More than 1,000 water-treatment professionals will make their way to sunny San Diego after the Labor Day weekend to increase their business connections and resources, gain knowledge, and find cost-effective solutions to their challenges.

Association:  Association of Water Technologies

Conference: AWT Annual Convention and Exposition

Venue: San Diego Convention Center and Omni San Diego Hotel

The AWT Convention gets underway Wednesday evening with an opening reception. Then, on Thursday morning, keynoter George Severence, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL, will speak on “Unrivaled Trust and the Tenets of Leadership: Lessons From the Modern Battlefield.” Also on the schedule:

Compare and contrast. New this year are personalized benchmarking appointments. Attendees can meet with an expert for a 50 minutes to confidentially discuss their company’s performance and learn how to use the results of the AWT Benchmarking Survey.

See it live. AWT has coordinated with the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant to offer convention attendees a special tour. They’ll observe the state-of-the-art process of turning salt water from the Pacific Ocean into high-quality drinking water for nearly 500,000 San Diegans.

The world’s a-changing. With communications industry leaders estimating that some 30 billion to 50 billion devices will be connected to the “internet of things” by 2020, water treaters need to understand how the changes might affect their businesses. One session will discuss the strategies water treatment companies should consider for leveraging the changing communications landscape.

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