Ep. 55: Blake Anderson - Transforming the World of the Small Utility Operator
Water systems don't exist in a vacuum. Systems are human endeavors run by operators, and the great majority of America's roughly 90,000 water systems with under 1,000 connections are really small ones run by crews of one, maybe two or three people.
Blake Anderson knows that world better than almost anyone. A certified operator who has spent 14 years running water systems, Blake is the founder of Mogollon Water Management, which operates and maintains community water systems across the White Mountains of Northern Arizona. He now also lends that operator's eye to Ziptility, the asset management platform built for small utilities that acquired his platform last year.
I loved this conversation. It is a trip into the weeds of what it takes to run a small system and, crucially, how it can be better. He knows what it is like to be responsible for a system and the lives that depend on it, from operating a backhoe to fix a leak in the middle of the night all the way to explaining budget trade-offs to an untrained community system board. This is a view of the heart of our industry we don't get often enough, and Blake is the perfect person to bring the operating practicality to Ziptility's platform that will be transformational to the vast majority of America's water systems.
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Full show notes and links to mentioned content below.
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Blake Anderson is Ziptility’s VP of Strategic Operations and Founder of Mogollon Water Management (MWM). A Grade 4 operator with 14 years of experience, Blake professionalizes rural water systems. He built MWM into Northeastern Arizona’s largest O&M provider by rescuing micro-systems and securing capital. Since Ziptility acquired MWM in 2025, he has focused on scaling a nationwide model that pairs local crews with field-first utility software.
00:00 - Introduction
02:32 - What Water System Operators Actually Do
07:07 - How Modern Tech Is Transforming Small Utilities
10:06 - Building a Water Utility Management Business
18:23 - Designing Better Software for Water Operators
22:49 - How to Fix America's Small Water Systems
32:47 - Why Ziptility Acquired Mogollon Water Management
37:14 - Creating the Future Operating System for Utilities
39:13 - Solving the Water Industry's Workforce Crisis
41:28 - Policy Changes That Could Save Small Utilities
44:25 - Customer-First Advice for Water Entrepreneurs
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