Insight on Business featured NEW Water’s incoming Executive Director, Nathan Qualls, in the “Get to Know” column.
The Insight on Business story is found below. To read their full publication, please visit: November 2024 News & Noteworthy | News & Noteworthy | insightonbusiness.com >>
November 2024 News & Noteworthy
Get to know: Nathan Qualls
Incoming executive director, NEW Water
In Northeast Wisconsin, a region known for its abundant water resources, it’s easy to take things like running a load of laundry or flushing the toilet for granted. But Nathan Qualls, who will become NEW Water’s executive director Dec. 23, understands the heavy lift that is treating millions of gallons of wastewater daily.
“We use water every day, constantly. We rely on it so much,” the Waukesha native says. “When people get an opportunity to see our facilities — the size, the scale, the level of complexity, the amount of science and technology that goes into it — they are like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize it took that much.'"
NEW Water, the brand of the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District, is a wholesale provider of wastewater treatment and conveyance services to 15 municipal customers, serving approximately 238,000 residents throughout a 285-square-mile area. On average, the utility treats 41 million gallons a day between two facilities in Green Bay and De Pere.
Starting next month, Qualls will be leading the water resource utility, which employs about 100 people. Qualls moved to Northeast Wisconsin in 2000, shortly after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering. He started with NEW Water in 2008 as a staff engineer before being promoted to director of technical services in 2013.
Under the leadership of his predecessor, Thomas Sigmund, Qualls has been involved in several key projects at NEW Water. He points to the Resource Recovery & Electrical Energy (R2E2) project, which recovers heat and converts wastewater into electricity at the Green Bay facility.
“That was our largest construction project, and it really changed the way that we treat wastewater as a resource,” he says. “We’re now able to harness the energy that is inherent within the wastewater itself. We can generate about 40% of our own electricity and use that on site.”
Qualls says NEW Water’s work is not only critical to public health and the natural environment, but it also lays the solid foundation for business activity in the area.
“We’re here to support economic development and ensure that our community and businesses can continue to grow,” he says, “and make sure that wastewater services aren’t a barrier to that.”
- From Insight on Business, October 2023
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