Morehead Pools in Shreveport, Louisiana, is a family business — with a crazy family tree. It was founded in 1960 by Hall Morehead and developed a winning reputation — until the early 1970s when Hall Morehead and the business had accrued significant debt. Margaret Moore, Morehead’s operations manager and bookkeeper, saw an opportunity to save the…
Photography by Scott Murrish Jack manilla had it all. After years of working for large corporations and “chasing the golden ring,” as he puts it, he had acquired large homes, condominiums, boats, cars and other toys. But he ended up in business with people whose values were in stark contrast to his, so he cut…
Photography by Kris Knutson John Oldfield started small. After working two years for his father-in-law Dick Nichols, owner of San Jose, California–based Genie Pool & Spa Service, Oldfield purchased seven pool-service accounts from him in 2005. “There’s not a better guy to get your feet wet with,” Oldfield says of Nichols. “You couldn’t ask for…
Photos by: Derek Salyer 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,…
Photos by: Thomas Weinstein 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…
Photos by: Robert Lipscomb 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 —…
Photos by: Timor Raz Robert Blanda 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. “I feel very honored,” Blanda says. Blanda, who owns Mill Bergen Pools in Brooklyn, N.Y., began his career…
Photography by Travis Carroll In 1985, Joan Struckhoff persuaded her husband Fran to purchase the pool division of the company for which she worked. At the time, Fran was working in sales in a different industry. “I said, ‘I really want to do this, but I’m going to need some help,’ ” says Joan Struckhoff….
When Noel Conley, Jr., went to college, he took a job working for a swimming pool company. He says he graduated, moved away and got a “real job.” But it wasn’t long until Conley found himself back in north Texas, back in the swimming pool business and giving back to his community. “I had worked…
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…