What does Miox do?
MIOX was founded around the idea that smart onsite solutions would drive the future of water. On-site generation has a fundamentally disruptive value proposition—producing chemicals on site rather than shipping expensive, often dangerous chemicals to a site. Today, we sell our solutions based on cost savings, but we are also seeing widespread adoption based on sustainability and safety. As chemical prices have risen dramatically in the $50 billion chemical business, MIOX sales have been gaining momentum. We provide an environmentally sustainable solution for the long term that saves money right away.
MIOX goes after big problems. We all work very hard at MIOX to engineer solutions that meet very real, very pressing and critical water challenges. MIOX’s engineers and executives could make more money working elsewhere, but they’re here because of the problems we get to tackle and the challenges of bringing in game-changing solutions. Project by project, we are driving a new generation of water management– giving people access to low-cost clean water, reducing the risks in fracing, providing clean water to US special forces and supporting humanitarian efforts to eliminate legionella in hospitals.
Can you describe a project that has defined the company and its culture?
The performance of our teams in installing new sites is astounding. I think this comes back to the company culture where the team wants to see the company succeed. We’ve pulled off some amazing deliveries in the last couple of years; deliveries that wouldn’t have happened if the team didn’t come together the way they did. In 2013 the team was tasked with taking a new product from concept to production to operation at the customer site in just 6 months. Now there are multiple MIOX Blackwater mobile water treatment systems treating produced water in two of the largest shale plays in the United States.
Which projects are showing the market potential for your product? What are the bottom-line benefits that you are seeing?
We’re seeing a huge pull from cooling towers to replace organic biocides delivered to their site. Replacement of gas chlorine to meet Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) standards is a constant area of growth in the US and internationally. In addition to removing the safety hazards of chemicals like gas chlorine, policy makers worldwide are also looking for an alternative to organic biocides that cause long-term environmental damage like glutaraldehyde or quaternary amines. What’s closing the deal for most of these industrial projects is that customers are seeing return on investment (ROI) in 11-18 months. It’s a win-win for the environment and for the bottom-line.
What brought you to join Miox?
As Director of Global Industrial Sales of GE Water, I got a view of the day-to-day problems that our clients face and I saw technologies that would solve these problems on a predictable basis. It was frustrating to see great solutions fall by the wayside because of corporate bureaucracy and red tape.
When I interviewed at MIOX, I saw a company had already taken a series of new solutions to market to solve very real and challenging issues in the water industry. Joining a small, tight knit team of really smart folks would allow me to bring innovative solutions from concept to market and then to mass market adoption.
What experiences have driven your career?
Early on in my career, I realized the value of understanding the customer problem and the value of a solution. Helping people buy things was really about putting myself in their shoes – understanding the problems they face – and coming up with a solution to meet their needs. If you want to sell, you need to see things from the client’s perspective. How do they view the risk?
Working with automotive companies in Detroit during the early 1990s taught me how to understand the value of a solution from the customer’s perspective, and how to sell around that.
In pitching my products to a manufacturer for a plant in Mexico, I started by asking questions about the problems that this customer was facing. The client asked if I wanted to visit the factory. I was the only supplier that was ready to travel to Mexico to see this operation. That visit closed the deal for me. Once I was down there at the plant in Mexico, I realized how important reliable performance was for this remote site.
Where do you see the impact of MIOX’s solutions?
I love traveling around the world and seeing how people get water— drinking water, water for farming, or industrial water at a factory. During a recent trip to Nairobi, I visited an NGO project run by Shining Hope for Communities in the Kibera slums (http://shininghopeforcommunities.org/). Shining Hope builds kiosks that sell safe drinking water to residents, schools, and medical clinics. The kiosks use the money from water sales to build and maintain the kiosks. The day that I visited, I saw a line of 200 jerrycans of water waiting for the kiosk to open for the day. These kiosks are solving an important problem that is easy to solve with the right technology and a strong organization in the field.
We’ve pulled off some amazing deliveries in the last couple of years; deliveries that wouldn’t have happened if the team didn’t come together the way they did. In 2013 the team was tasked with taking a new product from concept to production to operation at the customer site in just 6 months. Now there are multiple MIOX Blackwater mobile water treatment systems treating produced water in two of the largest shale plays in the United States.
Craig Beckman is the President & CEO for MIOX Corporation, an electrolytic technology leader for customized disinfection chemistries. Prior to MIOX, Craig was the Vice President Equipment Sales at GE Water with responsibility of a global team of Developers selling integrated solutions for large water and waste treatment systems. In addition, Craig was responsible for a new business incubation program for GE Water that focused on translating unique solutions across markets and geographies. Prior to GE Water, Craig lead sales and marketing for Osmonics and was instrumental in their 10X growth prior to being sold to GE.
He is a recognized expert in marketing and commercializing new products, driving global sales growth, and managing water projects across multiple industries and applications. With a career in water that spans over 20 years, Craig has gained extensive global market experience in food and beverage; pharmaceutical; power; municipal; oil and gas; and microelectronics.