 Hi everybody, my name is Jason Klein. I'm the director of P20 initiatives and this is another in our series of career pathways virtual trailheads. If we can't get out into the workplace for job shadowing or internship experiences and we can't right now when we're recording this due to the shelter in place, we want to bring a variety of occupations and career pathways to you as part of your learning. So today we're lucky this is again part of a series of interviews we're doing with people who work for the city of St. Charles government represents one of the biggest sectors of the workplace. I, for example, work for the government and have for most of my career. And so today we're here with Steve Steve I'm going to turn it over and let you introduce your super interesting and incredibly important job. Thank you very much. My name is Steve O'Neill. I'm a wastewater operator for the city of St. Charles. Also worked in the laboratory as well. I've been doing this for approximately, well, about 20 years now. So tell us what a wastewater operator does. What does that mean? Well, that's, I can demystify this the interesting part is so many people don't know where it goes when we flush the toilet run the sink, what not and up until about 20 years ago I did not either. A wastewater operator is a dynamic position you're not stuck at a desk all day that is for sure. You need desk time. There's always learning there's always paperwork but wastewater itself starting over 100 years ago at this point was one of the best modern inventions for the health and safety of society and the environment for that matter. And along with clean water, we would not have what we have today as a first world country without such things. But the task of taking care of what we flush and maintaining the environment and the health and safety people is my job. And what I do on a day to day basis is extremely dynamic. Anywhere from knowing the biology of what we have going here because this is a largely chemical free process. We let the bugs do the work. And there's also chemical aspects to it to and regulatory where we have to abide by certain restrictions and laws on what we put into the waterways and for that matter on the fields because we land apply our biosolids. But my job from a day to day perspective can be anything from handling and dewatering sludge, which I can describe what that is. Checking pumps, checking blowers, checking the health of bugs, which I call bugs in terms of our bacterial population. We have to keep them happy to taking samples for analysis and running analysis for that matter. You have to truly have a lot of mechanical aptitude, but an understanding of how nature works. And that's where schooling comes in for that matter. So that's awesome. I mean, there's so much to talk about here in terms of your occupation. But let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. Walk us through what happens. And you know, the sink is like interesting, right? But come on, it's the toilet that people want to know about. So when someone flushes the toilet, if I lived in St. Charles or if I'm in a business in St. Charles and I flush the toilet, what happens from there to the water? Good question. Depending on where you're at, it can, when you flush toilet, it goes through a series of pipes, miles of pipes potentially, and potentially to what we call lift stations that actually convey the wastewater to us by a pumps. So not everything can roll downhill, if you will. And those are things we take care of here. We have 16 lift stations that give us a variety of headaches and we need to maintain them in all operational conditions or else your what you flush may come back to you. Unfortunately, we have a department for that also. But when it travels to the lift stations pumps to us and comes into our wastewater treatment plant. We have a variety of tanks and equipment that separates solids and water. Some are called primary clarifiers goes to big basins, which we call mixed liquor that actually the active bacteria stabilizes the carbon based forms of the wastewater itself and treats it and we try and hold on to the solids as much as possible. We try and get rid of the water element of it so we separate the water and solids, we disinfect and send out to the river via pipe that leads into our main waterway which in this case is a fox river. And what happens inside of that is a lot of looping around a pumping where after the bugs take care of it, we separate those solids we actually have to handle the solids also and they'll stay in here longer. We stabilize those further and we put them through a dewatering process. Which further stabilizes it concentrates the solids and makes it into a very organically rich. Basically manure, if you will, which we then we try to land apply because it's cost prohibitive to landfill biosolids. When we land apply those things farmers love it it bio augments their crops and they can grow number feed crops no direct human consumption type crops and there's many different levels of biosolids where I could in essence put it in your garden if it met the right regulations and test. But at that at that point. The amount of things that occur here from when you flush the toilet could be just a day. That substance is here or it could be up to a few months, though it's constantly in motion. That's the that's the one thing that wastewater doesn't stop you don't want your water to stop your electricity to go out. And it is a very constant operation which now we incorporate a lot of technology into that with telemetry observation where we can observe even when we're not here