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History of Maher Water
Corporation
You get to know a lot about water when you've been in the business for 55
years!
It all began in two-story Tudor-style home on Main
Street in Stevens Point. The year was 1950. That year a son (named William)
and a water conditioning business were born to Paul and Lydia Maher. The
business began to transform the house. What once was a formal dining room
became the office of the newborn water conditioning company. The garage
became a plant where tanks were slung on and off the grates, being dumped
and then refilled with freshly charged resin beads, to be loaded up off the
ground onto the back end of step vans and out on the routes. Paul himself
went out on tank delivery, and though he may have had a paper route first,
Bill was on the trucks doing portable exchange routes when he was old
enough. Bill attended the
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and graduated with a Bachelor of
Science in Biology, continuing to work for the family business.
The Maher Tradition is a tradition of excellence
in sales and service. Water treatment is a changing industry. There's a lot
more to water than H2O, and not everything, even in sparkling clear water,
is healthy for people to drink. When Paul Maher opened the doors of Maher
Soft Water Service, people were concerned about iron and hardness in their
water. Today hundreds of homes have a nitrate-removal unit installed by
Maher's, and still others have treatment for lead and copper removal, though
iron and hardness are still at the top of the list for water treatment. What
has changed most of all is the technology. Once only steel portable exchange
tanks were available. Their uses were limited, and the method required that
a service person come into the customer's home to change the tanks each and
every month. While often these tanks were very effective, it was difficult
to create a system that would condition the water all of the time for each
home.
When the automatic water conditioner emerged on
the scene, it changed the face of water conditioning forever. The variety of
contaminants that could be removed from the water multiplied, and each unit
could be set to the requirements of the water coming into each individual
home. No longer were service personnel visiting the customer's home each
month; now three, six, even twelve months was more likely. Maher Soft Water
Service became a franchise of the WaterCare Corporation at this time,
changing its name to Maher's WaterCare. The number of customers the small
business was able to serve became limitless, and the customer base grew, so
that today there are about 6,000 homes and businesses with an automatic
water conditioner from Maher's.
At about the same time that Maher's became a
WaterCare franchise,
Paul retired and Bill Maher became the owner of the company, later
incorporating as Maher Water Corporation. Soon his daughters Darcy and
Danielle were working for the business, and later, Danielle's husband, Sam.
The business moved to its current location in the Stevens Point industrial
park in 1990, and recently became an authorized
Kinetico dealer.
Rarely has so much variety and experience been found in one water treatment
company.
And so the tradition continues today. Bill Maher
keeps the company active in the industry community, making sure to stay up
to date on the latest in water treatment technology. Recognizing the
importance of pure water in the growing concern for health and wellness,
Bill has taken the next step to meet the needs of his customers by offering
a line of health and wellness products, a perfect combination when mixed
with or taken with conditioned, filtered water!
The name Maher continues to be recognized
throughout central and northern Wisconsin as a trusted name in water
treatment, and now, health and wellness!
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