December 31, 2025: 2025 Year in Review

Good Morning, These are the stories that shaped us as an aquatic industry in 2025. Apologies in advance for the length of this newsletter. If you've watched any of my 2-3 hour videos, you know I firmly believe it just takes the time it takes to adequately

December 18, 2025: Don't rely on others to do your work.

Good Morning, I finished up our last Certified Pool Operator (CPO) class of the year yesterday in Banff, AB. It was even more picturesque than a normal trip because we woke up to 8" of fresh powder and whiteout conditions that made for two-handed driving in 4WD coming

December 11, 2025: The conversation is more important than the compensation

Good Morning, I'm coming to you a day late because the last two weeks has felt like the crunch of final exam season: so many deadlines are flying at you that you can hardly remember the day of the week, if you ate lunch or remembered to get

December 3, 2025: Profit > Accessibility

Greetings, This week's newsletter title is intended to be click bait because I would never suggest to an aquatic facility that profit is more important than accessibility; being accessible IS profitable. However, some of you might remember this post from a few weeks ago while I was in

November 26, 2025: You operate a business, not (just) a pool

Happy Wednesday & Happy Thanksgiving to our US subscribers. A few weeks ago, a journalist from PoolPro contacted me about an article she was writing: what do pool professionals do to fill their time during the off-season? After redirecting her to someone in a Southern US state where outdoor

November 19, 2025: IAAPA Expo

Greetings from the IAAPA Expo in Orlando! I planned to attend every other year (because it's a 15-hour trek to Florida from Calgary), but a number of factors conspired to bring me again this year, and I'm very happy to be here! The week started

November 12, 2025: a mentality of mediocrity

Greetings, Have you ever had a regular customer complain that you're ignoring them in favour of seeking out new customers? I used to hear this all the time when I was a municipal pool manager. The aquafitters (i.e. seniors at the pool 5x per week) would complain

November 5, 2025: Circle of control vs. circle of concern

Greetings, For this week's opinion portion of the newsletter, I have several ideas and trends I've seen & heard since we chatted last week. These fall both within your circle of control (things you can do at your aquatic facility) and circle of concern (things you

October 29, 2025: World Waterpark Association (WWA) Show

Greetings, I'm obviously coming to you a week late. I should have planned to skip last week's newsletter (October 22), but the reality is I wasn't anticipating how busy I'd be at the annual World Waterpark Association (WWA) Conference & Tradeshow at

October 15, 2025: Sexual harassment in aquatics survey

Greetings, If you've worked in aquatics for any length of time, you know that you can arrive at work thinking your day will go in one direction, and it ends up going in completely another! Every day is entertainment, and rather than fight it, here's my