of all of you. So without further ado, I'm going to share my screen do you all right, and can everyone see that? Okay?
I'm gonna operate under the assumption that the answer is yes. Okay. So just high level overview, I only have maximum five minutes. So I'm going to breeze through this. And what I'm really trying to leave you with is generally kind of the look and feel of klir. And second is kind of what the what benefits drove the invention of this system. And from that point, again, we would love to have further conversations, if it makes sense. And if you kind of see space for something like klir, at your utility or at your business, but again, this will be very high level, a little bit about klir. So we're a modular platform, and that it is kind of a plug and play system. klir was built because we believe that utilities should be united. And right now a lot of different teams are operating in silos, whether that be in one team being backlot and cross connection or more broadly at a utility. And our goal is to try and get all of that information into a system and automate it so that you can spend your time doing things of much more value. So on the left, you're going to see A lot of different tabs. Today, we're only going to be focusing on the community area, because again, I know all of your backflow and cross cross connection professionals, but we do offer kind of a suite of products beyond just that, if it becomes of interest later down the road. So but I'm gonna walk you through his high level, just quickly what I'm going to kind of breeze through in the next couple of minutes, and then I'll dig into it a little bit deeper. So the way we are kind of like backflow cross connection module is titled community ideas that you're going out into the community and executing these tasks. So it's broken into three different segments being customers inspections, and dashboard. Customers. Again, it's a consolidated view of all of your customers, both active, non active, residential, commercial, etc. And again, I'll kind of pick this apart a little bit momentarily. Next is a consolidated list of all the inspections that are performed against those customers. And last, I'll populate this in a second, but is a dashboard that gives you kind of a quick glimpse into what is going on at your utility or business. Okay, so if we just start on the customer side, similar to like an Excel or probably, you know, a system that you're using today, there is enhanced search and filter ability. So if you want to look up a certain customer, if you want to get a quick glance into the status, whether it's commercial or residential, compliant, non compliant, operational, etc, all of that it's all kind of drilled down double. And that is the case in all modules, tabs, etc, within klir. So if I'm just going to click into on let's go into Jason Blevins. So Jason Blevins is a residential customer. And one of the things that we hear over and over again, from everyone it from all of our customers and all of our prospects is, we just want to know if they're compliant. So when you log in, immediately, you leave, see, here's Jason Blevins, and he is compliant, he's good to go. Below, you're gonna see some high, high level information about the account or customer. So here's his location, here, the tasks that are associated with it, a task would be to build them to create a report to perform an inspection, all of that feeds into the Task View location, which I'll walk through in a second, their contact information, the assets, and the inspections that are due, a couple of quick call outs on each of these locations, I know that a lot of you use GIS or you want kind of like immediate live visibility into the location below, you have the ability to put in the lat long or exact location and get kind of a view a live view through Google maps of what exists at the location. So again, you can kind of flop around and say, Oh, here's where the backfill unit is. Next is on the asset. So again, something that we hear all the time is that you're having to key in assets, we plug in to a database that is produced by USC have all of the assets in us, so all you have to do is search it and it automatically populates. If there's a certain code that you use at your utility or business, obviously, you would put that in, but generally it just takes the left and kind of saves the time that I know a lot of people are seeking. And last is the inspections that are due. So kind of same thing as the previous tab, everything is searchable, everything is drilled down double. So whether you are performing the inspections and want to get a consolidated list of what your kind of like tactical actions are, or if you are a manager, director, supervisor, whatever it may be, and want to have a clear lit clear view of what is going on with your employees that report up to you. Again, you can kind of drill down in searches you need. Same thing you're going to kind of find similar information below profile here is risk management. So again, this is something that is used a lot with our with our customers, if there is a either residential or commercial business that is at high risk, you can prioritize that and your actions. Here's the list two inspections, locations attachments, again, it's kind of things that you would expect to see in a system. On the Attach attachments thing. Oftentimes, we hear that people want to snap pictures of the exact location or perhaps of previous paper inspections that they did. All of that is available within this kind of customer view.
