Will Dubin Talks Alabama, International Expansion Plans

Will Dubin is CEO and Founder of ManholeMetrics, a London, UK-based, rapidly growing technology firm that provides real-time monitoring for sewer and stormwater systems.

The company works with more than 40 municipalities across North America, including New York City, Detroit Water, Toronto Water, the City of Phoenix and Charlotte Water. ManholeMetrics uses radar-based sensors and software to help utilities shift from reactive maintenance to a more proactive, data-driven approach. Its systems can provide real-time and predictive alerts for spills, backups and other problems, while also collecting data used for inflow and infiltration detection and capacity studies.

Dubin is an Enterprise Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was named the 2021 Mayor of London’s Entrepreneur for Tech. He holds a Master of Civil Engineering degree from Imperial College London.

Dubin recently visited Alabama to meet with several Alabama-based companies in the ManholeMetrics supply chain, explore options for local manufacturing and meet with prospective clients.

ALPolitics.com has the opportunity to speak with Mr. Dubin following his visit to Alabama. We began by asking him to briefly describe his company, what they do, and why he came to Alabama.

“We provide essentially a smoke alarm for sewer and stormwater collection systems to prevent spills, backups, and what's called INI — inflow and infiltration — of stormwater into sewer assets,” he said. “The reason we were in Alabama was to speak with a number of local municipalities about our products, but also to meet with local investors, and also explore the possibility of setting up manufacturing and a new U.S. headquarters in Alabama.”

ALPolitics.com then asked Dubin to confirm that Alabama would be their first international expansion, and tell us what about Alabama attracted his company’s attention.

Dubin answered, “Yes. It would be our first international expansion. We're already working with a number of members of our supply chain out of Alabama, particularly the Huntsville area, and we've got over 40 customers. The vast majority of those are stateside, so we’re looking for a nice virtual base. We have ties (to Alabama) in terms of our supply chain, but also location, access to a great regional airport, low cost of living, good weather, very business friendly, growing number of excellent local universities for talent attraction, and I think, more than anything else, a lot of local officials that we spoke to that are really keenly excited about new businesses calling Alabama home, particularly from overseas.”

We asked if there were any major announcements he could make at this time, to which he said, “Nothing just yet, but yes. We are in excellent discussions with an Alabama-based contract manufacturer around production of our products within Alabama. So watch this space.”

Another branch of Durnin’s company is Aquametrics, and we asked him to describe this division and its offerings.

“So we use our same technology that's tested and true on the sewer and stormwater networks, to also monitor lakes, trees, and shoreline,” Dubin said. When asked about him reaching out to aquatic areas in Alabama about this technology, he answered, “It's a brand new division of our company, so not just yet. We've been really focused on ManholeMetrics. So, you know, customers right now for ManholeMetrics include New York City, Detroit Water, City of Phoenix, Little Rock, Arkansas, East Bay Municipal Utility District — the second largest California utility — Toronto Water, as well as Columbus Waterworks, Georgia.”

When we asked about future opportunities in Alabama and beyond for Aayametrics, Durbin assured us, “Definitely, we're excited about all of the potential regional opportunities, both on the shoreline and inland to deploy our technology to really provide more affordable, readily available data to asset owners, operators, maintainers, so that they can respond to incidents as and when they occur, and also start to plan ahead based on data coming in from the fiscal environment.”

In closing, we asked Dubin his impressions of our State, and what our people and leaders could do to help ManholeMetrics succeed in Alabama.

“Well, the southern hospitality is second to none,” he said, “and you can see why so many Americans across all 50 states are deciding to relocate to Alabama for the southern hospitality, warm weather, but also excellent job prospects, the growing tech industry. I’m really excited about how open-minded and keen the State representatives and local Mayors that we met with were to attract businesses. Infrastructure upgrading, expanding that is going to become important to make sure that you can continue to make Alabama an attractive place for businesses and people to relocate. We're excited about the possibility that ManholeMetrics could help better manage those assets in need, particularly in light of some ongoing issues around collection systems. But overall, we are blown away by the whole experience within Alabama, southern hospitality, above all else, and we're excited to explore how it could be the perfect home for our new U.S. headquarters.”

“I’m so grateful to each and every one of the folks that I met, and I think what blew me away was everyone's generosity. You know, meeting eye to eye, offering up introductions, helping out — the friend of the friend is your friend, right? And it really taught me how to pay it forward to other people who are looking to succeed in business. I’m overwhelmingly grateful to everyone as they were willing to leverage their networks on my behalf.”

For more information, visit https://www.manholemetrics.com or follow Will Dubin on LinkedIn.