At Catalytic Products International, we have a great team of knowledgeable, dedicated professionals that bring years of experience to the work that we do in providing air pollution control solutions to our customers. Here on our blog, we’ve been speaking to some of these team members and sharing their insights with you.
For today’s Expert Interview, we spoke with Jason Emond, CPI’s Service Manager. Jason works with his team to commission and start up new air pollution control equipment, develop preventative maintenance plans, and coordinate repairs.
Jason’s years of experience in the field bring him the knowledge that he needs to provide the best service to CPI’s customers. “I started out as a field service technician, performing repairs and maintenance on existing equipment,” he said. “Then I moved into the project management department, where I was able to work on installations of new equipment, from the sales and quote process to the design phase and all the way through to installation of the end product.”
Spending time in both of these roles gave Jason insight into the full process of quoting, designing, installing, and maintaining an oxidizer. “By working at both the beginning and the end of the process, I have a better understanding of the full oxidizer life cycle,” he said, “and I can bring that understanding to bear on helping our customers successfully manage their air pollution control systems.”
As Service Manager, much of Jason’s work involves coordinating service technicians, vendors, and installation crews, along with customers’ staff, to get new systems installed, but he also spends a lot of time developing preventative maintenance plans and working on emergency repairs. “When we get a call from a customer who is having an issue with their equipment, we do our best to troubleshoot it over the phone,” he said. “The customer acts as our eyes and hands on site, so we try to guide them to fixing or correcting the problem. If necessary, we mobilize our people to come to the site, and depending on where they are located, we can usually get someone onsite the same day. However, with guidance over the phone, we try to get the systems operational, so the customer’s work isn’t interrupted while they are waiting for a technician to get there.”
The need for clients to keep their processes working demonstrates the value of preventative maintenance. “We try to work with our customers to make sure they have a preventative maintenance plan, which will provide them with more uptime reliability,” said Jason. “Our goal is for everyone to have a plan in place, either by letting us perform regular preventative maintenance or by teaching them to do it themselves.”
Jason believes that educating customers on their air pollution control equipment is one of the most important parts of what he does. “The more the customer knows, the better they will be able to understand the workings of their equipment,” he said. “That will help them be able to explain any problems to us when they call for help, or maybe even be able to resolve the issue on their own. Training our customers on everything from operations to preventative maintenance is key to making sure they get the most out of their investment.”
Jason compares his relationship with customers to how people interact with car mechanics. “Most people have a car that they put gas in and drive, and that’s the extent of what they know about how it works; they trust someone else to fix any problem. We’ve all had the frustrating experience where our car’s engine is making a funny sound, but when we bring it in to a mechanic, it stops making that sound, and they have no way to tell what’s wrong. By educating our customers about the workings of their oxidizers, we hope to eliminate that scenario. The more our customers know about our products, the better we can help them.”
We hope this look at the importance of customer education demonstrates how CPI’s team puts our customers first. If you want to know more about how we can help you meet your air pollution control needs or develop a preventative maintenance plan, please contact us. We look forward to working with you!
