What if we stopped looking at waste as a problem to solve and started recognizing it as a resource with untapped potential?

In Episode 7 of Backstage Pass: Inside Energy, host Brittni Castilaw sits down with Timur Dunaev, Managing Director and CEO of Paques U.S., for a candid conversation about the evolving relationship between environmental engineering, energy security, and business innovation.

With decades of experience in wastewater treatment, renewable energy, and environmental engineering, Timur brings a unique perspective on how the industry is changing and where he believes its greatest opportunities lie.

Together, Brittni and Timur explore the growing potential of resource recovery, from converting agricultural waste into renewable natural gas to recovering valuable nutrients and metals from wastewater. They also tackle the challenges of bringing new technologies to market, the role of private investment, and why traditional ROI calculations don't always tell the whole story.

The conversation goes beyond technology, touching on the importance of entrepreneurial thinking, the agility of mid-sized companies, and the human relationships behind complex industrial decisions.

At the heart of this conversation is a compelling reminder: Some of the industry's biggest opportunities require us to rethink how we define value in the first place.

About Backstage Pass: Inside Energy

Hosted by Brittni Castilaw of Backstage Energy Marketing, Backstage Pass: Inside Energy brings you honest conversations with the people shaping the energy industry. We're pulling back the curtain on the challenges, decisions, innovations, and perspectives influencing where energy goes next.

Subscribe for more conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and the people doing the work.

Meet Cody Castilaw, our VP of Technology & Operations at Backstage Energy Marketing, and one half of our new monthly Backstage Pass: Inside Energy segment!

Cody brings nearly two decades of experience in technology, operations, and the energy industry, along with an engineering mindset and a healthy habit of questioning how things have always been done.

Each month, Cody and BEM Founder Brittni Castilaw will dig into the increasingly connected worlds of marketing and technology, from AI and automation to data, digital assets, CRMs, and the systems that keep businesses running.

Expect candid conversations, different perspectives, a little pushback, and plenty of opinions about what's actually worth your time.

Because good marketing doesn't operate in a silo, and neither should the technology behind it.

In this episode of Backstage Pass: Inside Energy, Brittni Castilaw sits down with Nikki Gonzales, Director of Business Development at Weintek USA and co-founder of Automation Ladies, for a candid conversation about AI, industrial automation, manufacturing, and most importantly: the people behind it all.

Nikki has spent nearly 20 years following her curiosity through technical sales, machine vision, software, AI, supply chain, controls, and automation. She brings a unique perspective to the AI conversation because she was working with machine learning and natural language processing long before ChatGPT made AI accessible to everyone.

Together, Brittni and Nikki dig into what has changed, where AI is creating real value, and why understanding the problem you’re trying to solve still matters more than simply adopting the latest technology.

They also talk about:

• Where AI is moving beyond the hype in industrial environments
• Why AI should help experienced people work faster, not replace their judgment
• The importance of keeping humans in the loop, especially in critical applications
• How better access to data and AI tools is opening capabilities once reserved for large enterprises
• Why Nikki helped launch Automation Ladies and the community that grew from it
• Creating more visibility and opportunity for women in technical careers
• The talent and skills shortage facing industrial automation
• Why attracting great people takes more than talking about how badly the industry needs them

Nikki explains that while better tools can help us solve bigger problems, we still need curious, experienced people asking the right questions.

Subscribe to Backstage Pass: Inside Energy for more honest conversations with the people shaping what comes next across energy, technology, and the industries that keep the world moving.