The Founder

Protecting the
People Downstream.

For 49 years, Mike Lunn kept the water safe for the communities below him — then built the tool he always wished he'd had.

Mike Lunn · Founder, Lunn Resources · Grand Rapids ESM → Primodal → Xylem

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Why it matters

The Quiet Work That Keeps a City Alive.

Every glass of water you drink, every hospital, every river you let your kids swim in — somebody treated that water first. Wastewater operators protect the people downstream, 24/7/365. It is not glamorous work. It is essential work. Mike spent half a century doing it — and he's the first to grin and tell you exactly what flows downhill.

The truth operators already know

Shit Saves
the World.

Modern sanitation is one of the greatest life-saving advances in human history — and the people who run it rarely get a headline. Mike has spent 49 years on that unglamorous front line of public health. There's a documentary about exactly that. Mike's in it.

Watch the documentary →

1980s · Flint, Michigan

He Went Paperless
40 Years Before It Was a Buzzword.

As a young operator at the Flint Water Pollution Control Facility (WPCF) around 1986, Mike and programmer Steve Hager built one of the first paperless labs in Michigan — trading bench sheets, binders, and carbon paper for digital records, back when most plants still ran on a clipboard and a prayer. Steve wrote most of the code; Mike did some of it and designed the layout and every function an operator actually needs. Steve has since passed away — this part of the story is his, too.

He has been fighting the filing cabinet his entire career. LRMS is that fight, finished — every logbook, permit, and work order an operator needs, searchable in seconds instead of buried in a drawer.

The arc

Five Decades on the Water

1977

Hired by the City of Flint.

1978

Operator Trainee, Water Pollution Control — the plant floor where it all started.

~1986

With programmer Steve Hager, builds one of Michigan's first paperless labs at the Flint WPCF.

1987 → 1994

Operations Foreman, then Operations Supervisor, running the facility.

1996

The City of Flint declares “Mike Lunn Day.”

1997

Joins the City of Grand Rapids — eventually Environmental Services Manager.

2013

Wins the WEF William D. Hatfield Award — the top wastewater-operator honor.

2014

Leads the first municipal utility in the nation to earn EPA CROMERR e-reporting approval.

2015

Completes the Combined Sewer Overflow program — $400M, 119 miles of pipe, four years early.

2016

Earns Michigan's first WEF Utility of the Future Today recognition.

2017

On the cover of Municipal Sewer & Water — “Protecting the People Downstream.”

2018

Named an MWEA Honorary Member.

2019

Retires from Grand Rapids after 22 years on the job.

2019 → 2024

Primodal Inc — advanced wastewater process modeling.

2022

Featured in the documentary “Sh*t Saves the World” (streaming 2022, in theaters 2023).

2024 → 2026

Xylem — global water technology.

2026

Builds LRMS — the tool he always wished he'd had.

Beyond the plant. Mike served on the Ada Township Planning Commission for over a decade, and is president of the Michelle Marie Lunn HOPE Foundation — an all-volunteer nonprofit that has put more than $491,000 into blood-cancer research, awarded 39 student scholarships, and directly helped families facing a blood-cancer diagnosis, in Michelle's memory.

Grand Rapids · 1988–2015

“When I started with the city, if it started clouding up it was pretty much assured we'd have an overflow someplace. Now, it's not nearly so exciting around here when it rains.”

— Mike Lunn, on finishing the Combined Sewer Overflow program

$400M

ratepayer-funded program

119mi

of new storm & sanitary pipe

99.5%

of the sewer network separated

4 yrs

ahead of a 30-year schedule

The wall