good alarm systems and whatnot. So so tell us about how you how you ended up in this role like you left high school. And then what happened next like in terms of training and education decisions you made that that led you from there to hear educationally. Right turns and wrong turns. Now, I actually went to this St. Charles High School. And I attended Eastern Illinois University when I graduated from there. And I always had an aptitude for biology and the pathways in the environment connecting. And Bonnie Redmer for that my biology AP bio teacher was an excellent teacher. I didn't really have a direction but I felt that there was something I found interesting and would be a non traditional job. I'm not one to sit this will be the most I've sat today and I don't like sitting but when I the sophomore year I believe I declared for biology environmental biology to be more specific humans and interaction with the environment. And Dan of four years. Well during that time actually we all do summer jobs and internships are much more common nowadays. I ended up getting a summer job here. And I liked it. I liked it very much. I thought the position itself was exciting is dynamic you never know what's going to pop up. And quite literally, and after that I parlayed that into an internship in the laboratory. I've never been a gigantic lab guy but I found what we were doing to be able to test something have an outcome and apply it towards a large scale almost industrial operation if you will like this and have an effect. It was it was very interesting and it was local, which is another key aspect of environmentalism on a local focus which I thought was great. You know you might not be able to save the world but you can help your little corner of it. Awesome. So after you graduated with your bachelor's degree. Did you then end up straight in a job in in the city of St. Charles because of your internship. I did not but I was diligent at keeping touch with people here as I felt this was something I might want to do. You can say I was directionless but I was just I was a kid I was a young adult. I ended up working in a medical diagnostic company for about nine months I believe. And that was around 2000. And you diagnostic analysis for hair, blood, you name it medical telling you if you have metals and whatnot like that that was local to it just it was too confining. There were no windows. I didn't really enjoy so I waited and again touched base with people around here and found an opening and was able to get in 19 years ago full time July. Cool cool that's awesome that is that is a great story and I think one of the things that's important here is we know that that this kind of work is important across all all of this is the whole school day and you calling out giving a shout out there to your AP bio teachers I think a reason why well there's a lot of curriculum that needs to be covered in advanced placement or dual credit class making time to expose students to these kinds of experiences is actually also really important in those classes because and it's funny the way you describe what you like about the lab work you do now is you're taking that and then putting it right into action. That's the research I like is the exact same thing. I mean different topics but exact same thing I get super. Yeah I get super motivated by it if we're going to apply it directly to students real quickly and we're going to turn something around because of that so that's fantastic so what would be the most surprising part of your job to those of us that don't do your work. It's something I may have touched on before is the the biological aspect that most people see large tanks and bubbling substances and they think that there's some sort of high tech chemical process involved here which there is but it's on a biological scale and I when I tell them up until a year ago we were 100% chemical free minus a biodegradable polymer that we used to coagulate sorry coagulate our solids together a bunch of them together. And they're always surprised that I tell them this is these are all bugs and we're just shepherds of the bugs and that still holds true. We try and keep these bugs happy but we try and kill those bugs going out the door and make it safe for for the health of the environment and yourselves it's things such as E coli and whatnot we use ultraviolet disinfection, as opposed to chlorine, which can be harmful to the environment. They're always fascinated by that. Yeah, and it is fascinating. I mean I I remember exactly where I was when I first learned that I was between Bloomington normal and Peoria on I 74 going to a bike race. What one of my college roommates was everybody to nickname we're all bike racers living in this apartment together and the doctor was an environmental biology grad student at the time and studied exactly what you do and as we drove past the rest area and saw the greenish colored water next to the rest area. He explained to us what was going on and everybody was like oh yeah yeah we knew that and I had no clue I was fascinated and I don't think anybody else knew it either. But I was shocked because I assumed someone was dumping chemicals in there to treat it and when he explained none and now that's not how this works. It's really really interesting so. Technology as well that every technology builds upon the previous invention. It. It's amazing to see that that movement of technology even in a field like this that that betters the treatment that betters the cost savings and whatnot not energy conservation to in this field nowadays. I mean especially you you know you referenced earlier