Floc Hard or Go Home: Greg Beard’s 35 Summers of Pool Wisdom

This week on Floc-It Friday, Rudy sits down with Greg “Beard Man” Beard—poolside philosopher, calcium whisperer, and one of the Top 10 Mentors nominated for the 2025 Talking Pools Podcast Mentor of the Year Award. Greg has spent 35 summers in the field training rookies, guiding veterans, and mentoring like it’s a martial art.

From confronting internet undercutting to saving techs from costly mistakes, Greg shares the lessons, stories, and no-BS truths that define a lifetime in the pool industry. And yes, Rudy announces the full list of Top 10 Mentor of the Year finalists, with shout-outs to the sponsors making it possible.

In This Episode:

💡 Listener Q&A – The Future of Nitrate Removal
Wilmington, DE asks about building a nitrate removal rig—and Rudy delivers a deep dive into how this could be the next big high-margin service for eco-conscious pool owners.

• Why it matters: Chlorine can’t oxidize nitrates, shocking doesn’t touch them, and drain/refill wastes water.
  https://cpoclass.com/nitrate-removal-rig-concept/
• Three design options:
  1. Anion Exchange Resin System – The “sniper rifle” for nitrates, swapping nitrate ions for chloride ions using a resin like Purolite A520E.
  2. Reverse Osmosis (RO) – Full-spectrum filtration removing nitrates, TDS, and more using a high-pressure pump, membranes, and pre-filters.
  3. Hybrid Rig – Resin first to knock down nitrates, followed by RO for extended membrane life and ultra-pure output.
• Key components: Fiberglass pressure tanks, control valves (Fleck 5600 or Clack WS1), brine tanks for regeneration, high-pressure pumps, RO membranes, flow meters, and TDS sensors.
• Wastewater management: Regulatory considerations for nitrate-rich reject water—no dumping into storm drains.
• Profit potential: $900–$1,500+ per treatment with strong drought-region demand.
• Rudy offers to share a sketch layout and parts list in the show notes for anyone ready to innovate.

🔥 Greg Beard Unfiltered

• The three keys to survival in the pool industry: Passion, Dedication, Attention to Detail.
• Why sometimes you raise the price on difficult customers and let them walk.
• The “internet problem” – when homeowners can buy products cheaper than pros can get them from distribution.
• Old-school pumps that outlast modern

AquaStar Pool Products
The Global Leader in Safety, Dependability, & Innovation in Pool Technology.

POOL MAGAZINE
Pool Magazine is leading up to the minute news source for Swimming Pool News and Pool Features. Ou

BLUERAY XL
The real mineral purifier! Reduce your pool maintenance costs & efforts by 50%

Jack's Magic
If you know Jack's you'd have no stains!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

All right. Hey everybody. Welcome to Friday. This is the Talking Pools podcast. I'm Rudy Stankiewicz and in a world where chlorine reigns supreme, where pH balance isn't just a number, it's a lifestyle. One man dared to mentor in ways the industry has never seen before. He's not just a pool guy. He is not

just a service pro. He's Greg, the beard beard, poolside philosopher calcium whisperer and one of the top 10 mentors nominated for the 2025 Talking Pools podcast mentor of the year award. Legend has it he once looked a green pool dead in the eye and turned it blue out of respect.

Speaker 1 (01:36.204)
He flocked so hard the algae wrote him an apology letter. He trains rookies, guides veterans, and somehow keeps his skimmer socks whiter than Steve's sneakers on inspection day. Today on Flock It Friday, we're diving deep, not just into pools, but into the mind of the man who mentors like it's a martial art and leads with the force of a perfectly dialed-in variable speed pump. Grab your nets.

brace your vacuum hoses, and make sure your TDS isn't too high, because Greg Beard is in the deep end now. And this is Flock It Friday. Greg, welcome to the show.

Well, you know, Rudy, I just can't thank you enough for having me and got to say, you know, if I want to get them all gathered up, I got to do a simple beard man here. You know how it goes. It's that infamous, it's that infamous whistle.

I'm happy to ha-

There you go. And we've known each other for quite a while now. And what do you think of the whole recognizing mentors thing? mean, take yourself out of the equation for a minute. What do you think about what we're doing with this?

Speaker 2 (02:46.874)
I think it's awesome. think our industry needs more of this kind of stuff. We need more recognition for guys. need more just people reaching out. And that's one of the things that I love about the mentor thing going on is I can't even tell you how many guys put me in or who they were that put me in for this. And then when I got your email was pretty humbling for it. So I think it's more of these things need to be

kept going and I want to take just a real quick moment to thank all of your sponsors Lamont, Blue Ray, the revved up guys, all of those guys that are standing behind this, without those guys Rudy, we don't go anymore.

No, absolutely not. I'm actually, I was ecstatic when they jumped on board too and it didn't really take long. I just said, Hey, and they said, yes. And then that was it. And that was fantastic. There was no, selling, there was no pushing. was no chasing anyone to do it. It was just, yep, I'm on board. Where do I sign up? I'm doing it right now. You said mentor. That is the magic word. That is super cool. And I was just ecstatic that they saw.

the same value in it that I see in it that so many of us see in it. So, but right now you're not at home right now, are you?

No, I'm actually in our in our desert home in Bullhead City, Arizona, right across the river from Laughlin right now. So 115 outside today. Just got done cleaning up the whole boat, waxing the whole boat, kind of fiddle farting around.

Speaker 1 (04:20.269)
We're triple digits as well here. I'm in North Central Florida. So, but triple digits for me is like 100, 102, 105 usually tops. So 115, we don't get to see that, but we do have humidity. You don't have much of that, correct?

It is bone dry here. think when I looked on the thermostat earlier, was at 8%. So there is, I'm actually leaving five gallon buckets of water in this house just so the cabinetry don't warp.

Wow.

It's kind of crazy.

So.

Speaker 1 (05:06.946)
I do have some questions here for you. So, all right. So let me ask you this. Let's just jump right into it. What is something that you wish someone had told you before you ever touched your first pool tool?

