#187 - PART 1, Rain Bird Irrigation Pro Summit: 50 Years of Irrigation Innovation

As soon as I turned 13, I was able to work for a company doing landscaping and irrigation

and I helped to install my first irrigation system in 1968 when I was 13 years old.

If you are an irrigation professional, old or new, who designs, installs, or maintains

high-end residential, commercial, or municipal properties, and you want to use technology

to improve your business, to get a leg up on your competition. Even if you're an old school

irrigator from the days of hydraulic systems, this show is for you.

Welcome back to the Sprinkler Nerd Show. I'm your host Andy Humphrey. This is a very special

episode. First of its kind, the first time I've done something like this, I hope you guys are all

into binge listening. Who's into binge listening? Raise your hand out there and podcast land.

We'll find out. This is an experiment, but I thought it would be the best way to release these

three episodes. You're welcome to listen to them in any particular order. You could listen to

episode two, and then three, and then one, or three, and one, and two, or one, and three, and two,

or you could do with the old fashioned way in listened episode one, and then two, and then three.

Let me explain. I recently had the opportunity to attend the Rainbird Contractor Summit in New Jersey.

I should say the Rainbird Pro Contractor Summit in New Jersey, where there was a mix of many irrigation

contractors, a couple distributors, and then product leaders from Rainbird all gathering for a

full day of learning and conversations and really exploring what's new with irrigation technology

in the industry, what's new with products at Rainbird is working on, and kind of just where the

technology is headed for the irrigation industry. Throughout the day, I met with contractors,

interviewed contractors, met with Rainbird personnel, had great conversations, kind of went around

the room in almost like a reporter mode. Sometimes I feel like here at Sprinkler Nerd, I do share my

mind, but I also feel like it's a little bit of my job to report the news, to be the reporter in the

field, reporting the news on happenings, what's going on, and maybe putting my spin on it a little

bit about what I think is happening. So that's what you're going to have in these three episodes,

and what I wanted to kind of mention to you guys is that as I listened to these conversations,

something started to become more clear for me, and I really felt like I started to get a good sense,

or a better sense on where this industry is heading, and specifically how this industry is consistently

evolving. And I think that one of the most important things a contractor can do is stay open

to learning. And that was kind of a theme that I picked up from this event, is contractors staying

open to learning. And I think that events like this aren't just for contractors who perhaps

already use Rainbird products. Of course, rainbirds go to invite contractors who use Rainbird products,

but these types of events are for any irrigation contractor who wants to improve their craft.

To learn new ideas, better understand the technology that's shaping our industry,

and I think there's always something you can learn. If you use Rainbird products and you go to a

Toro event, great, I'm sure there's something you can learn from Toro and vice versa. Hunter to

Rainbird, Rainbird to K-Rain, Baseline to Weather Track to Hunter to Rainbird again, you know what I

mean. So I guess what I'm saying is that it was fun to be in a room where there were certainly

contractors who use a lot of Rainbird and there was also contractors there to learn what's new

and learn how to improve their craft. Because again, I think in irrigation, the moment you stop

learning is the moment you start falling behind. So with that, instead of producing just one

episode for this entire event, I decided to turn it into three distinct episodes where I could

kind of lay out almost like a storyboard for you guys. So episode one, we're going to explore

the past, how irrigation has evolved over the last 50 years. Episode two, we're going to take a look

at the modern irrigation contractor and how technology is changing the way they operate their

business. In episode three, we're going to take an inside look at Rainbird and hear from a couple

of their product managers about the new products that Rainbird is bringing to market.

So with that, let's begin episode number one. To understand where the irrigation industry is

going, it helps to understand where it came from. Today's technology, like cloud-connected

controllers, flow monitoring, ET and weather stations, two wire technology soil moisture sensors,

this technology didn't appear overnight. It's the result of decades of innovation. So I wanted

to start by talking with someone who has seen the entire evolution of irrigation firsthand.

His name is Walter Muggevin. Walter is the owner of Aquamist Irrigation. This company has been

operating for more than 30 years and Walter himself has been working in irrigation for over 50 years.

