Say hello & share how you got into the pool service business

Hello! My name is Steven Wood and I am the Ops Manager for McDowell’s All Repair Pool Care located in DeBary, FL. I have been in the swimming pool industry since 2003. We service both residential and commercial properties throughout Central Florida. I look forward to becoming an active participant on The Pool Deck!

Hello everyone,

My name is Rogelio Leon, I own and operate Oshun Blue which started out about a year ago with residential pools and has since grown into a commercial pool maintenance provider. Before ever doing pools I was doing payroll for big corps at ADP which wasn’t a bad gig but after awhile I was noticing I was doing other peoples job calling in from these large corps and they were getting paid double sometimes triple me and on top of that I was losing so much time with my kids growing up. I decided to make a life change going into servicing pools which was the greatest decision ever! 

Once I got my CPO I was off and running getting about 40 accounts all through social media and word of mouth and that is when I signed up with Skimmer to keep track of everything which was such an awesome move. At this point in time I have just completed the sale of my residential route and have moved on to commercial pools which  was a new challenge for me but something I was willing to take on. I now operate a full commercial route with myself along with helper and possibly going to land a few more major contracts to hopefully hire more techs and keep creating more jobs.

I'm definitely here to learn and grow as much as possible being this is my first year as a business owner in the industry and hopefully be able to help others along with way.

Look forward to hearing and seeing all the greatness this program has to offer!

Thanks,

Rogelio Leon

Hello, I just signed up today on the PD community. I have been using Skimmer for almost 2 years now. 

My name is Dustin, I own and operate West Tennessee Pool Services LLC.

I work a normal full time job as a Biomed now and run my business in the evenings and the weekends. Needless to say, I am tired most of the time.

I hope to pull the trigger in the near future on running by business and growing it full time. I have had a lot of success at this without any advertising or marketing. I just can’t help but feel that if I focused all of my time on growing West Tn Pools, I could create something great for my family.

I love Skimmer, I could not do what I do without it.

Thank You!

Hey there! My name is Ryan Nixon. I own Brothers Pool Care LLC in Cypress, CA. I was blessed to get into this industry in December 2019 working for my younger brother who purchased a route from a mutual friend from our church. We didn’t really know what we were doing, but we loved working outside, learning new things, and serving our clients. This career has given me a pathway to one day be the sole breadwinner for my family so my wife is able to focus on the more beautiful things of family, community, and home life.

Years prior, I have to confess that I looked down on pool guys. To me it seemed like a menial, dead end job that appeared to attract a lot of guys I didn’t really want to be like. However, when my brother got into the business, it got me to start rethinking the venture. Compared to the stress of my previous job, cleaning pools every day actually became a healing experience. I came to love the simple daily grind, but I was also regularly faced with new challenges (pool chemistry, equipment issues, customer relations, etc.). Plus I loved the opportunity to listen to a plethora of podcasts and audiobooks I otherwise wouldn’t have time for. Getting into the business myself, I realized how much incredible potential there is in this profession. There’s an increasing need for honest, quality, hard working folks across the board for all jobs and industries. For me, pool cleaning has been the next thing in front of me.

Present day, I’ve taken over my brother’s route, built a strong foundation of fantastic clientele with 75 accounts, implemented some awesome systems (thanks Skimmer!), hired my first employee, and now gearing up to roll out a big marketing campaign! Lord willing, I would like to double or triple my roster over the next 12 months. I have really enjoyed the challenge of building a business and becoming an employer. Along with serving more people on the client side, I hope to provide more quality jobs in the future.

All this to say, my first impression of the pool industry was wrong. I’m so thankful to God for leading me to be here and working alongside you all. I hope we can all work together to better serve our families and our communities. Please reach out if you want to connect! Let’s crush!

Hello Everyone,

My name is Robert Flynn, and I’m excited to join this forum and connect with fellow professionals in the industry.

A bit about me: I retired in 2010 as a Captain after a rewarding career with the New Jersey Department of Corrections. Knowing I wanted to transition into a new career after retirement, I began working in the pool service industry in 2002. For over two decades I’ve had the privilege of serving customers, solving challenges, and gaining a deep appreciation for this industry.

Now, at 60 years old, I’m planning for the next phase of my journey. While I plan to transition out of my pool service business in the next four to five years, I’m not stepping away from the industry entirely. I’ve recently trained to launch a bookkeeping service tailored specifically to pool professionals. My goal is to help businesses in our field better manage their finances, streamline operations, and focus on what they do best—serving their customers.

This will mark the beginning of my third career, and I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to stay connected to the pool community while supporting others in the business.

Thank you for allowing me to introduce myself. I look forward to contributing to this forum, learning from your experiences, and hopefully sharing some insights along the way.