Oh man, I asked this question. In fact, I just asked this question to Brian, uh, Scapplin. He wanted me to train him and kind of get him going when he, when he left Jandy and wanted to could jump onto the pool net side and the pool pool side. And I always tell these guys, said, tell me three reasons why you want to be a pool guy. And about the time you get the second answer, I always tell them, said, sure about that. Because the third one that you're going to tell me, I'm going to look at you and say, you're a nut because people don't realize how hard we really do work.

It is non-stop grinding, grinding, grinding. So for some of the guys out there with employees, these guys are managers. These guys are people movers. For a single pour, man, you got it all. And without my wife behind the scenes, I wouldn't have nothing. My wife is the business. That's where the brains and the money come from.

So I think the first thing that I would tell a new guy getting in is you got to have three key words and I'm going label to you and that's passion, dedication and attention to detail. You will survive. You will survive.

passion, dedication, and when you say passion, what's your passion? Let me ask you that. What is your driving force? Just in your day to day.

Speaker 2 (06:47.384)
You know, it's, it's just seeing the happiness from starts all the way from the little kids, that you watch grow up and families, know, this is my 35th summer Rudy. So having a passion to go to work every day to kind of not get burned out. And now that I've started the cleaning service side of it, you know, that's kind of just an over and beyond. So it's that passion to go in, make a difference on something, watch somebody enjoy it, and then get those remarks on the

back end that say, you our pools never look better. Our pools never been so much more family fun, entertaining. we never have to worry about it. We appreciate you. It's, it's just that it's that drive that keeps you going. And when you add those three attention to detail and you know, the passion and the dedication together, that's, that's a recipe for success.

What do you say to the folks who say, you know, if it wasn't for the people in the pools, they'd be so easy to take care of. They're missing the point, right? But you hear it all the time.

Oh, a hundred percent. You hear it all the time. And right now, Rudy, we got it. We got something in our industry that it's been hitting for a little while. And that's maybe something we could talk to a little bit deeper and going forward. Cause we got the internet, the internet. got to tell you that internet is it's, it's going to change things, man. Because as far as the wholesale houses are concerned, these guys got overhead. These guys got, you know, they're

they're taking a product and they're putting it in a, in a, in a warehouse, cool guys are coming in and buying it, but you can damn near buy this stuff cheaper on the internet. And that's, that's gonna, that, that goes back all the way to hurting Joe the plumber. You know what I mean? So when you say, where's Joe the plumber at? He's gone nowadays. Yeah. Just trying to survive, putting in equipment sets, you're almost, you're almost getting sold out from underneath you because the internet is so much cheaper. And I get, they got the warranty thing and it's not,

Speaker 2 (08:50.19)
you know, we're not going to offer a warranty. And I love what Jandy did by pulling their stuff off the internet. Um, but I just did a salt cell the other day for a guy and I told him, said, look, dude, it's, it's going to be 2,800 for, for the new IC 40. And he looked at me like I was crazy. He goes, dude, it's online for 1600. I'm like, yeah, I get that. But it's not, it's not one professionally installed unless I install it for you, which I try not to install too much internet product, but at the same time,

How is he able to buy this thing cheaper than when I go to the wholesale house and get it? That's a problem. We have a huge problem in our industry.

Where do you think this product is coming in from?

hard to say. I, know, I don't know whether it's, it's early buys on the front end and getting the bonuses on the, on the kickbacks on the backend. I don't know if it's just another pool guy that's decided to say, Hey, you know what? I'm going to go buy a hundred, a hundred of these things and ship them out of the pool stores. It used to kind of be running that way. I, I, I can't wrap my arms around it. It's, it's pretty crazy. So I don't know if it's.

Well, that's the thing. I don't know if it's at us. Are we doing it to each other? I mean, is there somebody out there buying these things in bulk load and saying, fuck it, I'm going to be a whore and go where the money's at and just pump these things out online. You think there's a lot of different distributors in the company in the country. yeah. Could be any one or several or distributors who have employees who get employee pricing. That could be something done under the. I mean, I could speculate a lot of different.

Speaker 1 (10:24.568)
possibilities here and ain't none of them good. None of them are good for the industry.

And that's the problem is when you look at a single pool like me, that's trying to make that three to four or 500 bucks on a pump install. And on top of that, make a little bit of commission off of the sale of that pump. You got it. You got to say to yourself, what we used to put in a heater for back in the way, way back in the day when I started was a thousand bucks. You're looking at 5,200 bucks right now for a heater. That's just ludicrous. And if you just noticed, there was a thing that pool court just sent out, we're not getting a two.

three or 4 % raise come in September 8th, we're getting another 6 to 7 % across the board. How do we survive with

You're talking across the board on every-

Uh, yeah, was, it was, it was like 10 tears in there for six to 7%. Um, I just seen it. It came through in a text message that Brian sent to me and it's six to 7 % going up September 8th. That's, that's a steep climb, man. Look at what Hossa has been doing to us. Hossa has literally, literally raised their prices continually ever since COVID, you know, and I'll never forget had JJ flawless on the.

Speaker 2 (11:39.414)
on the phone line, know that we'll have to get to the phone line too. It reminded me to talk a little bit about the phone line because that thing's just an epic. I think that's where all this mentor thing started. Okay. But had JJ flawless on there and we had the CEO of Haas on there one day and he was trying to tell us why prices were going up. And he made this comment to me that he says, yeah, you know, we have to wait for the rail guy to show up and he has to manually switch the rail car track to get the rail to come to the warehouse. I'm like, dude,

If you think electronics are switching that gear set to make that rail car go to your warehouse, don't tell me a story, man. You are flat out lying to us, dude.

is the 1800s, we got a buffalo block in the track. We jump out manually. Watch out, cause here come bandits and...

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (12:28.974)
I will never forget it. I will never forget it. And I kind of went at him a little bit and I had to stop myself because I've learned one thing in the mentoring thing. You have to really, really, really, really be politically correct and try not to create industry suicide. Industry suicide will catch up with you so fast. It is crazy. Crazy. And I just, try.

try to leave all that drama behind anymore. It was a fun day on the phone line with Mr. I forget his name, the CEO of awesome. nice guy, but it's just, you know, man, if bullshit was a word, you straight up got paid in an extra extra bonus that day. Cause you were trying to bullshit 15 guys on a phone. And it just doesn't work. You can't do that. I mean, come at me square, come at me straight. I'll pay for it. When you, when you start to bullshit me and you start to start to kind of

you know, feed around the bush or why you're raising prices. got a problem with that. mean, but literally ever since all these, all these things and COVID we've been getting hit and it, it goes all the way down because eventually what I see happening in our industry is I think we're to get priced out of the market. think you're going to Amazon is going to have pool guys.