Again, I know I'm running short on time, so I'm going to continue flying. So over here is the inspection. So again, this is a lengthy list of all the inspections that are been performed. Same as always, you can search you can filter, etc, etc. You can also mass assign, so if someone is going out on paid time off vacation, maternity leave, you can automatically assign all the inspections over to someone else and a really quick and easy way. If I click into one of these, actually, I'm gonna go back one second and show you a populated form. Did he Okay. So again, you can get to this in a multitude of ways. So this is the inspection that is attached to the customer, Josh Blevins. Here's the high level info. This is the inspection form. So all of our forms are completely customizable by you. So I know Chris kind of mentioned, sometimes there's a form that is yes or no. And if the answer is no, it may trigger another inspection that is a little bit more comprehensive, all of that is built within templates by you. So again, you can automatically make it say, if this is not compliant, then create this form. And again, those are your forms to create their pre built. But whether you were out in the field and doing this on a mobile device, or if you want to do it on paper, and then bring it back to the office and check this in, all of this would be automatically done by you. And then you would save it down to do. And then below, you have the option to print it, whether you want to get kind of a print in your track and give to the customer automatically, or you can email it up. And so and here you would input the emails that it's associated with the subject and the body. And it would be the completed inspection, if it loads with your utility emblem at the top. And here again, you can see what the completion date the inspector, whether it was passed or failed, etc. Clothes, so you can either print it or email it, and then this is saved down to the account. If you then were to complete it and say this is done, it automatically triggers based on your cadence, the next inspection. So if it's a 12 month inspection, it'll go exactly 12 months to that day, it will plop on your calendar for what is coming. So that's kind of high level. And then last but not least, I'll just walk you through the dashboard. And again, this is just a consolidated view, kind of a business intelligence view of the results of those inspections. So again, this is just all dummy data. But if you were to populate, let's say, we want it to be December 1 to April 30. In here, you're going to see how many passed how many failed, how many were exempt, and get kind of a consolidated view of of the results of those inspections. So I'm going to stop there again, I know that that was very quick and high level, Nick or Alex, perhaps you can put the link in for requesting a demo. But kind of final words that I'll leave you with is again, we don't presume that we can fix everything in the world. But if you take a step back and look at your backflow program and kind of read it on a scale of one to 10 on efficiency and on effectiveness, and you feel like there is room for that number to grow. We would love to speak with you all. So thanks for your time.
Thanks so much, Jess, thank you for giving us a sneak peek at the klir platform, and how it can help your backflow program. I think we have just enough time at the end here for any questions that the members of the audience might have. We have a q&a section set up here. We've got a few questions that have already been asked. Chris, I'm going to ask for your help one more time here in answering some of these questions. These are mainly for you. I want to start with this one about generational turnover. So this is a question, you know, both to Chris, but also to folks who work at water authorities in the audience if you want to chime in, but it's basically just how much does it impact your life? How much does generational turnover? Impact backflow professionals and water authorities and the way you do work? So Chris, I'm gonna kick that over to you if you're still with us. Oh, hello. I think Chris might have taken a break here. Oh, now he's muted. Maybe while we catch up with Chris, if there's anyone in the audience also who has a who wants to take a crack at that. I would love to hear your perspective on that one. No, I think we met last Chris here.
Okay, folks, I think in that case, we're going to slowly wrap up here. Thank you again to everybody who took time out of their afternoon to join us on this lovely Monday. Thank you again to Chris Mayhew, for joining us and for sharing his backflow wisdom with us the backflow whisperer strikes again, thank you also to Jess for the klir demo. And thank you to all of you for for joining us. As just mentioned, if you'd like to set up a more personalized demo of the klir platform, and talk to us about how it can improve your backflow program, we're more than happy to answer any questions or to book a personalized demo. We'll be sending out links to that afterwards. And if you have any follow up questions. Any anything you're curious about? Please do reach out to us. We're more than happy to answer any questions you have. And yeah, thank you to everyone so much. Such a pleasure. It's all good, Chris. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, guys.