About Us

“Water management was one of the units I had studied at college, and had always found it interesting”, Jon says. “So I pursued a career that involved water and gained employment at Milnes Irrigation in Bendigo.” The Milnes family sold the business, it changed hands a couple of times, and Jon ended up managing a branch in Echuca in 1989. In 1995, he purchased the Echuca store and commenced trading that September as Water Power Echuca. “When we started out, there were only two people working at the shop, myself and a counter guy. My wife Joanne would come in on her lunch breaks to do the accounts, then after hours would help me process orders, as she was employed full time at a local legal firm. On weekends, they would both be there cleaning the shop ready for the next week, and it would not be odd to find our children asleep in the tearoom.” From here, Jon joined the Independent Water Group (IWG) – an independently owned and branded business network specialising in irrigation, pumping and filtration services. In 2007, the group franchised and became Think Water. Over the years the business has grown, and Joanne now is a vital part of its success especially in regard to the administration, accounting, project ordering and staff coordination. The Echuca store attracts an even mix of residential and commercial customers, but being based in a large agricultural region, the store does a lot of work with on farm irrigations systems in vineyards, orchard, olive groves, row crops and broadacre with the advent of centre pivot irrigation now a common place.

“It’s re-assuring to know that the Davey warehouse in Scoresby, Victoria is only 3.5 hours from our shop, so if we have a situation that needs immediate replacement or parts, most problems can be solved within a matter of a day. Many times we have arranged either customer or our technicians to gain direct access to the dispatch warehouse to facilitate urgent repairs, that have prevented crop loss or undue animal stress,” says Jon.