We're going to reach a point where the customers just say, fuck it. It's cheaper to do it myself. And that's the way they're going to go. No matter how much of an inconvenience it is, it's just going to be such a drastic price difference. And you shopping on Amazon for product, that also could be, I mean, you don't do it, but I mean, having to turn to that to get the better pricing, that's insane. Because you can.

get better pricing on Amazon than you get now through some distribution. Here's the thing that manufacturers need to understand. You know what? We need to know why because it doesn't stop here. We have to answer to somebody else because we're going to have to announce whatever this price increases to whoever we're dealing with, to our customer, to our homeowner. And I know a lot of folks are going to say, well, you know what? That's OK. Just charge them more. Just charge them more.

Speaker 1 (14:41.25)
Just charge them more only works to a certain point where all of a sudden it's too much.

Too much correct. 100%. And it's where that's what we're doing to ourselves is if you look at just take the IntelliFlow pump, for instance, millions on top of millions sold great pump, great technology that they're obviously didn't own it. And now it's gone. Now they've created this big old monster with the I, the IntelliFlow three and half the applications in California.

You just can't put them in and if you look at the different regions all around us I have a really good friend JK went out out Houston that I'm on the phone with a lot and if you look at their equipment sets out there man, they're just Spread open they are wide open and they they have so much room and I don't know Who I'm gonna call them a moron. Who the moron was that decided to put? Put a put a heater heater the pump in the center and the filter on one side and you notice that

Every time you go to an equipment center in California, the filter's always in the corner at the hardest spot to get to. Well, hello, that's the one we got to clean the most. That is the heartbeat of the pool. You know what mean? Why are we stuffing it in the corner? Why not put the square heater in the corner and leave it a foot off the wall so that it can ventilate? You know what mean? You go look at the way that these guys plumb these pools in Texas. The California builders need to go and learn from Texas. I'll tell you that much.

It's just we're trying to cram too much into too little of a space. And then you think of three feet opening in front of a panel so that you could pass inspections and stuff. They're throwing the control panel right out in front. So you've got to crawl over the control panel to get the filter guts out. It's just crazy.

Speaker 1 (16:32.152)
Include CHEMS in your pricing or charge extra for CHEMS.

we're getting ready to go and start including Kim's in our pricing because we're going to have to, we're going to be forced to, so going to have to have the flat fee coming on service on top of Kim's. And a lot of guys are already doing that and I got to hand it to them. Good for you. I should have done it 10, 15 years ago because that's an expense. And what's that's that's also going to drive up the price even more to where now they're thinking, okay, wait a minute. I've got that labor charge at him to come and clean the pool four or five times a month.

But on top of that now I'm paying for my own chemicals anyhow, so it's even quicker Rudy. They're going to start doing their own pool.

So you're gonna flip it back around. Okay, I see what you're saying. What about, and we brought this up before, and this varies state by state. So this might not be an issue in your state, but it is in some states. Once you take the CHEMS and include them in the price for service, that entire service fee becomes taxable as far as sales tax is concerned.

Correct.

Speaker 1 (17:34.732)
Are you prepared to do that?

Well, that's the thing is a lot of these guys don't realize that that's a whole separate whole separate regulation that you got to go and achieve just like a contractor's license. You now have to go with the I believe it's the franchise state tax board that you got to go and have a number for in order to charge that tax. And guess what they're going to do with you. They're going to tax you on that money that you just taxed. So it's just another catch 22. It's almost as it's almost like having a workman's comp policy.

So again, it's another expense that you're gonna have to go through charging for the chemicals. And a lot of guys, including myself, I still just include it all in one lump sum and label it as a one lump sum for, you know, $2,000 pump for, you know, just a giggle there. But you have to be careful what you charge for and what you put on paper because it's gonna come back and sting you.

Exactly. And of course, what we're talking about is if it is separate and you sell chemicals separate, that's the chemicals. And here's the other thing, because it doesn't really matter which way we look at it, because if I'm talking about bundling everything, including the chemicals in the service fee, yeah, that wholesale becomes taxable. You need to charge sales tax on that. And I know folks that are doing that for the most part probably aren't doing that. But then if you do it separate, here's my labor, here's my chemical or my product, you're supposed to still charge.

sales tax on the product and we're probably not doing that right now either. one way or another, states are looking at this harder than ever before. So if you're not doing it, we need to start to look at it. We need to start to do it because sooner or later they're going to sit down and say, okay, where can we get more money? How about we get money that's already owed to us? And this is at the top of the list for a lot of them. And this isn't just me.

Speaker 1 (19:31.49)
talking out my ass, this is stuff that they are actually talking about in the capitals of different states at this point in time.

Yeah. So it's going way, back, going way, back. And I don't hear this name anymore, Rudy. And I'm sure you can remember it back into my Ipsa days. There was a lobbyist named spec. And we don't hear a lot about specs. Spec was some of those lobbyists that used to fight, fight, fight, fight for us. And guys would never support them. We, and Kimberly have always supported spec back in the day. We would send a yearly contribution to them.

just because we don't have you and I don't have time to go fight all these people because that's a full-time fight that's I mean that's a that's a hundred pit bulls in a boxing ring and you're just a single pool puller but spec I wish I knew what happened to spec I just don't hear anything about him anymore maybe you have some insight

Don't know where they are and you're right and it was one of those things that got away from me. I hate to admit it, but I do recall them and I don't know what I'm going to have look into that.

There's nobody out there fighting for us anymore. know what mean? We're kind of just an industry that's always kind of floated along and nothing burns me more than when I walk into a wholesale house and I walk up to a counter and I've got two guys standing there flip-flops and I'm like, are you kidding me? I mean, come on, man. It's one thing to be a pool guy, but let's at least wear some work attire. Don't make us look like a bunch of yehous.