In fact, he installed his very first irrigation system in 1968. I challenge you, who is listening

to this podcast right now that was alive in 1968? Think about that. Most of you guys listening to

this podcast were not even alive in 1968 when Walter installed his first irrigation system.

So that perspective makes this conversation a fascinating look at how the industry has changed.

Here's my conversation with Walter Muggevin.

Let's start. I know you already, but for those that are listening, let's just start with who you are,

what your business is, and how long you've been doing what you've been doing, Walter.

My name is Walter Muggevin, I'm the owner of Aquamist Irrigation. Aquamist Irrigation is in its

33rd year, and I've been doing irrigation for just over 50.

Wow. So let's go back a little bit to the beginning. How did you start in this business?

As soon as I turned 13, I was able to work for a company doing landscaping irrigation,

and I helped to install my first irrigation system in 1968 when I was 13 years old.

Okay. So 1968, tell us about what were sprinklers, valves, and controllers like in 1968?

Very annoying. Mostly hydraulic valves, pin-type valves. There wasn't a lot of electric. There was

a couple of 110 valves that I found out the hard way. That's not always 110. Yeah, and we dug everything

by hand. There were no machines, no premieres, no ditch witches, everything was with a pick and a

shovel. Wow. So if there's anyone that has seen the transition in this industry happen, it's you.

Oh, yes. Yes. From the early 500 series Toro spray heads, to the 600 rotary, to the 700 rotary,

and then all of rainbirds stuff, which at the very beginning were mostly Toro, because

I was a nearest distributor, and that's where everybody pretty much more from the one.

So yeah, I mean, there's been an unbelievable amount of innovations, especially controllers,

and even sprinkler heads themselves, much better nozzles, much better spray patterns,

more options. So yeah, I mean, I've seen it grow tremendously.

Yeah, and before we talk about technologies that are being spoken about here today and that we're

seeing in the market today, is there anything that sticks out in your mind in the past that you've

seen anything that was a drastic difference in the 90s, early 2000s that made it impact

technologically? Well, the controllers, especially now, you know, everything is Wi-Fi enabled.

They sort of downsize some of the golf course controllers that can use on regular sites,

like I'm a big proponent of rainbird site control, and mostly because of flow manager.

You know, you can't just do big four inch loop mains everywhere, and you only want to send

X amount of water to one area, X amount of water to another area, and mostly the stuff that

we build is that we're doing a lot of pump stations, 95% of all of our jobs involve a pump station,

and they're anywhere from 100 gallons a minute to 1200 gallons a minute.

I know there's a lot of people likely listening to this podcast that have never even

put in a pump station. So when you say 95% of your projects have pump stations, tell us about those

projects. What kind of projects do you work for? Two years ago, we were able to convince a couple

of national builders to pull water out of their storm water basins, and in New Jersey, it's never

an issue to put a well as a supplement to the storm basin. So you're collecting a lot of rain

water. So number one, you're not using potable water. You're saving the HOA, a lot of fees,

you know, and once the developers realize that, that sure, they may give us like an extra $80,000

up front, but they're saving the HOA $120,000 water bill every year. So their fees get reduced,

you get, you know, it becomes a sales tool. So they're going to sell more units, and they finally

realized that, and that was around 2004. So those are when we started doing pump stations for

regular landscape irrigation, whenever there was a basin that could hold water or enough,

or to put in a well that you wouldn't need more than 100,000 gallons per day, which was the

limitation in New Jersey. And then in Pennsylvania, it became a little bit of a different, instead of

a landscape irrigation system, we're building post-construction storm water management systems.

We're getting rid of the rain water that shows up on a site, and you put up a million square foot

warehouse odds are we getting rid of about 600 to 700,000 gallons in six days because of rain.

