It has been an honor for Empowering Pumps & Equipment over the years to shine a light on the professionals behind the industries that are vital to life and sharing their stories with our #PumpTalk Community. We are proud to have Nick Terranova as our April #Pumptalk Celebrity. He is a Product Manager with HOMA Pump Technology and has tons of insight to share with us. We hope you enjoy his story!

Q: How did you get started working in your field?

A: My father was in the pump industry while I was growing up, and as a result I spent summers in high school and college working for HOMA Pump Technology. I started out sweeping floors and pulling parts, moved on to repairing and diagnosing equipment, and eventually moved inside to do product engineering work. When I finally graduated with my Bachelor’s in Nuclear Engineering, I found that the outlook of the nuclear industry was not as optimistic as I had thought when I began my education. However, I realized through all the years I had spent learning about the pump industry from the ground up, I was in a perfect place to hit the ground running at the company that had taught me everything.

Q: What do you love the most about your job?

A: Seemingly every day, I am doing something new. Working as a product manager at a smaller company means I get to wear a lot of hats, so on a given day I could be drafting, writing white papers, conducting sales calls, or spinning wrenches. The diverse skillset this demands means I spend every day learning new skills and new aspects of the business, so there’s never a dull day for me.

Q: What are you most proud of?

A: Years ago, as a summer intern, I was tasked with designing a simple concrete pier arrangement for a dry pit installation of a submersible pump. I drafted the layout, sent it off, and didn’t think much of it. A few months later, my boss showed me a picture of a dry pit pump and told me “This is the installation you designed.” That was when it really hit me that the work I was doing at my desk was making an actual impact in the world, and reaffirmed my choice to become an engineer. While I have gone on to do much larger and more important projects since then, nothing will ever beat the first time I saw my work come to life.

Q:  What advice would you give to someone considering this line of work or new to the field?

A: I believe it is important for anyone coming into the wastewater sector to have a good sense of humor. This is an industry full of people that are willing to poke fun at the world around them, as well as themselves, so being able to laugh along with them makes for a great work environment, as well as a lot of good friends.

Q: Can you talk about a project you recently worked on?

A: At HOMA, we greatly value the boots on the ground keeping our water flowing, so we have started to create instructional videos targeted at operators and mechanics that focus on maintenance and repairs of our products. This has involved our National Aftermarket Business Development Manager, Tony Brunetto, and myself getting deep into the nuts and bolts of our products to give our end users the tools they need to keep their pumps running their best. In order to produce these videos, I had to learn how to record and edit video, write concise and legible instructions, and put myself in the shoes of a mechanic stuck in the cold rain on a midnight callout. It was part learning endeavor, and part getting in touch with my roots in the shop, all with the benefit of hopefully preventing at least one headache for someone in the field.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

A: I love working in the wastewater industry because every day I am doing something that benefits the world around me. When I decided to become an engineer, that is what I hoped to accomplish, so it means a great deal to me to be able to say that.

Connect with Nick on LinkedIn!