Speaker 1 (21:04.854)
It's not even just for looks, it's for safety. had a guy and I think you know about this. I had a guy who was actually wearing the correct footwear at a place and stepped down on a piece of bamboo and had to come up through a shoe. can't imagine if he had flip-flops on. was a landscaper that came through ahead of time and supposedly cleared out the bamboo garden, but really just made it.

Drop them off on an angle.

Yeah, what we ended up with was a whole bunch of 45 degree daggers and he found one and if he was in flip-flops, I don't even know if he'd still be able to walk at this point. Let me ask you this, keeping it up on a little bit light, if your career were a pool float, what would it be and why?

and

I ask stupid shit, so.

Speaker 2 (21:56.984)
No, my pool float. You know, I would think to myself that it's actually a really good thing because if you stop and think of what we all do, I float every month. I float people three weeks. We bill in the beginning of the month, due by the end. We float money out there all the time. Just this week, I have a preschool that's on my route in the beautiful town of Rossmore, California.

She had the state come out. She's already got a six foot perimeter fence. She's got double latching gates. One side of her house. It's in a residence. One side of her house in the garage is the little preschool and the state came out and said, Hey, look, you need to two floats. one in the spa, one in the pool that are life buoys. Basically any motion in the pool and the alarm goes off. You need a rope hook. You need the pole. You need the lifeguard approved, a buoy to throw.

And they haven't forced her on signs yet, but I told her it's probably coming next. So when you look at that, that was about a $700 order that I ordered up all that stuff for her. And she needed it right away because she had gotten a citation. So when you think of us as a pool float, yeah, we're floating all the time. Um, myself, I think of going right here about 15 minutes from the house that I'm at floating down, down in the lake and the boat. Um, but it's, uh, if I was a pool float.

And you know, there's months you're drowning and there's once you're up on top and then there's months that's just stellar. So, I mean, we're, constantly floating money out there. And I think the worst thing that guys got to really dig in is if you pick up a new cherry one, get rid of the shitty one. You got to rotate stock. Anybody that, anybody that you're constantly sending a statement to that you're waiting on money and you're becoming the bank, get rid of them.

Especially when somebody's starting out a lot of the customers you take on when you first start out are the customers that nobody else wanted That's what you end up with on your on your list and they're all over the place and you have to understand that Going right into it. A lot of these folks are gonna be placeholders and That's it. And as soon as you have the better customer the closer customer the tighter route the Person who has the easier pool to take care of get rid of one of the hard ones you got to and that's just business

Speaker 2 (24:15.342)
Yeah, and I find the easiest easiest way to do it is raise them up just send them a raised letter it's more of a politer way to kind of if they want to move on because you're gonna charge them more money for The organics that you're pulling out of the pool on top of the organics wasting down your chemicals And you're having to dump more then it's time for them to motor on you know Let them go find somebody cheaper that needs to needs to hustle and has that drive that wants to go and do that when you get where I'm at and I'm

I'm back up to 175 pulls, man. it's at 57 years old, you're hustling.

Yeah. You're hustling. Yeah, you are. Have you ever, have you ever saved someone from a catastrophic mistake, but let them think they figured it out on their own?

So.

Speaker 2 (25:03.118)
so I had to tell you probably the most catastrophic thing that I've had in this industry, was a guy that I told not to put a basketball court and a barbecue backed up against this pool fence. And needless to say, I had told him, it's not probably wise to have the basketball being thrown towards the pool. And unfortunately, two years after I got in this business, lost a child to a drought. So,

my God.

If you've ever pulled up on one of those situations, I'll never forget it was in Fountain Valley right up along the 405 freeway. And I was running about a half an hour late. When I got there, there was probably seven fire trucks, about 18 squad cars, a couple of paramedics of an ambulance. And I'm thinking, wow, what's going on here, man? It was a mass murder or what? by the time I got out of the truck, grabbed my stuff, I started walking towards the house and the police officer says, Hey, sit on the curb. said, Whoa, okay. Well.

What's going on? goes, I need to talk to you. Okay. what's this all about? I just need to go in there and clean the pool. goes, well, you won't be cleaning the pool today. And you would have thought at that point in time, Rudy, that I was a major felon because I was treated like one. And I got to tell you that they drilled me every which way, but Sunday, if I closed the gate the last time I was here, what time am I normally here?

Mind you, I don't even know what's going on at this point. I didn't even know there was a loss of life. and I had answered probably about a good 50 to 60 questions sat on the curb for over an hour and a half. It would not let me leave. And finally I had, I told the guy, said, Hey man, you know, something's got to change here, dude. I got work to do. And he's like, well, Hey man, we just want to tell you that, little boy lost his life in the backyard today and, and, had jumped over the fence to obviously retrieve some kind of a ball. So telling people, you know, trying to

Speaker 2 (27:00.386)
get people to solve their catastrophic problems. That was probably one that sticks in my mind. I think some of the things that I worry about the most is guys out here playing with electricity, realizing that we've got water that we're dealing with. I see a lot of non-bonding issues to where guys go in and they may take an older system that was plumbed in copper and start popping a bunch of PVC in and out of the valves and putting in a PVC plumb pump.

PVC heaters now going into where the copper is being flow lock adapted on and next thing you know, they're chopping out bond wires and I'm like, you know guys back in the day the copper was your bond and Nowadays man that bond bonds are huge even if you have to drive a ground rod and hit an electrical lug on a grounding bar Something's better than nothing. So I see that a lot where we are very fortunate that we don't have more

Electrocution, think. something going back to that phone line. I've taught guys, I've taught guys electricity over the phone. One that brings a, brings a, tear to my eye. Cause I love the kid to death is Damien who's out in Blythe. I literally taught Damien how to wire a complete panel, from Orange County over the phone while he was in Blythe.

Um, and then he, you could see him shaking through the phone. He was like, sure. I'm not going to get shocked. Sure. I'm not going to get shocked, Damien. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, buddy. Just listen to what I'm saying to you and I will walk you through this. So electrocution to me, Rudy's something that I think we're very lucky that we don't have catastrophic failure right there. So.

