S4E9: YMI Talking to Kathryn Seaton from ABE Laboratories LLC

Our newest episode of YMI Talking is now live!

A huge thank you to Kathryn Seaton from ABE Laboratories LLC for joining us and sharing her knowledge about the important work ABE Laboratories does and the role water testing and safety play in protecting our communities. It was a great conversation filled with valuable insights into an industry that impacts all of us.

We appreciate Kathryn taking the time to be part of the podcast. Give the full episode a listen and let us know what you think!

For more info on YMI insurance visit our website at ymiagency.com

Or give us a call at 610-868-8762 to see how we can better protect your business and family.

Transcript

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our our mission really is accurate timely results with friendly service. I love that. And we're not going to sell you any water treatment. So a lot of people come in a little bit nervous like oh, if my water tests bad for this, you're going to try to tell me this treatment. No, we're going to send you a water analysis guide with your results. That'll give you some information of maybe avenues you could explore with a water treatment specialist. Welcome to YMI Talking! A podcast where the guests are so good you'll wonder why the host is even talking. In each episode, you will hear one of the leaders of the Lehigh Valley’s vibrant business hub. They will tell you the keys to their success, the mistakes they've made, and what they have in store for the future. Here is the host of YMI Talking, from YMI Insurance, Jimi Honochick. right. We are here with another episode of why am I talking? And this one's a treat. This is someone who is a kind of ours. We've gotten to know the business really well. It is a great team there. And we have one of their greatest team members here. Catherine Seaton, thank you so much for coming on here. Yes, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Good. AB laboratories. What are you guys and what do you do? So we are a state certified, independent drinking water lab. Okay, so we are basically we do water testing at the very basics of things. We do kind of we have our three different kind of customer bases. So we have our what we call our DEP customers. So people who are regulated by the state of Pennsylvania to have their water tested once a month. So basically, the state of Pennsylvania has laws and regulations in place that are meant to keep the public safe for drinking water with drinking water. So if you are a restaurant, a country club, a campground that has a well, you are required to get your water tested once a month through a state certified drinking water lab. So the state of Pennsylvania has these laws and regulations. We're an independent private lab that provides that service for those customers. So if you have city water, you pay for your water, you turn it on, comes out. Somebody is testing that water for you. You pay for it. But if you have a well water, it's just private on your property. It's coming up from the ground. Nobody is testing that water. It's up to you to get it tested. So that's where we come in. If you are, like I said, restaurant, country club, church, and you're providing that water to the public, then you have to get it tested with a laboratory. What are we looking for? Like what makes bad drinking water? So once a month we do a test for total coliform and E.coli. That's the bacteria test that we do. So those bacteria should not be in your drinking water. If it is, that indicates that there's some kind of outside contamination going on of your well. So it could be something in the groundwater. Or maybe you have a broken pipe or something like that. So it indicates that there's there's something going on. All right. Now scare me. How often do you find bad drinking water? It's it's definitely seasonal. It seems to be what I've noticed over the years. The springtime seems to be the worst. Okay. So, yes, I think with the rainfall things getting warmer. So I would say, and I haven't looked at the numbers or anything like that, but overall maybe like 20% of what drinking water that we do. I didn't want you to actually scare me because you don't know. I mean, people are just, you know, have never thought of it and then maybe think, oh, I'll go get it tested. And yeah, it turns back bad. That's wild. And it could be seasonal. So maybe in the spring your water with the runoff is getting contaminated. But maybe you tested it in December so you didn't find anything. Yeah. Yeah. So it can be. It can be very different on the time of year. Yeah. For sure. There's more. We get more positive samples than than you would think. Yes you did. You've already blown my mind on that. Yeah. All right. So that was customer one is the regulated serving water to the public basically. Yeah. Who's customer number two. So we also do public pool and beach water testing. So if you're a public pool, this is more with the Department of Health. They require that you get your pool tested once a week. Wow. So we are super busy in the summertime with all the public pools opening and similar with public beaches. So in this area it's really the lakes. Like we're not doing ocean testing, but the beaches on lakes. We do e-coli testing that they have to do once a week as well. Okay. How? Don't scare me. But how often do those beaches turn back? So so far this year have been really good. Nice. We've only had, like, three failures. Yeah. And we do about 60 samples a week. And are you looking for the same things there like E.coli or like I've heard of. And I don't know if this is true. Like brain worms and things. Are you testing for those? Can you test for that? Okay. Just be coli for the for the leaks. Okay. Yeah. So I might still get a brain. Yeah. Okay. Because that's just what they're regulated to do. So that's if people want to do like algae testing or something like that, they might want to find like an environmental laboratory that could do more broader testing. Okay. But we're really just doing what they're regulated. Gotcha. To do. