Industrial Water with Casey Theys
Casey Theys already had significant experience in his field before joining MPW in September of 2021 as an Industrial Water regional sales manager. He was promoted to Director of Sales a year ago. “I went into water treatment early in my career as a process engineer,” he said. “Over that time, I was able to work with several technologies and gain a good understanding of basic water chemistry and treatment. Having that background, I was able to focus more on MPW advantages and procedures when I started. I knew I could get up to speed quickly.”
Theys’ main goal at MPW is to put the sales team in a position to succeed, which will lead to long-term growth and profitability for the MPW IW Group. He said a large part of that is strong communication between the sales and management groups to ensure the sales team is implementing planned changes and ensuring the opinions of the sales team, and their customers, are heard.
“I really enjoy working with the sales team in IW as we have a good mix of new and experienced employees as well as different backgrounds including operations, technical and sales,” Theys said. “They are all willing to jump in and help when needed and share their opinions and knowledge, which has led to a lot of great collaboration within the group.”
Theys said the more experienced members of the team will volunteer their time to help educate the relatively new sales managers through Teams calls. Also, the newer members will shadow the experienced members during customer meetings, learning how they present MPW, what areas to highlight and how to answer some typical customer questions.
The biggest challenge of being a Director of Sales is collecting timely payments from MPW customers. Theys said it’s important for MPW to keep up-to-date to fund new equipment and projects, and late payments will throw the process off and cause delays.
“My day-to-day activities change depending on the time of year and initiatives we are working on,” Theys said. “Throughout the year I spend a lot of time discussing current or potential projects with our group, whether it is trying to solve an issue we are facing or determining if we have the ability to support a new opportunity.”
At home, Theys and his wife, Christie, care for two daughters—Karen, 5, and Kennedy, 3. “They are always coming up with new games for us to play and keep me busy. I also play in a summer softball league and try to golf when I can,” he said.
Still, even in his free time, Theys can’t resist being around water. “I enjoy fishing for trout in small streams around Western Pennsylvania where I can park, walk about a mile upstream and fish my way back to the car,” he said. “It’s a great excuse to get out in the woods for a few hours and find fish in places that others might not get to.”