Beginner Builders
Many pool service companies consider adding construction, but pricing that first build can be challenging.
From DIY to Done Right
For pool service professionals, understanding why homeowners choose, or resist, professional maintenance is just as critical as delivering clean water.
Power Women
Across the pool industry, leadership doesn’t always come with a title — it’s built over time through real-world experience, hard-earned credibility and doing things the right way. This year’s Power Women represent every corner of the profession, from builders and service leaders to advocates and educators. Each has carved out a path while helping elevate the people around her, proving that the future of the industry is being shaped by women with both purposeful vision and boots-on-the-ground experience.
The Fiberglass Factor
Over the past decade, fiberglass pools have steadily gained market share, with adoption accelerating in recent years as homeowners, builders and service professionals recognize the performance, appearance and long-term ownership costs.
Power Women: Averi Edwards
For Averi Edwards, the pool industry was simply part of the background as she grew up — something her dad did while she was busy figuring out where she wanted to go. “Throughout my childhood and teen years, the thought of working for him or with or around swimming pools never crossed my mind,” she says.
Power Women: Julie Kazdin
Julie Kazdin has never known a life without pools. Born into a family business on the East End of Long Island, she grew up surrounded by the rhythms of the industry her parents helped build. Her mother and father founded Kazdin Pools & Spas in 1974, years before she was born, and from the start, it was a true family operation. “They joked that the accountant used to feed me peas while he was doing his work,” Kazdin says.
Power Women: Sam Folaron
From the time Sam Folaron was 12, she knew the pool industry was where she belonged. What started as a summer job in a retail pool store became an influential education in business, leadership and what was possible for a woman willing to learn every side of the trade.
Power Women: Kelly Collins
Like many women who find themselves in leadership roles in aquatics, Kelly Collins started in the industry alongside her husband and the company he built.
Power Women: Danielle Bahr
Before becoming director of the Swimming Pool Pro Alliance, Danielle Bahr was still deciding what she wanted her future to look like. “I was doing hair and doing all the other things, just trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life,” she says. But the pool industry was never far from her story.
The Way of the Trowel
Learning often starts in the classroom, but when it comes to mastering plastering techniques, many industry veterans say on-site experience is the best education.
Plaster Pros
Pool plastering has always been part art, part science and a whole lot of patience.
Ask the mixer on any plaster crew, and they’ll explain their ratios are followed as closely as a grandmother’s secret cookie recipe — precise and based on experience as much as measurement.
The Big Show Roundup
With major trade shows happening coast to coast, the early months of 2026 are packed with opportunities for pool pros to sharpen their skills and expand their networks. Whether you’re looking for certification courses, new product demos, hands-on technical sessions or simply a chance to reconnect with colleagues, these events deliver something for everyone. Consider this your roadmap to the season’s biggest industry gatherings.