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. So that's number two. And then who's number three. So then we have our residential customers. And these are not businesses with wild water, but just people who live in their home that have a private. Well, again, the if you have city water you're paying someone for your water. If you have a well at home, you just turn your tap on and it's coming right from the ground. Nobody's testing that. Yeah. So and that's really an educational thing, because some people might not even know that. All they need to do is talk to you for 10s. Yeah. And we want to be here for them and help them so they I can kind of go into how it works with the residential water testing. Yeah. So. Yeah, the first step is to kind of figure out what you want to test for. Some people come to us because they're having a problem. They're having pinhole leaks in their in their pipes or they're having like this staining going on. So that's how some people find us. But also if you're just curious about the safety of your well water, you can come to us. And the first step is to decide what you want to test for. So we have some bundles put together with the total coliform. Nikolai. Another big one is nitrates and nitrites so that a lot can come from farm fields. Those are both primary contaminants. So contaminants that can cause bodily harm. This is stuff I don't think about at all. Yes, yes. This is crazy. Okay. And then and then we have secondary contaminants. So things like hardness. A lot of people have heard of hard water. So we can test for that. And we might be having staining or things like that. We can test for iron and manganese. Those are common contaminants in the area. So we have some bundles put together. So you want to decide which one you want to do. We'll give you the proper bottles and the sampling instructions. You'll go do the sampling at your home. Bring it into us. We'll test it and email you the results. I was wondering, that was my next question is how do we get the water to you? But it's delivering it to you. Yes. Okay. We do. We have started some mailer kits. We started that last year. We kind of two options. With that. We can mail you the bottles and then you can bring your sample into us. That saves you one trip where we can mail you the bottles and you can mail them back to us. That's just a little bit more logistical problems, because we have to receive the samples within 24 hours. So there's some rules with getting it to UPS and things. But we are we have done that for about a year. We're seeing success with that. Yeah. So that'll be we know we want to try to build on that in the future. Yeah. Reach people who can't make the drive twice. Yeah. For sure. So how often there's no regulations for the residential people. It's just they kind of want to check it. Correct. And so they can do it as often or as little as they want, basically. Yes. Correct. Yeah. The EPA recommends to do it once a year, and they recommend I would be doing it weekly. I'm scared now. Yeah. They recommend total coliform, E.coli nitrate and total solids. Okay. And we have that bundle put together as well. If if somebody wants to kind of just do that once a year, it's a good just general overview of your water. Yeah. How long have you guys been in operation? So ABE Laboratories has been around from the 70s, I believe, and previously it was owned and operated by Brad and Elsie Niper. They were the owners for a long time. And in 2018, the now owners bought the business and have been kind of growing it since then. Yeah. So that's Rich Hooper. Rich! Shout-out to Rich. We love you, Rich. Rich Hooper. Greg Ness, he's the president and laboratory supervisor. And then we also have Meredith Niper. Okay. So that was Brad and Elsie's daughter. Yeah. And the story goes. Rich and Greg were beating with Brad and Elsie about the business. They were just meeting in the lab, talking about different aspects. And then Greg and Rich would ask the question, and from the corner, Meredith's like, oh, I know the answer. You know, this is how it works. And Greg and Rich like at each other. Like, who's that? We need her. So then Meredith just kind of stuck around and became one of the partners. Oh. That's great. So, yeah, she's a huge asset to the team. She's the kind of customer office manager. Customer specialist. Yeah. So how big is the team and how is it separated? I guess you have to have customer facing people, but then you also have to have lab technicians, I would think. Yes. So I would say we have a permanent employees meaning there with us all year round. Four of them are part time. So in the lab we have really three people, myself, Melissa Schrader, who is our assistant lab supervisor and our laboratory technician. Okay. And that's really the three people. Greg is the laboratory supervisor, but he really works from works from home kind of part time. There's when we talk about my story, we can kind of go in. That's where we're going next. Yeah, yeah. And then in the office, we have Meredith and our office