I agree, I'm surprised that, you know, and one electrocution is too many. So I'm gonna say that, I have sit with that. But the number we have, I think since 1990, and this is a few years ago, I know the number was around 90. This is maybe six, seven years ago. So still that's a good 30 some odd year timeframe where there's been 90 electrocutions at swimming pools. And the number is horrendous, but we are,

Speaker 1 (29:15.168)
lucky it's not been so much more. To your point, not everybody. There's a lot of great folks out there who strive to do things correctly, who keep safety in the front of their mind. But then there's also a lot of folks out there that do things haphazard. And sometimes when you're dealing with electric at a swimming pool, remember the old TV commercial for transmissions where the guy, I always wanted to work on a transmission.

that type of thing. You don't do that with electric at swimming pools. just don't. You just don't.

It's you bring up transmissions. You know, it, a little bit of history about me, seven years old, riding my bicycle on a rainy day after school was looking to go make three or four bucks rolled up on a, an old transmission shop that was at the corner of century in Maine, downtown garden Grove walked up and I said, Hey, what are you doing out here riding your bicycle in the rain? I said, well, I'm looking for a job. said, Hey, you know, that trash can over there is overflowing.

Needless to say, I never looked back and I was at 14 was ripping transmissions out of cars at a transmission shop. And I'll never forget the Soseby family. Well, almost like second dads to me. So at seven years old, I had already started kind of, my mom was always one of those ones as a single mom. You wanted it, you went out and earned it. And if you wanted to go buy a bike or you wanted to go buy a candy bar, you had to have your own money to go get that. So it's funny you bring up transmissions cause that's been a major, major part of my life.

I started working young also. Well, we're about the same age. I'm a year older than you, but I started working young also, not at seven, at 11 years old I started working. Grown up in New York, Long Island, worked on a farm as a corn picker for summer months and then in the winter months cutting firewood. And I did that from 11 years old all the way up until I was 16. And then I shifted and went with the more traditional.

Speaker 1 (31:13.868)
teenage jobs working fast food and supermarkets and that type of thing before I went on to other stuff. But yeah, was, and that was, you know, that was something else. And I remember everybody's like, how much did you get paid back then? think initially it was a bushel of corn was 55 years to a bag. I can still go to a grocery store and pick up a ear of corn without having to pull the husk back and tell if I got a good year or not. And

They were paying me 10 cents a bag to fill up until the point where the bag's quantity that I was putting together was exceeding the farm minimum wage. So then they shifted to that and I was getting $2.10 an hour.

Isn't that crazy? That's back when a snicker bar used to cost you 15 cents.

Yeah, that's back when dad used to stop at the gas station and tell the guy when the guy asked how much he wanted to say, Oh, give me $2 regular. And that was enough for the week. So yeah, long time, long time ago. So what's the one tool in your truck that has absolutely no practical use except you keep it in there anyway.

That's a lot of

Speaker 2 (32:24.076)
Yeah, you know.

I'm going to honestly say right now, you're going to laugh at this, but a one touch controller. Cause you know what I just nowadays with all the apps and things, I mean, I went nuts with Jandy speaking of Jandy. Hey, let me throw that. Let me throw that hat on. Does that work? Yeah. Now ripping. brought a bunch of hats here. So I'm going to throw on the Jandy hat here real quick, but it's a, it's kind of funny.

Now you're repping. you go.

Speaker 2 (32:53.902)
the one touch controller, just never really use it because almost all my controllers and automation, I've always put in Pentair equipment. The exception of the controller, always go with Jandy. I just love Jandy's automation. Most of mine are all on the 3.0s and the 2.0s. So it's probably that one touch controller that Brian Scapplin got me and I very seldom use it. Some guys say it's easier for them to program off that.

To me, that's one that comes to mind. I'm always kicking it around in the back seat of the truck. The other thing that I, you know, I don't tend to use a hammer anymore. I use beat it's, I got beat it's inside my tool bag. One of my favorite beat it's was the old, you can relate to this. Cause when you say brass impeller to guys, they say, what's that? They don't know what an aquaflow pump was or a.

a super flow, you know, all these different pumps that we had out there, the hydro pumps, the open faced impeller wrench that had the two little nipples on it is what I beat my seals in. Well, it's just, it's fast, it's convenient. And I think the hammer sits in the truck and I don't know why I don't use it.

I liked those pumps. People gave me hearts. I liked them. And whether it was adjusting the...

Shaff extension.

Speaker 1 (34:22.414)
Fighting with the stupid set screws that have been in a day or even having to sit down I remember times where I was like, okay get a piece of cork from the gap from the auto parts store and sit down and cut my own gasket for the

Yeah. The seal. Yeah. Hey, you know, that's funny. You say that because if you remember the East sides, pure X East sides, you had to have a torch to heat that thing up to get it to come off with slide. Yeah. And then we learned the trick that we had tear the seal box, the cardboard on the seal box and place that in between the balloon and the impeller. And that pump was jamming. Those pumps were good pumps. I'll tell you what you, you, you could grind up leaves.

Even if you didn't have a hole in your pump basket, you could grind them up, send them to the filter.

You know, I always see, and it's the funny thing too, because with social media, you see so many of these things and less of them nowadays, because I guess we've replaced a lot of them. But, you know, you see guys come and gals come across these things out in the field and everybody's like, oh, replace it, replace it, replace it, replace it. But you know what? I don't see people come across them in the field where they're not running.

Yeah. Those motors and pumps were great.

Speaker 1 (35:31.488)
Everyone I know. Yeah, everyone ever anybody ever shows me anyone I ever see somewhere. It's running, but go ahead and replace it, but it's still running, you know, and maybe you should for but they're still running. I mean, and that doesn't happen anymore.

That opened up our biggest other can of worms in the industry is because all of a sudden we went from, we went from open faced impellers that were medium workhorse draw water all day long. But we went to these closed faced impellers and all of a sudden guys are trying to suck a golf ball through a, through a straw and hydraulically that's probably one of the things where I think our industry could use some more help is getting these guys to understand hydraulics.

properly sizing pumps so that they're not cavitating, burning themselves up. They always wonder when, know, I plug in my vacuum hose and all of a sudden I hear, sounds like a choo choo train coming down the track. Well, probably not being able to supply it with enough water is your biggest downfall. So, and if they would just realize that, man, I've got, I had a bunch of them. know, one of the better pumps when we came to this, Rudy was the challengers, the PacFab Challenger.

yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:45.056)
What a beautiful pump that thing was. That was a beautiful pump. The challengers were just dynamite and you know, couldn't tell you how many stay rights I ripped out to put in a challenger. Those things with the big pump baskets, man, we were in heaven. only thing that sucked about the challenger pump was the, the horseshoe on the lid. When that thing broke, man, it went right into your palm of your hand and lay you open. So you had to watch those and not get brittle. Guys were putting two by fours in there to kind of close them up.

