"It's so easy to be scammed by the bottled water biz if you don't know what to look for. I‘ve been doing this for 26 years now...I just never thought I'd see the day when one of my distributors would drive a store out of business. My customers are too important to allow another man's poor business decisions keep them from clean, safe drinking water...which is why I've risked nearly everything to bring my water back to the public," says Bert Smith, water quality expert, former Water Quality Association board member and founder of Water and Health, Inc.
Mr. Bert Smith has provided impromptu animated, fact based interviews for both print, radio and Television media throughout his career as an expert in the water purification industry and “water store“ pioneer. He has helped set up store locations from California to Virginia and has customers across the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.
Bert Smith is a lively and fact filled interview who will fill your consumers with information and solid visual evidence that will be of value to them today and for the rest of their lives. To schedule an interview with Bert, call him direct at 757-214-1361.
Q & A
Q: How did customers lose over 40,000 gallons of water?
A: When I sold the stores to MIKA CORP, Inc. in 2005, the new owners continued the practice of “pre-selling”
Q: Did you know what was happening?
A: I was hired on by MIKA CORP, Inc. to help with the transition, but it seemed that everything I counseled the president to do or not to do he did the opposite. Because I was in the process of moving permanently to Florida to care for my ailing mother-in-law, I only spent about two weeks out of the month at the store. I knew the business was in trouble as bill collectors kept calling, property managers kept coming by, inventory started dropping, good employees started leaving and him denying he was the owner when customers asked to speak with him.
Q: What did you do to try to stop it from happening?
A: Everything I could, but it was his store now. I loaned him money, over $75K in paying bills, supplies, inventory, etc. About a week before the closure date the landlord had set for MIKA CORP, Inc, I recommended he sell the water delivery routes. I even called Mike Gibson who owns Absolute Bottled Water Co. who was willing to pay $100,000 for the routes which would have allowed MIKA CORP, Inc. to keep the store open and honor it’s commitment to the customers.
Q: Why did you try to reopen the store?
A: I couldn’t bear to see my customers who once depended on my water to enhance their health and quality of life to be disenfranchised in this way. It wasn’t right. My company had always prided itself in quality service and integrity and since this has happened, the name Water and Health and it’s reputation has been seriously damaged with my former customers and my former creditors.
Q: What are you doing now to ensure this does not happen again?
A: Running things how they should be. Reclaim old customers, honoring the cards they bought from the previous owner and bring in new ones to build the business back up again and sell the store to a distributor who has proven they know how to run a business. There are still many former customers who don’t even know we’re open again and I’ve done my best to call as many as I have phone numbers for. Some customers have serious health issues and can only drink the water I produce if they don’t have their own system at home.
If you have more questions for Mr. Bert Smith, call him directly at 757-214-1361.
Biography
Herbert L. Smith, President of Water and Health, Inc., better known as Bert by his loyal customers, grew up and graduated high school in Hialeah, Florida, a suburb of Miami. After marrying his high school sweetheart, he received his A & P license in 1969 from George T. Baker School of Aviation, an Associates Degree in Aerospace Technology from Miami Dade Jr. College and enlisted in the United States Air Force.
After studying the F111D and F15 jet aircrafts and working in high-tech avionics at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, Bert was transferred to Langley Air Force Base to work on the F15. At the same time, he worked hard attending night school classes to receive his BS degree in Professional Aeronautics from Emery Riddle Aeronautical University.
When Bert received his undergrad degree in Aerospace Technology, the USAF transferred him to Okinawa, Japan where he served faithfully for three years after which he returned to Langley AFB with his wife and four young children. It was then, in 1982, as a dedicated aerospace technician studying to earn his Masters Degree in Aviation Maintenance Management that he was introduced to a “new” water purification technology that would change his life forever.
The technology was water distillation which converts water into it’s purest form. Bert became so passionate about the benefits the world and mankind would receive as a result of converting to this pure form of water that he left the USAF after 12 1/2 years to work for George E. Gravely, Jr., president of Durastill of Virginia, and helped Mr. Gravely become the world’s largest distributor of Durastill home and commercial water distillation products.
In 1985, Bert was introduced to a new distillation system by a company in Canada and obtained exclusive U.S. distribution rights, including export rights, for the Canadian company’s distiller products, Polar Bear. Smith created Polar Bear Water Distiller of America, Inc. to handle national and international sales and distribution of Polar Bear Water Distillers.
With a thriving business and a believer in the powerful cleansing and rejuvenating effects of distilled water it was then that he pioneered a new “health store” concept using an advanced hi-tech pharmaceutical commercial distiller called Superstill. It was then that he created Water and Health, Inc. A place where he could market and sell home distillers, but produce water himself and sell it to consumers who would fill their own containers and pay for it on a per gallon basis.
Water and Health, Inc. opened the doors to it’s first store in 1986 in Virginia Beach and another in Chesapeake in 1989. He has helped other business owners set up their own Water and Health stores in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth and New Port News as well as water stores in California, West Virginia and Puerto Rico.
Bert also sat on the board of the Water Quality Association as the representative for distilled water in 1986, but left in 1989 due to unethical and dishonest practices within the organization. He sold his two store locations in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake in 2005 to MIKA CORP, Inc. who ran the stores out of business in 2008. Bert has been able to step in a re-open the Chesapeake Water and Health store location bringing relief to the hundreds of customers he once served so faithfully.