assistant, Janelle. She is fantastic. She's the one who's going to be answering the phones, helping you most of the time when you walk in the door. So Janelle is also very important part of our team. Yeah. And then we have kind of the sampling side of things. So we have Nicole Hill. She's our senior sampler and she's the one doing a lot of the root organizations. So it's really for our DEP and pool customers that we go and we collect the sample once a month or once a week for the pools. And Nicole, Meredith and our collecting team handles all that. Okay. So we have one permanent pool collector. So she works all winter long. Her name's Gail. Yeah. And we have Lee and Heidi. Those are our part time permanent drinking water collectors. And they work all year long going out and collecting the samples, doing their roots. I'm impressed your knowledge of all of this. Like the history, all of it. So I've been at AB laboratories for almost seven years now. Wow. Okay. It was my my story kind of goes like I so I grew up in this area and with being an outdoor lover, just grew to love the environment. You know, hiking, bike riding, camping. As a kid, that was our family vacations, was going camping, and I just grew to love the environment. After high school, went to Northampton Community College for two years, then went and got my bachelor's degree at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, PA, so still kind of local. And after college, what were you studying, though? Oh, environmental science. Okay. All right. So this makes sense. Yes. It was my was my degree. And actually at Del Valle, I kind of specialized in soil science, which is like another world people don't think about. But don't don't scare me. That's more. It was kind of more construction based. So after I graduated, I still wanted to stay in the Valley and just didn't really see myself working on a construction site. Yeah. So I started looking around in the area, noticed AB laboratories stopped in to see if they were hiring. Just cold call. You just walked in. Good for you. Yes. And Greg was there. And at that time, it was really him. And like, one intern in the lab after they bought the business from Brad. Greg was still kind of learning everything. So it was kind of just him kind of like, you know, struggling a little bit to stay above water. And he's like, yes, you're hired, you know, come help me. So and that was 2019. And ever since then he's Greg has just been imparting his knowledge on me. He has a background really in like pharmaceuticals so regulated by the FDA. So much more hardcore than paid. Yeah I'm sure. And so he has a really strong background in like quality control quality systems, just continuous improvement. So really the basis for strong laboratory. Yeah. And he's just been teaching me the whole way. And so I started as a lab technician. And he's got me up to where I am now as a laboratory supervisor. And so he's kind of taken a little bit more of a back seat as I'm still learning the regulatory side of things. So he still helps me with that kind of thing until I get full grasp on that. And yeah, as I grow, Abby grows and awesome together. Yeah, yeah, I would imagine going back to the quality control and having that FDA background like that's what would differentiate you guys from a competitor, right? Is that you are really getting this accurate and you're making sure that you're improving yourself. Yes. So to be a part to be a state certified laboratory, and there's a lot of things you have to go through. So basically you we get audited every three years. You have to I don't know if this is boring, but so it's we work in insurance. Everything is exciting. It's 25 code chapter 252 is the laboratory accreditation program. Okay. And that pay code outlines everything you have to do in order to be a state certified laboratory in order to meet the program requirements. So every three years we get audited to that program. They make sure we're following the methods as we're in all the requirements that are that we're able to show them the quality control and back it up, make it defensible. So that's that's, you know, a big part of what we do, and it makes it makes us stand strong that we that our results are accurate. We're not coming to your home and dipping a color changing strip into your water and telling you you need this $5,000 piece of equipment. We're only doing your water testing quality results and giving them to you. We're not selling you any kind of treatment or sending your results to anybody, or just want to make sure you have accurate results. That's awesome. Where is your footprint? So you guys are in the valley. You're up to the Poconos. Like, where do you guys go? Yes, we are all over. We do a lot. Northampton county, Lehigh County, Monroe carbon, our big four. Okay. We're a little bit into the surrounding counties, but really we try to stay within like an hour and 15 minute drive of the lab for our collectors. Because if something does happen, if the sample comes back bad, we actually have to go back out for additional samples, and that has to be within 24 hours of like a stat collection kind of thing. Yeah. So it's just logistically hard for us to go further than that. But in the future we would love to expand, maybe have another location somewhere. Yeah. Try to, you know, keep broadening our horizons. That's awesome. So Catherine Seton, you have loved nature and the environment the whole time, and that's kind of driven you here. Talk to me about that, love. So you said you went camping growing up. Just what about nature of the