I like that.

Speaker 2 (37:15.398)
you know, another thing to kind of getting back to the mentoring thing for you. I learned a little bit of that skill, way, way back in, kids coming up through school. I decided to jump into scouts. I wanted, I wanted my kids to not take some of the paths that I had taken and not be a little rough around the edges and Cub scouting. And then, then starting a boy scout troop in November of three.

and just bringing in the 12 Eagle Scouts that I've got out there roaming around this world is just that that to me is what taught me, Hey, this is how you get back. So, that's one of the things I think has been the most exciting journey for me on this whole mentoring thing is just having guys call me and say, Hey man, how do I do this? And, being able to verbatially tell them how to do it and relate to them.

where their knees are trembling in the backyard and they're nervous, they can't figure it out. Mrs. Jones is standing over the top of them and now with technology, boom, a phone call away and somebody's got their back that can not only understand it but recite it. It has been one of the most awesomest things I think I've been.

That's fantastic. That brings a question to mind though. If your younger self was to call you on the phone and ask for advice, to ask for advice, you see it ringing, you see it's you, you know how you were, do you pick up the phone and help you or do you let you figure it out yourself?

It's funny you should say this. We just had an interesting one come through the phone line the other day. I want to stumble a little bit because when you stumble and fall, you pick back up the pieces and do it again. Doing it on your own, you retain it. And that's the one good part about having somebody as a mentor on the phone that you can rely upon, whether it's after hours or on a weekend or something like that on vacation. I get told that one by my wife a lot too.

Speaker 2 (39:24.494)
Don't tell her we can't go anywhere without you being on the phone helping somebody. Yeah, that's just all part of it there You know, it's it's who I am I think the best thing is is you let them fumble a little bit, but you give them that security to say hey When you can't figure it out Come I'll be there to walk you through it. We had an interesting one the other day. We're a dual three pin 485 connector RS 485 connector on a jandy

Guy guy called me says, man, I can't get this. Can't get this 3.0 antenna to hook up. And he goes, well, you know, I got the lid open and all the lights are on. We're going, no, no, no, dude. Put the cover back on. The lights are being lit up because you're seeing the sunshine through the antenna. There's no lights on there because you would be able to see the antenna on the wifi. And so I go, well, you know, unplug the indoor one touch and move it to the other RS four 85 pen.

And he goes, well, nothing happens. And I'm like, okay, well, that's weird. go, so half your boards working on the four pin connector, but the other half's not. First time ever that I've ever heard this, Brian ended up going out there and walking it through because it's a Newport coast. Brian took the faceplate down and pulled the two red pin connectors off. One side Rudy had three pins instead of four. One pin was completely gone.

And I told Jay Kaelin on the phone, go, will never ever, ever let that one pass me by again. I will always ask a guy, how many pins do you see? Because we couldn't figure out why this antenna wouldn't power up. But if you put it on the other side, it would power up, but it still was having a little bit of a problem connecting. Brian ended up going out there and they're going to now just do a, do a, expansion born off the one pin, just to kind of keep it going on the cheaper side.

And I think it, just from doing this, there has to be something that makes it memorable. There's a difference between being a mentor, there's a difference between being a teacher and being a puppeteer. And if somebody just calls you before they ever touch it and you just walk them through it, I don't know that they're really learning anything. They're parroting. You're guiding the strings, they're going through the motions, but is anything actually sticking? And I don't think that there is. I think folks do.

Speaker 1 (41:46.24)
need to give it an effort before we walk them through in order for them to retain anything.

100%.

Speaker 2 (41:58.476)
Yeah, I did that with Damien, man. And I'll tell you that kid, he's, he's got a gold mine underneath his feet. He's really doing good out in Blythe. he's in the desert heat. He's, he's a hustler. He's got a couple of guys working for him and he did, he fumbled and he faltered. And, know, I think that's another thing that kind of helped this whole mentoring thing for me too, was the, the presence on, on Instagram, the presence that I had, had done way back in the day. I'm going to call him the little monster. You know who I'm talking about.

Um, the Arinda guy, the little monster, um, just the videos and stuff that I was doing on that front. Yeah. With my, my, with my brother, with my brother, my oldest brother, Randy owned in the studio and all the stuff he's been doing. But I think it started for me way back in the day because when I would fumble and I was not so sure there was two or three of you guys that I had, I had a two way radio on my truck, Kenwood radio to my brother.

comment.

Speaker 2 (42:57.87)
So that was like an instant lifeline as long as he wasn't busy. Well, when the day said he was busy, it was that good old dude, Alan Smith. Alan Smith was my next go-to. and having him as a mentor was just huge. was fishing alongside of Alan Smith and his son all the time on the boat. And then one that I got to tell you I've missed dear, dearly, dearly, dearly miss is Greg Garrett. Greg Garrett taught me so much. Yeah.

I mean that dude was just a walking, beyond an encyclopedia, you couldn't even say dictionary, that dude knew just about anything there was to know about any sentitious surface.

and promoted thinking skills. And that's important because there's going to be a day in time where you might not be there and we still need these folks to be able to figure it out. And that is just as important part of the role, teaching people how to think and not everybody, not everybody gets it. But so let me ask you,

We had another, if we had another good one here real quick, we had another good one. The other day was, I'm going to throw him under the bus to hopefully he's going to watch all this. It was Jay Kailen out of Houston. calls me up and beer, I don't know why. I just, I just, I just don't have a water temperature. I'm like, well, what do you mean? goes, well, I got a solar temperature, but I just don't have a water temperature. And I'm like, Hey, Jay, have you stopped to think about that for a minute? It's like,

Well, yeah, I've been thinking about it. can't figure out why I don't have a damn water temperature on this controller. I go, well, hey, Jay, you got a solar temperature. Oh, shit. I go, Jay, we've all done it. We've all hooked up that temperature sensor to the solar sensor instead of the water. It's a, it's the most simplest one you can do, but that's the beauty of that phone line Rudy is, we do play it where we get guys trying to, trying to think their way through it.