Best regards,

Robert Flynn

Owner, New Jersey Pool Repair

The Pool Service Bookkeeper

Dustin, congrats on holding down a full-time job and growing a business at the same time.  I’m sure that cannot be easy.  It sounds like when you are ready to go full-time in the pool business, success will come your way.  Hard work, good service, and determination never go out of style.  Meanwhile, sleep as much as you can!

Greeting!

My name is Davor and I am also the owner of Tempus Pool d.o.o. from Croatia.

My beginnings and love for working with swimming pools began as far back as 2000 years ago. By chance, while looking for a job, I got a job in a company that dealt with swimming pool equipment and pool technology.
For several years I worked in the field as a field worker as a pool technician and installer and slowly learned about the job. After the financial crisis in Croatia after 2008, the company shut down and we all lost our jobs.

This is where my story slowly starts. Since I lost everything in my life a long time ago due to the war in Croatia, for many years it was difficult to survive and create everything from scratch, and primarily to have a roof over my head. In addition to regular jobs, I had to work 1 additional job to make ends meet. After a couple of years, my additional job started to be through a builder friend, doing pool installations for him. After 2015, I quit my job at the company where I was a driver for a permanent job, and instead of additional work, I dedicate my time to working with swimming pools.
I'm starting to expand the pool maintenance business, since we are a tourist destination, there were a lot of pools, but few maintenance people.

As I explained at the beginning of the post that financially I had no savings whatsoever and the very thought of having something of my own was a distant unrealizable dream of a young boy. After 5-6 years of work, various repairs and salvage of pool equipment with regular services and maintenance, I created a certain amount of trust with clients who started recommending me to their acquaintances who needed someone who knows how to work around the pool, maintain and service both the pool and the devices .
That's where the idea finally comes to try something and open your own company and offer services to people who need such a service.

My dream as a little boy to play swimming pools legally almost disappeared when Covid 19 arrived in our country and stopped everything. Opening a company was too much of a risk because there was no work.
The spring of 2022 is coming, everything is finally calming down, the season of pool preparations, cleaning, repairs, services, etc. is starting. I start working slowly and save as much money as possible for the company. In the summer, I open my own company where I am also a worker because I love to work, and this is where I finally realize my dream that I wanted to achieve a long time ago. The business is slowly moving forward, we are expanding and working to make it better in our industry.

Here, "Skimmer" helped us a lot in organizing work and working in the field with their application instead of excel tables that took a lot of our time. I hope that in the future "Skimmer" will expand its possibilities to Europe to full functionality so that all the functions offered by the program can work for us outside the USA. 
Kudos to the folks who created the "Skimmer" app though as I've been looking for something for the pool industry for years to run basic business. With "Skimmer", my clients are very satisfied with the option when they receive a notification with pictures when we finish the job, and this has increased our confidence and seriousness in our company.

I hope I didn't bore you with reading, if I did, I apologize.
Here's a little about my entry into the pool industry!
 

Hi!  I’m Micky, owner of Atlas Pools in Fort Worth, TX region.  We service 300 pools, plus one-time repair customers.

Been using Skimmer since we started in Feb 2024. 

I hope to learn more how users streamline workflows for repair jobs with skimmer.  Will be posting qs soon!

Hello all!

I'm Gary with deep6pools Mckinney Texas. I owned a photography studio in Dallas and decided to shut it down during covid. Churches and Country Clubs were my life for 35 years along with a lot of travel to Europe, Mexico, Hawaii and also seeing most of the US.

The pool business seemed like a fun thing to do with and easy startup and we now have 3 employees and don't advertise, all our business is word of mouth just like my photography business was. Although slower to build, referral customers are the best!

Gary

Hi everyone, I’m excited to be here!  I have been involved in the pool industry for about 40 years, but always on the side lines, my husband was running a pool and spa company and shop talk was constant! When Covid happened my position was in a school, and not necessary any further. However, the pool business didn’t stop. My husband asked if I’d like to invoice for the company remotely. I decided to take the leap, and it couldn’t have worked out better. I loved the challenge and worked for 5 years. The technicians would send copies of their paperwork to me as pictures, and I would process and send out invoices. I began handling more of the customer service side of things too. We used Evosus for billing and order making, Toggl for scheduling, and Podium to text customers and technicians.  I was referred to this organization to learn more about skimmer, seems to be pretty popular and I’m excited to see what it has to offer. My position with the company has changed and is no longer remote, so I was let go and am trying to determine my next steps. Hope everyone is having a great day! 😊

Howdy Y’all from small town Texas! Population, 473!! 😆 My name is Ernie, originally from Syracuse NY, when we were kids my dad moved the family to San Diego (circa 1981ish). He bought us a house with a pool and when I asked him who was going to clean it he said “You are!”! I was 13, never had a pool, had no freakin clue what to do! 😆Fortunately our neighbor did! He taught me how to take care of the pool and balance the chemicals. Fast forward after graduating high school, I knew I did not want to be an employee so I figured I would start cleaning pools. Thank God the guys at SCP then were very patient and helpful because I was always in there asking questions. Built that route up to 35 pools and sold it after getting accepted to Cal State Los Angeles. That was around 1994. Then in 2014 when my son was born as was selling HVAC and knew I wanted to be around the home more and call my own shots. So, I started a pool business again, and holy moly! All the technology blew me away! Salt cells, variable speed pumps, and DE filters Oh My! Built that route up to about 80 pools, then covid hit and I had to get my family out of CA. So I sold that business, and thought I was done with service forever. 3 years after moving and after quite a few people mentioned how much pool service is needed here, I decided to start again! Outside of pool service I have 2 online businesses not pool related, I love the gym and ingredients matter! 