Wow. If somebody is interested in making pumps and these more technical types of projects,

a part of the business, what kind of advice would you have for them? How do you get started with

this type of work? It's, it's not an easy thing. It's the same thing where I've always said,

just because a guy can do a house regular house landscape irrigation system doesn't necessarily

mean you're qualified to do a ball field. And people that do athletic fields are not necessarily

qualified to do a golf course. So there is a different level at every single one of them. And

you know, Peter principle, you know, you've hit your ceiling, stay there, concentrate on that,

and make everybody else happy of all your customers. Yeah. Yeah. As it relates to technology,

what are you seeing right now that has the most potential to impact your business,

positively or negatively? Just what technologies do you think might have the biggest impact?

Well, Rainbird a few years ago, I sat down with the pump engineers and we came up with a design

for submersible pump. They mostly did vertical turbines and they had a, you know, a supplemental

pump just like two, three horsepower and we took that and originally they were able to do 150

gallons a minute. And then two years later, they're now up to 600 gallons a minute on the submersible

pump. And now they're over 1200 gallons a minute with a submersible. And that has helped us

tremendously because we would always have to put it in a pump shed of sorts and sometimes they

were the best looking things and sometimes people just, you know, customers just didn't really

want them there. So once we could put the pump underground, it became a lot easier and better and

less expensive. Wow. Yeah. So outside of products that Rainbird offers, which I know you use

install and service and maintain, what does a company like Rainbird provide you with a value

outside of their products? Oh, they're always asking, what can they do for me? I mean, where we found

our own little niche and I do designs for 21 different engineering companies. So I really don't

need any marketing help. You know, so, but they're always there when I need something and I need a

product quicker. They've always done whatever they need to do to, you know, to keep our, you know,

ball moving. Yeah. If you've been a business a long time, 33 years, do you have any business

advice for someone who might be just starting their business with thinking about starting business

or maybe they're a couple two, three years old? What knowledge do you have that you wish you had

earlier in your career? I wish they came out with trenching machines quicker than what they did,

but I mean, you need that. You need good guys working with you and you need to go to the different

classes that I mean, every manufacturer offers classes and you really need to go to them. I mean,

luckily in New Jersey, you need to have an irrigation license. So you have to study for that,

even though sometimes things in the books don't necessarily relate to what you're doing out in

the field, but a lot of time it does without even realizing it. Now, you could be at somebody's

house and they only have 60 pounds of pressure. Now you're putting it a backflow. You've just

reduced that and there's a 20 foot elevation change in their backyard. Well, the sudden, you really

don't have enough pressure to run some of these heads. So that's things you have to look at.

Knowing the fundamentals. I mean, the hydraulics is so important with without a doubt. That's

the biggest thing. You're on a flat 100 by 100 residential lot. It's not that big of a deal,

but you still need to know. What risks do you see in the market for your

irrigation contracting businesses today? The one thing that I've always tried to tell people

because two wire is a serious thing now. We've been putting two wire in for quite some time now,

except that we put it in one inch conduit. Okay, that's super smart. Because number one,

you know, we're on new construction sites and somebody's always breaking up stuff always. So you

can't, if you don't put it in, I mean, the worst case scenario is that you go to one valve box,

you go to the other valve box, you pull the broken wire out, you fix the conduit, you push a new

piece through, it's as if nothing ever happened. The biggest problem with systems years ago

is that by the time, let's say a 100 housing site, you know, an HOA that the job got finished,

the wires got cut so many times. You have you've spliced things together so many times,

and we've run across where there wasn't enough voltage to open up those last couple of valves

further away. So that's where two wire resolved that issue. The biggest thing, the problem with

systems 15 years ago, 10 years ago, and beyond was electrical. And that was always the demise of the

system. Now it's 100% perfect, but you got to use conduit. I mean, for what a piece of one inch conduit

cost, it's like an insurance policy that your system is going to function forever, you know,

unless somebody breaks them, or a valve fails, we're eventually a headstocks rotator, but that's

normal, you know, course of action, but if you can eliminate any electrical issues,

damn, that's, that's a home run. Yeah, tell us more about the conduit. What type of pipe do you

prefer to use for that? Just stand there, you know, one inch S3R21, you know, I have to use

schedule 40. Okay. So you got to use a sweep, you know, which is regular electrical sweep,