Speaker 2 (44:55.756)
to where it will stick a little bit more with them. And we still, I still laugh at Jay. He laughs about it with me and he says, he sucker you never forget it. I got him on another good one. One day he was so frustrated and we just talked about this the other day too. He called me up and goes, I cannot figure out where the suction leaks out. I cannot figure it out. And I'm like, you know what guys, when you've got a suction leak, you're blowing champagne bubbles. You see it in your pump. You need to go get yourself. I'm going to call it the douche bag.

Hydraulic drain flasher to the garden hose you stick that sob inside the skimmer you turn on the garden hose and you pressurize Your suction line you will find your suction lead Jay was beating himself up. I've changed the o-rings. I've done this I've done that and I go hey Jay that pump ran dry Go back to that very very first Jandy valve not the second one on the poolside. It's between the cleaner and the and the skimmer

go to the very first one between pool and spa and I go take the lid off of that jandy valve and swap it with your second one. And I guarantee you're going to find your suction leak. He goes, well, how do you know this? go, I almost bet you on that pump ran dry that bowed that jandy lid because steam's going to work in mysterious ways. It's going to go to one of those elevations and it bowed that lid and cracked that lid. found a suction link and he's like, dude, I spent an hour and a half on this, but I made him think about it. And we still tell that story to today that

You know, sometimes you just got to start thinking out of the box.

When you look back at your biggest win thus far in the industry, what completely irrelevant skill helped you pull it off?

Speaker 2 (46:37.538)
Wow, man, that's a tough one, Rudy. You know, I think honestly,

sitting through all the trainings, sitting through the Alan Smith appreciation days, sitting through meetings and hours and hours with Greg Garrett, Bob Lowry on the phone line, having four or five guys to bounce things off of to where five minds are better than one. I think the biggest thing that I can remember, honestly, is the day that my brother and Alan Smith and Greg Garrett opened up the MPC.

That was huge for me. was like the silver lining in my back pocket. And having my brother around that had built pools for so many years was just a huge lifeline. So I got a mad, mad respect level from my brother, but even yourself. mean, coming in to know you and start to follow you and some of the other heavy, heavy hitters out there and just watching how people evolved and

And being a part of this whole kind of social media thing when it started to go was kind of like a lifeline for me. I think, you know, the biggest success is obviously my story. My, legend that I want to leave behind. and I, and I think this industry has given me so much that it's just, I'm barely scratching the surface to what I've given back. And that's why I dedicate myself to these guys. Not only that, it builds better, stronger friendships.

I think you're building a good, good legend to leave behind. You are. So which, which movie villain would you let your run your pool route for a day and which one would absolutely wreck it?

Speaker 2 (48:29.062)
I would have to say you're either going to need to be the Hulk or Superman to run my business. You're to need to be the Hulk or Superman. this is one thing that me and Jay Kailin, me and Jay Kailin got this in common. I just never stop. You know what I mean? So the one that would probably wreck it, I'd have to say it'd be SpongeBob SquarePants, man. You know what mean? Hey, real quick shout out to this guy too. And there is.

Here's a dude right here that has seriously taught me a lot of stuff. The old Jared Schwab. Jared Schwab. Jared, I love Jared. So have to throw a hat on for Jared.

Jared's got a really, really good grasp of what's going on in the business sector that affects the pool industry. Nobody better.

No, and you know what I like about Jared? He's he's got my same mo. He's got my language. He's got my body function He's got he's got die hardness in him and he that dude's like an energizer, buddy So lovable so that's it's another one that he got me going on was with Mark from roll again, and I just found out just the other day talking to Jared that marks no longer I'm gonna miss mark mark was a good dude. Yeah marks no longer with roller cam. So I like that kind of bumps me out because I long of my

A lot of my stuff that I do, Rudy, a lot of my pools have roller cams on them. I love the roller cam unit. I've been putting some sunshade cloth over them that's helping them out. got to go back. Jared and I were just on the phone with the one that I just put in. I got to go back and I got to take my sensing well suction line that I plumbed into the suction side of the pump. That's a no, no, no. I figured out it's put too much air inside the sensing well and causing me to get a faulty pH reading.

Speaker 2 (50:22.968)
So just again, attention to detail. That's all it is.

Yeah. So when, when someone on your crew screws up royally, what's your internal monologue? What are you saying to yourself inside your head before you open your mouth?

There's, there's no way can answer that question for you Rudy. Cause I am well, unless my wife screws up, it's just me and the wife. There is nobody on my crew. do this all by myself. 175 pulls a week plus tile blasting Fridays and Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. So we, we are obviously a single pole family. Um, I've kind of never, how do I say this to where you understand it? I have a bad issue of.

taken what I've built up, taken the connections that I've made. Brian Scapple, the Jandy rep, one of the biggest dudes that, and that dude when he was working for Alan Smith sent me so many love him to death. My brother, when he built pulls, would give me pulls. I just have a hard, hard time of releasing or relinquishing that.

and then having to go and play one of those manager guys and babysit guys, I'd rather just go do it myself and know that it's done right. So as far as when I grew up, when I screw up, yeah, the wife's coming down on my throat. Yeah. 100%.

Speaker 1 (51:45.238)
There's no way to ensure that you hire a you. In fact, you can tell everybody pretty much off the bat, anybody who's to that point where they want to grow. And this is a big thing. Do I hire somebody or don't I? You have to go into it knowing you're not getting you. It's just not going to happen. So are you okay with that? And then that's where you make the decision to hire somebody or not. So I do totally understand.

Yeah, no.

Speaker 2 (52:12.241)
It's getting to that point where I'm like,

Speaker 1 (52:20.046)
I lost sound there buddy. Can you hear me?

