Kara Weed started running the register at her family’s pool and spa retail store, Ultra Modern Pool & Patio, at the ripe old age of 9. She worked summers in the store, performing water tests and stocking shelves, but started full-time as the company’s marketing manager in 2015 when she left an accounting career at…
If you ran into Janey Chakalis on the street, you might be surprised to learn the woman sporting a diamond swimming pool-shaped ring doesn’t spend her time lounging by one. “I do a bit of everything, from regular cleaning to installing full automation, heaters, acid washes, tile cleaning etc.,” Chakalis says, “basically everything but remodeling…
Brad Dieterich has seen the good and the bad working in the pool industry. In his first job, he started as a laborer, working his way up until he was under the owner, with no more advancement options. Though the company was a good builder, Dieterich then wanted to move into 3D design — and…
There’s always something new to learn when you work in the pool industry, Megan Walraven says — even with almost 20 years under her belt. Walraven started her pool industry career in 2003, working a summer job at Beattie Master Pool and Spa in Saginaw, Michigan. Sixteen years later, she moved on from that summer…
Angela Moss traded pine trees for palm trees when she and her husband moved from Janesville, Wisconsin, to Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2014. But Moss, who had been working for her parents’ pool and spa business, Nelson’s HomeTowne Recreation, didn’t trade in that experience. Instead, she began working for Certified Pool and Spa as its…
Working in the pool industry you often wear many hats — plumber, electrician, laborer — but not many add manufacturing to that list. At least not all at the same time. Joe DiAnna Jr.’s father, Joe DiAnna Sr., has owned his pool service company, J DiAnna Pool & Repair, for more than 30 years. DiAnna…
When someone invents an innovative product, there’s a likely path that is followed. Usually after selling people on the idea, then scaling operations to fulfill orders, there’s a point where the entrepreneur can’t make all the sales themselves. They need help. Some companies will hire a salesperson or two, train them and send them out…
Not many in the pool industry wear their World Series ring to trade shows, but Alexander Jacobs knows that such accomplishments matter to people, even if he himself considers such things secondary. “Titles and individual accomplishments are cool but in the whole scheme of things are meaningless to the greater good,” says Jacobs, who in…
Ravi Kurani can still recall the hot summer days he spent in Southern California as a child, watching his father, an immigrant with little money to his name, work tirelessly to grow their small pool and spa supply business into what would become a sizable company with more than 30 locations. As Kurani got older,…
From Idaho to Texas, from warranty work and trying remodels, from two people to 12 — Zac Nicklas’ journey in the pool industry has covered a lot of ground. When Nicklas’ best friend and now business partner, Justin Morehead, moved to Houston from Idaho and got a job working in the pool industry, Nicklas road…
When Max Brown joined the pool industry, he says he was just cleaning pools on a surface level. Thanks to getting more experience, certifications and on-the-job-training, he now feels he’s on the way to a professional career and trade. “I really enjoy being able to fix a headache for a customer and seeing them genuinely…
Leah Perry’s first experience in the pool industry was riding around with her husband on his route and helping him route his weekly accounts. But when the pair moved to Texas, she got a job at The Pool Boys answering phones and helping in-store customers. Eventually the Pool Boys started offering maintenance, and now Perry…