Scott Waldo’s pool industry resume is varied, to say the least. He started in pool construction at age 13; was selling pools by 17; tried wholesale distribution; built pools in Nigeria, Africa; worked for a company in Florida, then moved back to Texas to open some of its locations. By 1998, he was ready to…
When Tim Murphy started his pool company in 1991, Maricopa County — which includes the Phoenix metro area — issued 8,000 pool permits. Presidential Pools and Spas at one time had 350 employees, 10 dump trucks and almost as many shotcrete rigs for its in-house crews. It built 2,200 pools in 2006 — 10 percent…
Winky Vaughan grew up in the pool business: Her parents owned a swimming pool company in northern Virginia. When she graduated from Virginia Tech, she decided that she wanted to own her own pool company. In 1977, she and her husband Jim started National Pools of Roanoke. Soon, her parents — who wanted to downsize…
Robert Blanda, owner of Mill Bergen Pools, knows he is in good company. As the Association of Pool & Spa Professionals’ Certified Pool Builder of the Year for 2014, Blanda joins an elite group of eight previous winners.
The Struckhoffs have owned Prestige Pools & Spas for 30 years and believe their faith in Jesus is what truly has sustained them. “He gives us strength and wisdom and daily meets all of our needs,” Struckhoff says.
In 1995, Noel Conley started Miracle Pool Service in Garland, Texas — a suburb northeast of Dallas. He had a truck and ran his office out of his home.
Rick Woemmel left his computer-science job and got into the pool business because he didn’t want to sit behind a computer and a desk all day. “Now I sit behind a computer and a desk all day,” Woemmel says, which shows just how much the world and the industry have changed since he opened Bi-State…
Mike Giovanone feels old. The president and CEO of Concord Pools & Spas knows all the clichés of saying his company “functions like a family.” But it just so happens some of those platitudes are simply true at Concord, where many of his employees share bloodlines and last names. “My corporate attorney used to work…
Tom Cucinotta never could have envisioned the popularity that came with winning the 2012 Pleatco Perfect PoolGuy award. For the owner of Cucinotta Pool Service in Lake Worth, Fla., it’s been an influx of recognition both in face and name: magazine and radio interviews, and speaking engagements. It started 16 years ago when Cucinotta and…
Photography by Rodrigo mendez What is Mari Lange’s worst nightmare? Being strapped to a desk at a nine to five. “I’m just not one of those people who can sit and do nothing,” Lange, owner of Algae Eaters Pool Service, says. “I’m not a clock-watcher, I have to move all the time.” And she certainly…
Photography by Rodrigo mendez In 1994, a 27-year-old Todd Starner and his younger brother Jeff sat across the kitchen table from their father, Richard, asking for money. Eyeing a motorcycle? A vacation? Debt relief? Hardly. The brothers wanted to become entrepreneurs and needed $10,000 to buy a 50-pool service route from their retiring boss, Donnie…
Colley’s Pool & Spas It’s a good problem to have. “We’re gaining work every year,” says Christian Robichaud, service manager at Colley’s Pool & Spas. “We’re putting in a lot of pools. We’re closing and opening a lot of pools. We would love to have more help if we could.” Robichaud and Bill Fischer, retail…