environment gets you going? That's a good question. I think it's just a kind of peacefulness and like, restorative that you feel when you're walking through the forest or sitting by the river, you know, you just kind of feel like this piece, this calm, this, like this, love that. And when you love something, you want to protect it and nourish it and grow with it. And I think that's why I'm doing what I'm doing, because I do feel like also I'm servicing the community, providing a service, making people feel like they have safe drinking water and just trying to keep our environment as clean as possible. That's got to be cool to have your love kind of line up with your work. Yeah, I, you know, I grew up loving insurance and so that's why I do this. But no, like, to be able to marry those two together has to be really rewarding. Dream come true, for sure. And wearing a lab coat. Two. Oh, I bet that's cool. Yes. Yeah. Dream come true to wear a lab coat. To be able to service my community. Share my love for the environment. Yeah, I love it. So. I've been there for seven years and continue to grow. Yeah. That's awesome. Do you have a favorite campsite in the area? So one of my favorite campsites, state park in the area is Locust Lake State Park. Yes, we went there for Mother's Day last year. Okay. They just redid it was like under construction when we were there. Yeah, but it is a special place in my heart. Yeah, sure. And you camp there? We just. We just walked around. Okay. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we. So we went sometimes twice a year. Always Columbus Day weekend. Okay. As a kid growing up. And I just. It's like a second home to me. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. My parents had a pop up camper growing up, and I have my own camper now. It's like a little hybrid with the beds that fold out. But, yeah, just love it so much. That's awesome. My wife grew up camping and she's all about that. And everything you said about nature is like listening to her. And here I am. I'm like, where's the Wi-Fi? But I'm slowly coming around and getting there. It is really nice to get out there and decompress a little bit. Yeah, that's funny because my my now husband was the same way. He didn't grow up camping or anything. And the first couple times I invited him in, he's like, I don't know, I don't know, maybe I'll come for like one night, you know? Yeah. Same thing. Like, can we bring our laptop, bring our TV? But there's also something about sitting around the fire that is just, like, mesmerizing. Staring into that fire, looking up at the stars. This the listening to music being together. Yeah. Like there's something so special about those moments. It's like the best moments with my kids is when we're just sitting there and goofing off and no one cares about anything else, but just kind of in that moment together. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So you are from the Lehigh Valley originally. Nazareth. Am I right? Yes. Emily stalked you, so thanks. Anyway. As you're telling your story, I'm like, oh, Emily did a very good job on this. Good job. Nazareth is kind of, I think sometimes in between, like the Poconos and the Lehigh Valley. So you got to see best of both worlds. What were some of your favorite memories of growing up in this area? Davis Berg State Park as well. So that's so close to Nazareth. We spent so much time there. The Poconos I have some family that lives in the Poconos, so we would go up like the state fair, the West End state. Yeah, yeah, things like that. Beltsville State Park going swimming. Yeah, just spending a lot of time outside. Yeah, yeah, as a kid. And you're a big restaurant person too. Yes. We love to go out to eat. Do you have favorite restaurants in the area? So that's more like the downtown Bethlehem and eastern part part, which is why I love this area so much because you have the outdoorsy things, but then you also have like the nice restaurants, a lot of food options. It's really like the best of both worlds. Yeah, yeah, you can get out and just disconnect or you can go downtown and get a good meal. Yes. Do you have a favorite restaurant? Oh, that is so. It's not a fair question. I know. I mean, I guess if I had to pick we love three Oak and Easton. Yeah. A good steak is like. Yeah. We do a march madness bracket every year for the best Lehigh Valley restaurants. And we put it out on socials and everyone shares and gets involved in 301 this year, really it was Almonds and Easton last year, but three Oak took it off. Yeah they're dominant I could see it. We also love Point Phillips Hotel. If you've ever gone for like barbecue wings it's like right outside of bath actually. Okay. It's like a little corner old hotel type thing, but they smoke their own meats. Oh. What was it called? Point Phillips hotel. Yeah. Brisket wings, the loaded tots. Or that would be like if I was on death row. That's what you would want. Loaded tots. Yeah, with brisket and barbecue sauce. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. All right, we have to mention that we are sponsored this year by the Swiftwater Hotel in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania. And it is a great place to go and have a vacation you can check out. They've got pools in some of the rooms. It's incredible. So we've been asking all of our guests if you could say what your favorite vacation of all time was, what would it be? Okay, this is easy question for me because I just got back from my honeymoon and we went to Maui, which was absolutely amazing. I mean, the beach is the resort with the pool. Yeah, kind of like the swift water. I mean, it was just absolutely gorgeous. I've never been to a beach with such blue water. Really? Yeah. I've only heard amazing things about Hawaii and have never been out there. But it's worth it. You're saying absolutely worth it. Yeah. The traveling was the worst part. The 12 hours to get out there, but totally worth it. How long were you guys out there for? We were there for eight nights. Wow. Yes. Tried to spend as much time on the beach as possible. We did go up to the top of the volcano and watch the sunset. Oh. Which was amazing. Yeah, we did a waterfall hike, which was, like, so amazing. I jump into the mountain waterfall. Really? Yeah, that was amazing. So, yeah. Highly recommend. Yeah, I mean, that's probably one of the best ones we've heard so far. Yeah. That's awesome. What are some things about Abby that people don't know that maybe they should know? I feel like there's just a lot of education we try to do for drinking water testing. We we really. We really just want to help you have safe drinking water. So our our mission is to there's a couple different things that we want to do. And our first is always accurate and quality of results. So we want to get you just accurate results the second time. Second part of that is timely results. So we don't want you waiting. Five months to get your water results. I've died of E.coli at that point right? Right. So we want we want to have accurate results on top of anything, but we also want to get them to you as soon as possible with friendly service. So our our mission really is accurate timely results with friendly service. I love that. And we're not going to sell you any water treatment. So a lot of people come in a little bit nervous like oh, if my water tests bad for this, you're going to try to tell me this treatment. No, we're going to send you a water analysis guide with your results. That'll give you some information of maybe avenues you could explore with a water treatment specialist. And what's nice is you can take your water report with you when you speak with them. And they should be able to look at it and help you decide what you need. And we always recommend getting a second opinion. Getting some quotes. Some people are also nervous. We're going to share the results with other people who might try to sell them things, and we don't do that at all. Your results. Stay with us. Unless you us to send them to somebody or not sending them to anybody else. That's a concern some people have. Yeah. Data privacy is a big deal. So that makes sense. Yeah. I also like how you just do the testing. You know, in studying businesses, you see a lot where they start diversifying and you could easily become a water treatment facility. But the accuracy and your core competencies would certainly decrease. So I feel like that's only a strength to the results that you guys get. Yeah. Yeah okay. Yeah. And there's always things changing in the water to like I'm sure just there's some emerging contaminants. You know, as we learn more about our environment and things changing. There's some there's more things to test for in the water. So I think it's only going to be growing. You're not invited back here. You scared me too much. Sorry. What? What are some of, like. Do you drink water anymore? Or like, does it have to be tested by you? Like, do you sit there with drops? Yeah. It's kind of also scared me. I'm not going to lie like I do. Just, like, try to bring my own water bottle. Yeah, yeah. From home. Because you don't. You just really don't know. Do you like, does organic mean anything? Actually, I yeah. Okay, okay. There's. Yeah, definitely do research on that because some things are more, you know, should definitely be buying like organic apples. I think that's one of the big ones. Really? Yeah. But please, please give me a list. Yeah. I think it's called the Dirty Dozen. Okay. So you have to look that up because I don't know off the top of my head, but there's certain things that you really should buy organic. And then other things are, I think, like broccoli and cauliflower. I think you're fine if you buy. Not organic. Yeah, yeah. Someone, like, scared me about fish. I don't know which fish, but, like, one of the fish, like, don't ever eat that one. But what? Isn't it Mercury like? You get mercury poisoning. Yeah, and brain worms, probably. I'm back on. Yeah, there's. I mean, yeah, you could definitely go down the rabbit hole, but you just have to think to. There are systems in place, things in place. There's laboratories out there. Yes. Help keep you safe. Yeah. All right. Thank you to you guys then for what you do. Because a lot of. I'm sure what I drink has run through you guys and is the reason that I am still here. So thank you guys. You're welcome. Anything that we didn't hit about AB laboratories that we should hit. Anything you want to tell everyone now come get your water tested. I'm going to. Yeah. I don't even have a well. I'm coming. Yeah, it's it's something I think we take for granted. We turn on the tap, water comes out and we drink it. But it does go a little bit deeper than that. Yeah, I like that. That's a good sound bite. Awesome. Well, Katherine, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. And AB for everything you guys do. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. for listening to another episode of the Why Am I talking podcast. If you enjoyed this and want to hear more content from amazing personalities in the Valley, please subscribe. Leave a rating and drop us a quick review.