Jay Hellenbrand grew up in a family-owned water\u00a0treatment\u00a0business in Wisconsin founded by his parents. After graduating from high school, he knew he wanted to start his own company. \u201cI really wanted to go for a master\u2019s appliance license so I could go out on my own,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But those plans were delayed. Hellenbrand and his twin sister were the youngest of seven children and his parents encouraged them to go to college. \u201cIt turned out to be a great move,\u201d he said. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 1994 with a degree in marketing.<\/p>\n
I knew I wanted to work in the water\u00a0treatment\u00a0industry or start my own water\u00a0treatment\u00a0company,\u201d which he thought would be in the Midwest. \u201cThen I got an offer to work in California at a wholesale water\u00a0treatment\u00a0company. I never thought I would end up in California but after a visit to Santa Barbara and checking out the job, I decided to accept it and move to Santa Barbara. Shortly after, I decided to start Advanced Water Solutions on the side. I worked full-time during the day at the wholesale company while working nights and weekends to get Advanced Water Solutions going. I absolutely love the water business and being in business for myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI attribute my success to my Mom and Dad (Jim and Florence Hellenbrand) for teaching me how to work hard and never give up. Another motivating factor was how expensive it was to live in Santa Barbara. I figured the only way I could really get ahead and control my destiny was to start my own business. I was discouraged by my older brother,\u00a0who\u00a0thought California was not a great place to start or run a business. He even had my parents call to question me. I remember telling my Mom and Dad that if others could do it, I could too. I told them they had taught me\u00a0well and I thought I could make it in California because it seemed that the old-fashioned Midwest service that I was used to was not the case in California. I told them: \u2018You know I will give 150 percent because that is how you raised me.\u2019 I guess things have worked out because we just passed our 21st year in business and are still going strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hellenbrand said his company serves both residential and commercial customers in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, along with some areas of Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo counties. \u201cWe take the time to educate the customers. We are in a water-scarce state and we have water shortages in our area because of the severe\u00a0drought\u00a0we\u2019ve experienced for the past several years. We are always addressing\u00a0drought\u00a0issues, even when we get lots of rain. Water is scarce. It is a big issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know this will always be a problem in our service area, so we strive to put in the best, most efficient systems that minimize water being wasted to treat our customers\u2019 water conditions. We continue to test no-salt\u00a0alternatives and try to be optimistic that something will be developed that actually works fairly\u00a0well\u00a0that doesn\u2019t use\u00a0salt\u00a0or potassium to reduce or remove calcium and\u00a0magnesium\u00a0hardness\u00a0minerals from the water.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said\u00a0hard water,\u00a0chlorine,\u00a0and\u00a0chloramines\u00a0are the biggest problems they encounter with city water. \u201cThe average water\u00a0hardness\u00a0in our area is 18 to 25 grains per\u00a0gallon. Some areas on municipal water have 45 to 55 grains per\u00a0gallon. We not only sell and rent water softeners but also do whole-house\u00a0filtration\u00a0systems to reduce the\u00a0chlorine\u00a0and\u00a0chloramines\u00a0for most customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn\u00a0well\u00a0water, we run into all kinds of problems, such as\u00a0iron, manganese, hydrogen sulfide, arsenic, high\u00a0TDS,\u00a0and\u00a0brackish water. We typically custom-design a\u00a0treatment\u00a0system for these applications, which includes pH correction,\u00a0oxidation,\u00a0filtration,\u00a0softening, whole-house RO, as\u00a0well\u00a0as\u00a0bacteria\u00a0and\u00a0virus\u00a0protection. \u201cI anticipate that more regulations on\u00a0salt\u00a0discharge\u00a0and water efficiencies will be put in place on water\u00a0treatment\u00a0products. We have to continue to find new products that not only effectively work to treat customers\u2019 water problems but reduce the amount of water it takes to operate these systems. We need to sell and rent systems that are a lot more efficient, looking at how much water and\u00a0salt\u00a0they use, for a much smaller footprint on the environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Hellenbrand is a Certified Water Specialist, Certified Installer and has specialty certifications in RO,\u00a0deionization,\u00a0filtration,\u00a0and\u00a0ultrafiltration. When he started Advanced Water Solutions in 1997, he tried hiring people from within the industry. \u201cEarly on, my thought process was that it would be easier to get people trained by another dealer. But it seems they come with bad habits, things that are difficult to change. So I found it was a lot easier to hire from scratch and train them completely on how we need to have things done.<\/p>\n \u201cWe prefer to train our employees and teach them our way about installing and servicing our products and how we want our customer’s taken care of. We offer in-house, manufacturer, and WQA\u00a0training, and some of our employees are\u00a0WQA-certified. We really strive to make our customers completely satisfied. Our turnover is pretty low; my two top installation\/service guys have been with me for 18 and 19 years. We are very proud of our employees and everyone works as a team to provide the best customer service. That\u2019s something my Mom and Dad instilled in me. We must be doing something right because our customers continue to tell us and show us great Google and Yelp reviews.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the rewarding things about owning my own business is that I get to create a future for not only myself but my employees. It is rewarding meeting new customers and seeing customers from 21 years ago\u00a0who still appreciate our products and great service and continue to refer us to their friends, family, and neighbors. It is so rewarding to see customers and hear them say good things about our company and the employees. \u201cI have two daughters, ages 16 and 13. The oldest helps a bit but is not showing too much interest. It would be cool if they did come around after college and after they are out in the real world for a while and then come back.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the last year, we expanded into the coffee business. We are now providing coffee, tea, and espresso along with coffee brewers and equipment to coffee shops, restaurants, and large businesses. We have been providing water treatment products to these customers for years, so it was a natural transition to provide the coffee and equipment as\u00a0well. It is exciting to expand into this market. Over the next 10 years, we plan to continue growing both the water treatment\u00a0and coffee business, while maintaining our great customer service along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jay Hellenbrand grew up in a family-owned water\u00a0treatment\u00a0business in Wisconsin founded by his parents. After graduating from high school, he knew he wanted to start his own company. \u201cI really wanted to go for a master\u2019s appliance license so I could go out on my own,\u201d he said. But those plans were delayed. Hellenbrand and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1422,"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions\/1422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedwaterinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cSome of the biggest challenges we face are the cities that have banned\u00a0s<\/a>alt<\/a>-based softeners. That limits us on what we can offer these customers. We have not found a great alternative to\u00a0salt-based softeners to remove\u00a0hardness\u00a0from the water. Reverse\u00a0osmosis\u00a0works the best but it is not that practical to put in a whole-house RO system to reduce the\u00a0hardness\u00a0because of the large cost\u2014and the bigger problem is the amount of water wasted with these RO systems.<\/p>\n
\nHis twin Jodi also followed family tradition and works in the water\u00a0treatment industry. \u201cShe works for two of my brothers in Dad\u2019s business.\u201d Will there be a third-generation?<\/p>\n