How can the industry recruit more women into service positions?
How can the industry recruit more women into service positions?
Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You’re Covered
In today’s competitive pool industry, many professionals feel pressure to say “yes” to work that stretches beyond traditional pool service and repair. While it may seem like an easy way to increase revenue, going outside your insured scope of work can expose your business to serious financial risk if a claim occurs. Understanding what your insurance policy does and does not cover is critical to protecting your livelihood.
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.
Blue Whale Pool & Spa
Like many entrepreneurs in the pool industry, Jonah Gonzales started with a side gig — waiting tables, doing manual labor and playing music — just trying to make ends meet in south Texas.
When the Grid Goes Dark
Whether driven by hurricanes, heat waves, winter storms or an aging electrical grid, outages are a recurring stress test for pool pros. While power loss itself is unavoidable, the damage that often follows is not. What separates a manageable disruption from cracked equipment, fried electronics, green water and customer fallout is how outages are handled before they occur, while systems are offline and, most critically, when power returns.