Education teaching in the industry

Hi there, I’m Joel

I left the corporate world of business consulting, M&A, and private equity recently because I wanted to work for myself, service customers and take care of my employees. Back in college I was a competitive swimmer and as a side job, a couple friends and I serviced our school’s Olympic sized, commercial pools, there were 2 of them. Here I am 30 years later, starting in the pool business :) And while none of my clients now have pools that size, they are all residential, I’m enjoying the outdoors again. :)

Hi Everyone! I’m Randa!

My husband, ​@Daniel Schilling, and I own Pure Blue Pools in Braselton, GA. With a background in software and technology, I’ve spent the past year helping my husband grow our pool business — both in the field and behind the scenes. I manage Pure Blue Pool’s Skimmer and QuickBooks accounts and recently launched our new website, purebluepoolsga.com. Through this experience, I’ve discovered how powerful it can be to combine his pool expertise with my tech background. Together, we’ve learned what it really takes to run and grow a successful pool company — from operations and client management to digital marketing and systems. I’m here to share what I’ve learned with others in the industry, and I look forward to learning from this community as well. 😊

My name is Sara. I own Poseidon Pool Care Services with my son Rich.  He moved from from NJ to FL several years ago. He was presented with an opportunity to purchase a pool route and here we are! I handle everything administrative from NJ while he is boots on the ground and the face of the company in FL. We signed up for Skimmer immediately, and I have loved every aspect of it since!  I am sorry I every wasted my time with any other software.

Hi!  My name is Michelle Partridge and I own and operate Pear Tree Pool & Spa.  With the name Partridge, you have to go with Pear Tree, right?!?!?

After selling our home service business in Raleigh, NC, my husband and I relocated to Tallahassee. I chose to combine my passion for the outdoors with my love of connecting with people by starting a pool service business.

I was drawn to Skimmer not only because of their all in one platform, but because of all the “extras” they offer.  The tutorials, webinars, blogs, the Pool Deck Community...just to name a few.  I love how so many are willing to share experiences, good or bad.  

I look forward to connecting with other colleagues in this field.

👋 Hello from Penny Camerer

Hi everyone! I’m Penny — entrepreneur, brand builder, and founder of Penny Camerer LLC. I joined the Pooldeck community after hearing great things from fellow founders about how collaborative and resourceful this space is. I’m always looking for places where strategy meets creativity, and Pooldeck felt like the perfect fit.  

I’m here to connect with others who care about elegant branding, smooth client experiences, and systems that scale with style. Whether you’re refining your onboarding flows, designing branded templates, or building out automation — I’d love to share ideas and learn from what you’re building too.  

Excited to be here and looking forward to collaborating!

Hello Everyone!

My name is Robin and I got started in the pool business about 9 years ago. I was always in a customer service/front office role and suddenly found myself looking for new employment. I had never considered the pool industry (I had kids in school, college around the corner- I needed a real job! ) HA HA!! I quickly found out how much there was to this industry; it was a full-time time year-round commitment, and it has been really rewarding! I have been searching for new software to get away from so much paper and streamline operations. It appears that Skimmer fits the bill.  I like this online forum to connect, discuss and share ideas!

Hey everyone 👋

My name’s Thomas, owner of 9th Island Pool Service out of Las Vegas.

I’ve been in the pool industry since 2015, started hands-on cleaning pools and slowly built the business into a full-service operation covering weekly maintenance, repairs, equipment upgrades, and plaster start-ups. I’m still in the field, still learning every day, and still obsessed with doing things the right way — especially when it comes to water chemistry, long-term surface protection, and customer education.

I joined The Pool Deck to connect with other pros, trade real-world knowledge, and stay sharp in an industry that’s always evolving. I’m big on systems, efficiency, pricing correctly, and finding ways to work smarter without sacrificing quality.

Looking forward to learning from everyone here, sharing what’s worked (and what hasn’t), and being part of a solid pool pro community 🤙

Glad to be here!

Hi there! My name is Michaela and I am with Swim Pro Service and Supply in Lexington, Ky. My role is customer service specialist. I am new to the pool industry but not to customer service. I am excited to learn more about the industry and provide great service to our customers! Any tips or advice would be awesome as I am a complete pool newbie! 😃