Meet Craig Sampo, Lead Field Service Technician

How long have you been at Energenecs?

I have been at Energenecs since 2006. Prior to Energenecs, I went back to college and received two associate degrees, one in water/wastewater treatment and the other in electrical engineering.

What would you say is a typical day for you?

[laughing] That is a hard question to answer because there is really no such thing as a typical day. It ranges anywhere from one day I could be working on a pump, the next day I’m doing radio or PLC work to chemical feed systems. I travel around quite a bit, but for the most part I typically stay in Wisconsin. But it really varies from Illinois all the way up to the UP (Upper Peninsula). Yesterday I was looking at the Mississippi River and today I’m just north of Green Bay.

What do you enjoy about your job?

The variability that it has from day to day. The ability to help our customers and basically solve problems, which is the gist of what we do.

What percentage of service calls are emergency versus scheduled maintenance?

Typically my day tends to be a bit more reactionary than planned. Even being reactionary, the lion’s share of the time, it is something that we can get scheduled. But if somebody calls in and they have an emergency issue, we need to react immediately. In fact, yesterday a client had an emergency because their lift station was completely down and needed someone there right away. So I had to reroute one of our service guys to get there. We are working on bringing new tools and programs to clients that enable more planned/ scheduled services.

What are typical problems you work on?

I stick more to instrumentation, chemical feed and process equipment, like fine screens and aeration equipment problem solving, though I do cover the whole gamut of everything that we offer with Energenecs, I also work on equipment that is not ours. Instrumentation can include DO meters, phosphorus and ammonia analyzers, various flow meters, including ultrasonic and radar equipment. Basically all types of instruments that are involved in a water or wastewater treatment facility. Controls-based problems are another area I work on including SCADA and relay controls, lift station panels, wells, and other related water and wastewater treatment activities.

Sounds like you cover quite a wide variety of issues!

Thankfully we have a great support staff. I can do a lot of those things, but sometimes not as well as others can, which makes us a strong team. Like today for example, I was working at a Client’s facility and I needed SCADA Technician assistance because some of the programming that needed to be looked at was a little more involved than my expertise. So I involved one of our SCADA experts to make the necessary adjustments. We really do complement each other well, where one person has a strength, we can help each other out. It broadens our horizons quite a bit. It’s a very good group of people at Energenecs. We have a very broad base of skills and talents and everybody’s heart is in the right place. What we do is not easy. We are all there to help each other through the issues that we deal with day to day. It really makes it enjoyable.

What do you do for fun?

Growing up on a farm many moons ago, the only time we could really have fun was in the winter time. So when I was growing up I really liked the cold weather and ice fishing was a big part of that. The first walleye I ever caught was 27 inches through the ice up in Canada using tip-ups*, that was a blast! That had me hooked and I have enjoyed it ever since.

*a tip-up is a device used while ice fishing to suspend live or frozen bait at a set depth through a hole drilled in the ice with an auger, and detect when a fish strikes, without having to be in contact with this piece of gear. When a fish takes the bait, a flag “tips up” or the flag can “tip down” to signal the angler that a fish has taken his bait.