in this conversation that you know in the United States we've got some resources that not all parts of the world have in terms of financial resources and wanting everybody to be able to benefit from a the environmental benefits and be the health benefits or vice versa but both of them. Exactly. Those kind of efficiencies creating those efficiencies will make it easier I would imagine to deploy these kinds of solutions everywhere that people live. Yeah the. There's a package plant aspect nowadays for smaller scale and thinking globally to communities that may not have connection to the grid and whatnot you can put smaller scale wastewater treatment plants in that are energized by renewable energies and they have no connection but they're getting that benefit locally of clean water and clean sanitation and it's amazing so that is being employed throughout the world. It's a good thing. Sorry. That's that's super interesting to and for students who are watching multiple of these videos I mean just a couple episodes ago we interviewed a wind farm operator who's who's background in school he went to school to be a nuclear engineer and now he's working in wind energy. And yeah so I mean it's super interesting when you think about like his wind farm technology and this clean water technology and how there are places that those that those could be married including right here in Illinois then so that's super interesting. So what would you say if if someone watched this and they were they were an AP bio students somewhere and they're thinking about what they're going to do after high school. What would be the skills or the knowledge that you would tell them are the most important things to learn in the next few years before they enter the workplace full time if they're like jazzed up about here and what you're doing. To have the big picture the understanding of biology plain and simple is important connecting the dots understanding the scientific method and cause and effect. But also there's an aspect of mechanical aptitude that can be learned. Because I could be one moment making a process change and the next moment taking apart a pump or pulling up. And I find both of those equally challenging and they operate different parts of my brain for that matter so having a well rounded skill set not just being proficient in, you know the book aspect of things but really applying your knowledge to worldly things and from an environmental standpoint to know. Biology truly is the most important aspect of that and everything else can be learned it's like changing a tire or doing an oil change. If you've never done it just try it you'll save money and it'll be interesting. Yeah as far as the specific skill sets it's difficult to explain because you need a bit of everything jack of all master of none if you will. So this is the second of the three interviews episodes we're doing in the government series and that exact phrase has been used in both of them now. And again as someone who has worked in government my whole career I would describe both my favorite parts of the jobs I've had as well as the defining phrases. You know master master of none but jack of all exactly and so so I think that's really important thing even more broadly than your specific occupation as we start looking at careers in government. For students to think about oh I might have to do some things that are beyond just the one thing I think I'm going to do. Absolutely and that actually makes it exciting to do that. I was 18 years in a laboratory I could do that job inside and out. I chose to come over to an opera more operational base here to challenge myself because you know if you do the same thing when you're putting a cap on a toothpaste in an assembly line. It's going to get boring a little monotonous you know and the dynamic aspect you you may say oh I could do this for us my life but 10 years down the road you go. I need a different challenge and the things you've learned along the way not just in your schooling but in your applied you know work years is really what what's going to get you where you want to be you you have a sense of self when you're younger. You start to define that more clearly as you work and progress in life and the changing of the seasons in your life if you will. So in all of our jobs there's things that people either have no idea that we do as part of the work or things that a lot of us that do that work don't like doing. But it's part of the job is there something about your job that either you or other people in your line of work just typically don't like to do but people should know about it or the people would have no idea you do and because we want to give people a full picture of what the job entails. Yes there are a couple things that not a lot of people truly enjoy doing in our field and then when you're dealing with a very raw sludge a raw sewage that very high order very high disgusting value if you will. I have a small nose thankfully and I'm immune to most things nowadays in terms of smell but there's just you have to operate your shovel things spill dumpsters overflow because in a wastewater treatment plot process. There are things you don't want in a wastewater treatment plan so you can only imagine the sensory value that that's going to provide for you. Yeah doing dumpsters at our lift stations we have lift stations that clean and screen solids people flush very interesting things down the toilet or the sink for that matter. And we put those in a dumpsters for landfill operation and sometimes the dumpsters overfill we have to shovel that up and it's not very pleasant but