which you can buy at any place, you can buy at home depot, you can buy any electrical supply

place. And I mean, the amount that like we buy, we get a pretty good deal on them. So I mean,

it's a no brainer to go in and out of a valve. And it's going to be inherently more expensive

of a system to put in a conduit. How do you propose that to your customer? How does that get

justified? How do you, how do you say, hey, I'm going to be some percentage while I are priced,

and here's why? Yes. Well, I mean, one of the, you're talking like 20 cents a foot, you know,

for a one inch, you know, piece of pipe. But in the long run, again, during construction,

you know, it's going to get hit. I mean, cement trucks drive over your valve boxes, they

crush them, whatever. But now the electrical integrity is guaranteed. And if you don't put it in,

now suppose when the trench got buried, a rock hit it and nicked it. Now, maybe it doesn't show

up right away, but it will show up two or three years down the road. That's when you got to either

call Armada to go find it. Yeah. And then you got to dig it up. And then you're, you're splicing it,

and now you're adding another piece because those two pieces are never going to, you know, connect

back again. You got to do it. So again, easy. If you know, and rainbirds, IVM controller,

we'll diagnose where the problem is. So you can go right to the valve that isn't working,

stop at the one that is working, pull the wire, push a new one through, you're done in 10 minutes,

and you're back running again. Yeah. And that's value. That's worth without a dang for. And that's

what, you know, that, that IVM controller that I remember came out with as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, we, we use nothing else but organ site control. Yeah. So I'm going to ask you a question

that's not related to conduit, but it is related to people in business. You've been in business

a long time. It sounds great to own a business. It can be great to own a business. But there's also

a lot of, of risks. There's a lot of fires to put out. If not every day, you're putting out fires.

Have there been any scary moments in your career where you questioned, why am I doing this?

Well, usually just when like, you know, the GC that you're working for goes belly up and you're

worried if you're ever going to get paid or you're going to wait, you know, five years and get,

you know, 10 cents on the dollar. I mean, there's always that. I mean, work with people you're

comfortable with. People send us bids every day. I've never worked with you. I'm busy enough. I

don't need you. And I don't know you. If I know you, the other people that we do business with,

we know we trust. And that's good. That's the bottom line. You got to make sure the cash is coming in.

Yeah. I mean, you got to have good people and to have good people, you got to pay them. You got to

pay them well. You have to be able to pay them. And and that's the bottom line. That's a lot of

the things that you do have to look at. You do have to know how to bid a job properly. You need to

know what your overhead is. You need to know what it cost you to send one guy out of the truck,

let alone five guys out of the truck. So that's the thing that everyone needs to concentrate on.

And if you need help with that, every manufacturer does offer those classes on how to bid projects.

Excellent. That's fantastic advice. So last question for you. What are you most excited about in

2026? Data centers. Okay. Not data centers for you and your data data centers as a client.

Data centers as a client. I just finished in 2025, nine designs for various data centers. And this

year, I'm on my third one. So they're going to be coming out soon and they're all big projects.

Wow. And that incorporates all the rainwater, the story. Yes. Is that pumping?

Exactly. We should. Yeah. So I mean, right now in Eastern Pennsylvania, there's a big surge of

construction going on right now. So we just were riding the wave and continuing. I mean, who knows,

it could it could end in two years. And then okay, then you just got to maintain the sites. But

you always have to be thinking a little bit down the road and, you know, what's the climate and

what's it all look like and, and, and, you know, prepare accordingly. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Walter, appreciate knowing you for all these years. Congrats on being a leader in the irrigation

industry and setting up a high bar for for everyone else around you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

All right. Thanks. Take care. Walter's story reminds us just how much the irrigation industry

has evolved from hydraulic valves and hand digging trenches to modern controllers, diagnostic

capabilities and true water management systems. But the core lesson he shared is something every

contractor should remember. The fundamentals still matter. Hydraulics, installation quality,

and continuous learning are still the foundation of a successful irrigation business.

In the next episode, we'll shift from the past to the present and hear from contractors

working in the field today about how technology is changing the way

irrigation companies operate.