As a New Year begins, I want to start this post with gratitude and give thanks to all our partners, teammates and clients. We had an amazing year, last year and I'm looking forward to seeing what 2024 has in store for us. Off season was busy consulting on projects out of town, attending more pool shows, learning more about new products, on the market, upgrades, taking more lessons... and renewing licenses and certificates. As post pandemic brought many changes to our business model, and we learned how to pivot all changes, I'm happy to share that things are coming back to normal, at least when it comes to production time of materials we install and also the stock of the essentials for our business (chemicals, appliances, parts...).
One of my missions that I will work on this year, is to connect more children with swim lessons education, ensuring they not only acquire crucial life skills, but also cultivate a lifelong love for the water. I already volunteer in teaching all ages 0-99, (my oldest student right now is 85 and he's doing great, and just mastered getting out of the pool and standing up on his own :) I'm so happy), and participating in drowning prevention actions all across the area, but I want to do more. If you, your foundation or organization need my help or recourses, please let me know how can I help.
Another mission we're on, as seniors in this industry, is that we do our part in education and share a few words of wisdom for new service technicians. This is mostly done on Vladan's part and those learning from him are seriously learning from the best. Not most patient one, but definitely the most skilled one :) When we learned this craft it was different time, different era and people took time in mentoring and educating. I feel this step is skipped entirely now with presence of YouTube, and as useful as it is, technicians learn as they go and ultimately oasis are suffering greatly. I will dedicate one whole post, to new technicians, especially independent operators on the field, but here I will share briefly importance of getting licensed and joining PHTA. It's the largest organization of its kind. You can have your route covered, start a forum and ask for support.
As for our projects that are about to come, I'm super exited to see them come together. I had quite few challenges this season, to bring architects vision to life and to design minimalist reflecting pools. Mostly black bottoms, and I honestly can't wait to see them done.
We are ready for another great spring, and as always, I thank you for being here.
Much appreciation
Jelena