As Atlan’s brand ambassador and business development manager for the Americas region, Coy Clark is making his mark with over 30 years’ experience with water infrastructure – including rainwater, greywater and wastewater assets.
Leading with his passion for stewardship and water quality, Coy looks forward to bridging the gap between Atlan’s innovative product range and a practical approach to stormwater solutions across the US, Canada and Mexico.
What is your role at Atlan Stormwater?
My job is to show the Atlan range to key stakeholders across the industry – from civil engineering firms that are designing stormwater ponds to ecological restoration companies, homeowners and homeowner’s organisations.
So, from soup to nuts, I’m calling the big guys all the way down to the landowners and contractors to talk about green stormwater infrastructure.
What are your goals in bringing Atlan’s range to the American market?
The innovation Atlan brings to the table – we need that over here and that’s the goal.
I love innovative products. The Floating Treatment Wetlands is a great example – I was familiar with the technology but when I saw the Atlan product I thought ‘man you can actually traverse this thing’.
I can walk across it without worrying that I’m going to sink or damage it. The planting basket makes it easy to maintain, plant and weed. The structural integrity of the product, longevity, modularity and the ‘cool factor’ – people will see the value in that.
Why is stormwater important?
Creation is all around us for us to enjoy – and I believe we’ve been tasked to take care of it.
I think clean waterways should always be top of mind – you can’t have life without water, and it should be clean water. Pristine waterways are a lofty goal, but it’d be nice to get it clean – treat pollution, reduce algae blooms – all results of our carelessness.
Stormwater, as a practice in the US, it’s been here for a while with Low Impact Development, green stormwater infrastructure, and all the trendy names of late like nature-based solutions.
How does the technology translate to the American market?
The US and Canada are (generally) very stormwater conscious – they’re cognizant of stormwater and they try to manage it as best they can.
From the North to South, water all along the East Coast (US) is making its way to the Atlantic and they’ve seen major issues, algal blooms and pollution and everything that goes with it. On the West Coast, you can find similar awareness.
Similarly, if you get down into Houston, close to the Gulf of America (formerly Gulf of Mexico), there are nonprofits and foundations down there managing the water in the bays and estuaries in a similar fashion. The same mindset is in the Great Lakes region of the US and Canada.
These pockets around the country are great opportunities to get traction with the Atlan product range. Mexico is more of an emerging market, but we’ll hopefully have some activity there as well.
What does Joy in Water mean to you?
I’ve got fantastic memories of walking through miles of creeks as a kid. The anticipation of finding some kind of critter, some kind of life – or finding a pond, creek or stream – even a vernal puddle was awesome.
Lately, I’ve been interested in natural swim ponds. I’ve got a small one I just dug by hand about 12 feet across. First, we started having deer come into the backyard. Now we have over ten different varieties of birds that’ll bathe in it, and about a week ago I saw hundreds of tadpoles – it’s a great place for the wildlife to do their thing.