Working like a trojan for water safety

By Sonia Preszcator | May 6, 2016 

Marvin Devries

Submitted photo

Marvin DeVries

As Canadians, we are fortunate to live in a country that is rich in natural resources, particularly fresh water.

For example, residents in areas such as London, Ont. are extremely lucky because they can drive an hour in almost any direction and reach a body of fresh water that, even without treatment, is a high quality source of drinking water.

But as Marvin DeVries, MEng’83, President of Trojan Technologies explains, not everyone is so lucky. "There are places in the world such as Bangladesh, India and Haiti where I have worked on community water supply projects where people would have great trouble imagining such abundance.”

For this reason, DeVries and his team at Trojan continue to make contributions to the safety of the world’s water supply.

In fact, it was his experience in areas such as Bangladesh, India and Haiti that motivated DeVries to complete his master of engineering degree at Western to better understand the design and operation of water supply, treatment and distribution systems.

In 1981, DeVries toured Trojan’s first wastewater treatment installation in Tillsonburg, Ontario. Today, he is leading the team at Trojan as it approaches 10,000 installations in 60 countries on six continents.

“We’re proud of our success, however we can’t afford to be complacent,” says DeVries. “For example, most of the public is unaware that the pharmaceutical products that we consume often find their way back into our water supply. New problems such as micropollutants, microbeads and even aging infrastructures demand new solutions for ensuring that water is safe and available.”

DeVries and his team are committed to finding these new solutions and their efforts have not gone unnoticed.

On April 7, the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC) awarded DeVries with the 2016 CIC International Award, in recognition of the outstanding service and contributions by Trojan to the safety of the global water supply.  

To learn more about Western Engineering alumnus Marvin DeVries and Trojan Technologies, please visit trojantechnologies.com