it's a job you have to do. That is truly the best answer we've had in like the 15 or so episodes we've done and really anybody else looks at me and says this part of my job I don't like I'll be like I got one better for you now. So yeah no that's a great example and not only is it a reminder to everybody not to flush that stuff down the toilet shouldn't be going down the toilet. But interesting to think about that process of how it gets screened out and then gets dumped and taken landfill so. Moving technology in that field as well that's it's impressive. Yeah I'm sure I'm sure and I you know just in my head the connection I make is is I wonder about the overlap between that and like the sortering that happens at recycling plants. For example because it's to me it's probably a pretty similar similar set of technologies that are going on there so I don't really know though. So what what would you say are the job prospects for someone who who's watching this thing and this could be interesting working in this field. I believe the prospects are good. What you find in a government field for that matter local government included state government even federal is that a lot of people don't just up and quit a job once they get it they're here generally for long talk long haul. I mean you're looking at 10 years of when I first started they said the tenure was at least 11 years in the position for the city as a whole. And the prospects themselves are good because when you looked at when the clean water came act came out I believe in 1972. You had a lot of people in the last 15 years term out through retirement and those openings they're there you just have to find them even locally they're here. I think the prospects are very good for that matter especially when I believe the Mike Rose of the world talk about you know there's jobs beyond just a four year schooling that still basically require that knowledge base. But they're not a cubicle job and these are those jobs. I love it. I think the future is good. You're going to get some automation in this particular industry. But the more technology and automation that you get the more oversight is needed. So you're going to need people with computer skills as well a telemetry SCADA operations. If you're familiar with SCADA it's it's impressive. So but I think the future is good. That's a great call. Thanks for tying for tying that in too because there's certainly not a field that the knowledge of of either hardware or programming is you know those are those are benefits across any field to have those areas of knowledge. So finishing up I mean normally we ask people as our second to last question what what how does this work make a positive impact on the world. I'll throw that one yet. It feels a little bit like a softball in this interview because I think it's pretty obvious but super important. So let's not gloss over it. How does this this make a positive impact in the world. In the world itself which is the amazing part of what we do here is I even touched on it earlier saying we help local populations but that's just not the case as well we help global populations because of what we do and wastewater cleaning operations. We end up putting that water into the Fox River that goes to the Illinois River that goes to the Mississippi River that goes to the Gulf of Mexico. That one drop of water that we treat has existed for billions of years and that will make its way around the earth by having that. Taking out our foot our footprint from it let's say nitrogen phosphorus E coli. Clean water down the road and that could be consumed for human consumption and utilized for ecosystem itself fish birds animals in general. And that's how we do it one drop at a time if you will here and 100 years later it's down and you know going through the Arctic. I don't I try not to look at the bigger picture on things I do look at what I do in this smaller aspect but I know that I have a larger influence on the world because of what I do in this small little town. That's a super powerful super powerful and very honest answer. So finishing up then what words of advice for for any career they might be interested but would you give a 14 year old 16 year old 18 year old or 20 year old who's thinking about what they might want to do. Well, that's actually a very easy thing to answer which is never shy away from an opportunity to learn something new. Challenge yourself and be open to ideas on something you may not think you want to do, but you may find it exciting and passionate about it so. That is awesome advice. So thank you. Thank you so much to for joining us today and and for sharing all this you do do as I said at the outset. Super important and super interesting work I you know someday someday when the shelter in place is done maybe we'll come on site and do a little site visit for this and blow it out a little further. So that would be wonderful love to have you. Very cool. Well thanks again for joining us today. For those of you watching remember you can connect with us on Twitter at P 20 network that's P to zero network all one word. We do want to hear from you on occupations that would be interesting to hear from if you know somebody specifically who might be a great guest. Please let us know. And if you have questions that you'd like answered across any careers. Please share those with us. Again we've got a wide range of careers available already in the career pathways virtual trailhead series. Literally from Broadway to an electrical outlet and everything in between. And so keep watching. We've got more episodes coming and thanks for joining us.