Reflecting on 2025 & Embracing 2026
By Karen Frost, Executive Director
2025 was a watershed year for The Water Council starting at the very top. In May we celebrated the accomplishments and retirement of our founding CEO of 15 years, Dean Amhaus. We are so grateful for his passion, vision and hard work getting The Water Council off the ground and leading it through its first decade and a half.
In June, I took on the role of executive director after 10 years with the organization, most recently as vice president of innovation and economic development. We also became an affiliate of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce to share resources and strengthen each other’s missions.
I’ve talked to many of you since then about the value you find in The Water Council membership and how we can best engage with you. I’ve enjoyed hearing your stories and learning how we can serve you better. Please contact me if we haven’t had a chance to talk yet.
We’ll share more about how we’re responding to that feedback in the New Year. For now, I want to celebrate the progress we’ve made with a look back at 2025.
innovation update
In 2025, we hired a new director of innovation programs, Katie Kollhoff Mouat. Katie immediately set about refreshing our Tech Challenge and BREW 2.0 Post-Accelerator programs. The Tech Challenge added a new sponsor, Xylem, and continues to draw a strong global response. In fact, we had one of our best rounds ever in fall, and we are excited to announce the winners in a few weeks!
This year, we introduced a revamped showcase event for our BREW cohort and started a series of webinars for our BREW alumni members. These webinars have been received so positively that we’re planning to extend them to all startup members in 2026!
Responding to participant feedback, we have more changes planned next year, including a new in-person session at the start of the accelerator to bookend the “Milwaukee week” at the end.
As the year draws to a close, we are happy to introduce you to our final BREW 2025 company, Weaver Labs.
Weaver Labs is a water technology company focused on addressing the global PFAS contamination crisis. Its proprietary Fluor-Mop technology removes “forever chemicals” to non-detect levels and is regenerable – a comprehensive lowest lifecycle cost solution.
Water Stewardship
This year we grew WAVE: Water Stewardship Verified with the introduction of a second verification program, WAVE: Action. Our original program, now known as WAVE: Assess, helps companies assess their water risks, uses and impacts. WAVE: Action builds on that foundation by helping companies set targets to mitigate their highest-priority water risks and prepare to engage stakeholders in collaborative actions that address shared challenges and opportunities.
A. O. Smith Corporation became the first company verified to WAVE: Action in October – a remarkable accomplishment.
We also celebrate the companies verified to WAVE: Assess this year – Culligan International, Milo’s Tea Company, Toyota Motor North America and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, along with Sloan, which achieved reverification. Each verification grows our network of global organizations activating strategic water stewardship for highest impact.
We continued building our water stewardship advisory work, adding the Vinyl Institute and Texas Brine as new clients in addition to furthering our work with the American Chemistry Council.
Finally, we launched a virtual, comprehensive water stewardship training in partnership with the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB). This self-paced introductory course offers an overview of the best practices in the application of water stewardship for an enterprise or specific site.
Workforce development
We understand that workforce is a key concern for our members in both the public and private sectors, and we believe we can leverage our network to build connections that will strengthen the Milwaukee workforce. We are supporting Community Water Services’ new internship program for teens, H2OConnect, with a federal grant we received through U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office. This year, the program’s first interns learned about water filtration through field trips, presentations and hands-on experiments.
We also are working with Veolia North America, along with other members, through our joint MOU focused on Veolia’s water workforce initiative in Milwaukee. Please contact me if you’re interested in joining this effort.
Nexus Summit
We held our annual summit in October, the second year of a collaboration with Marquette University’s Sustainability Lab. We received strong feedback from attendees, including several who said the content – addressing topics such as the circular economy, AI and the role of insurance in building resilience – was some of the best they’ve seen in their years at the event.
Stay tuned to learn about our 2026 event soon, and please feel free to reach out with feedback or suggestions.
Membership
We know we couldn’t do any of what we do without our members. We are proud of our network of water technology startups, corporations, academic programs, utilities and more from around the world.
This year, we welcomed new members ABB, BGEO, CIS, EMS, Food and Beverage Wisconsin, HydroFLOW USA, Lowe Group, RSE, Sodimate and Watura to our world water hub. Visit the Global Directory to learn more about them and all our members.
We also started a series of member profiles on our blog this year. Our member spotlight for December is Aquagga, a rapidly growing tech startup focused on developing solutions to one of the most pressing water treatment and environmental remediation challenges of the 21st century, PFAS destruction.
Aquagga offers end-of-life PFAS destruction solutions for environmental remediation firms, industrial filtration companies, solid waste managers and environmental site managers. The company reached several milestones in 2025, including landing its largest commercial contract and completing the first municipal-scale PFAS destruction demonstration.
The company first joined The Water Council in 2022 as part of our BREW 2.0 Post-Accelerator, and later won our semi-annual Tech Challenge. “Aquagga’s relationship with The Water Council has been instrumental to our growth,” said co-founder Chris Woodruff.
Learn more, and read our other member profiles, on our website.
I wish all our members, partners and supporters a wonderful holiday season and happy New Year! We have many exciting plans and look forward to continuing the journey with you in the coming year!
member news & opportunities
- News: Veolia to acquire Clean Earth to grow U.S. hazardous waste platform.
- News: Veralto to acquire In-Situ, expanding water quality analytics portfolio.
- News: BIOBOX receives approval for its nitrates technology from the Maricopa County Environmental Services Department following a demonstration in Gilbert, Arizona.
- News: Ines Larrea, CEO of Cimico, wins the Global Prize for Innovation in Water in the “sustainable water production and environmental conservation” track.
- News: PolyGone Systems wins the Cleantech Open national award and receives an investment from the New Jersey Innovation Evergreen Fund.
- Events: The WWETT Show – Water & Wastewater Equipment, Treatment & Transport Show – is Feb. 16-19 in Indianapolis. Advanced pricing ends Dec. 31.
- Opportunity: U.S. Army ERDC seeks expert technical support and innovation for advancing shoreline resilience at Naval Support Area in Cutler, Maine.
- Opportunity: EarthX’s E-Capital Summit, an invite-only sustainability investment event, is happening April 20-22 in Dallas, Texas, and is now accepting applications to attend.
- Jobs: Thanks to a new partnership with the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin, Watts Water Technologies is hiring three spring and summer interns at its Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, facility.