But I'm gonna, yeah, are you there? I can. Yeah. So pretty soon I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to find a kid. You know what mean? I'm gonna have to find me somebody that I can, I can train. I can, I can just ride his ass and teach him the right way because obviously you have too much to lose. So Brian jumped into my truck and within the first six pools, Brian looked at me and he goes,

for anybody out there that says that it's not true about you, Beardman, it is 100 % true. I go, Brian, I go, I cleaned out that passenger seat for you to ride. And I go, but remember what I told you, we don't take breaks. We don't get air conditioning time. We don't get windshield time. We're literally pulling up at a stop. And sometimes we've got three on one side of the street, two on the other. We've got a couple of stops where we got nine pulls on one culti sack. The density of my route,

when I go to sell it, it's probably going to be pretty, pretty stellar. That it is so dense. I'm in one neighborhood four days a week. So when I said to you the other day that, Hey Rudy, in order for me to make the podcast and get up to the other house, I got to make sure I get 75 pools done. Part of, part of what gives me a little bit of marital problems is constantly working. she loves, she loves the fact that we make good money, but she also wants to see her husband.

You know what mean? She didn't want to see me. Seven years ago, I had a heart attack at 50 two weeks after I turned 50. So ever since that heart attack, I've tried to slow down. It's almost like this industry just doesn't let you do it. This industry is just a nonstop industry and it's, it's a go, go, go. And the minute that you kind of learn how to say no too often, you start to fall. So

Speaker 1 (54:11.246)
I remember, you know, and it's been quite a few years since I've been poolside cause I, you know, kind of took on some injuries that drove me out or made it so I couldn't walk around. But for me going to these every day on my route was like an entire crossfit training at the speed that you go and not

giving up accuracy because you can do it fast and accurate. mean, you can do it too fast to the point that it's ridiculous too, but I mean, you can be fast and you can be accurate and you can hustle and you can definitely move with a sense of purpose. And yeah, you're right. And if you keep up that pace all day long, it's how you get it done. And that's what the industry demands, at least that was, and you know what? I know I've seen folks out there,

hitting pools in a leisurely manner as well. And great, you do you, I do me. This is how it was. I knew that I had to get, you know, to my next pool and I had to get that done within a certain timeframe. And my goal was being in Florida and you can identify being in some of the warmer weather states. I wanted out from outside.

by three o'clock so that way at four o'clock the heat of the day hit I was nowhere to be found I did not want to be out there when it did break into those triple

Right. And unfortunately for me, it's generally.

Speaker 2 (55:43.406)
Sun up to sundown thing for me pretty pretty much for you four days a week, but you know Thinking of where we're at as we get new guys in this is one thing that you have to instill to these newer guys Going into show season now, I think some of these shows offer just a huge thing for these guys to get into

the Western pool and small show, obviously, you know, it's right in my backyard. Yes. And that's been one that's been around for years. It's done really well for itself. Yeah. And I think those training classes that are offered there are huge. some of the things I'm seeing some of the other guys do and the bootcamp that's going on right now, I support that as far as the popularity contest, I don't, for those kinds of awards. I don't support that. It's a,

What a great

Speaker 2 (56:35.916)
that's an award by popularity versus I've tried to do a little bit with Watershape University. did a little bit there on one of the shows a few years back. It a lot of fun with Dave Pinton. And that's a rock star builder right there. But I try to surround myself with those little bit higher up guys. Just because, and that goes back to being cornered up with my brother.

But at the same time another guy that I don't know if you follow him is Devon Bryant. Do you follow Devon Bryant with Superior Pool?

I know Devon, I don't.

Louisiana. Yeah. Now there's a young guy right there that would spend hours and hours and hours on the phone line back in the day. Um, became really good friends with them, lost touch with him now because he's just, he started building pools and he's never looked back. And that dude has put a landmark in the Louisiana and he is building pools, dime a dozen out there, busier than busy. And I get to watch him every once in a while. And one thing I've seen about Devon, he's just like some of the guys that I hang out with.

Rock solid loves to work and wants to go and do good, do a good job. And again, attention to detail. I mean, he go back to those first three things we were talking about, you know, dedication and attention to detail and, productivity and the whole nine yards, but going back into the shows, I really think we need to keep these shows going. And that helps these younger guys coming in. I'm hoping nothing ever happens to our industry. I'm hoping we don't price our

Speaker 2 (58:15.022)
ourselves out of the game, but it looks like we're heading that way.

It's definitely some challenging times. So let me ask you, who taught you something that completely changed your trajectory, but they probably don't even know it?

Speaker 2 (58:33.678)
I would have to say, I honestly have to say Alan Smith and Greg Garrett. Alan Smith and Greg Garrett, my brother, already knows. He knows, I think him daily, but just the magnitude of knowledge that Alan has shared with me. mean, just hours and hours and hours standing, holding a fish and bowl, rope and tuna over the rail of a boat.

and telling stories all day long and talking water chemistry and just the stuff that he's got going on with the whole micro glass and all that stuff. That's one dude that I will huge, huge, huge. Thank you to Alan. It'd have to be, can't thank Greg Garrett. If he was here to stand in front of me today, I'd kiss him all up all over his body because it just, the dude was just awesome. Alan's probably that second dude. Alan's going to be, you know, and he, he's gone through a little bit of a rough go here recently, but

He's surviving, he's doing good. And I'd have to say it's Alan. Alan just taught me how to be me.

Okay, bear with me on this one. Cool industry gets taken over by zombies. You're leading the last group of survivors. What's your first move?

I'm gonna try to find any arsenal I have to take out the zombies. I don't wanna be the last guy standing, Aruti. I wanna be the last guy standing. So any type of arsenal I can take them out with. The thing is, unfortunately, we have a lot of zombies running around in our industry. Our industry seems to kind of be a magnet to some of those that have suffered some.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18.242)
some kind of problems drug related or alcohol related problems or just pure laziness. I mean, I see some stuff out there in the trenches that I just, I, I looked at some of these jobs that these guys are doing and charging for it. I'm just like, who took good money to pay for that? It's crazy. So it's pretty nuts.

them the walking tech.

Yeah. So it's nuts. So I always want to, I always want to leave a mark. And when you can come back and look at it and say, Hey, I did that. That's huge. That's huge.

So Greg, I appreciate you taking time from your schedule to chat with us today. Listen, my friend, one thing, well, one thing left that you want to say to everybody that's listening right now so that they get a better sense of who you are that maybe we haven't covered just yet. What would that one thing be?

Huge thank you. Huge thank you to the whole entire industry, for those that have instilled their faith with me, who have called me to ask for my advice or something like that, to the ones that I've met in passing, to the ones, you know, Rudy, it's just like you, when you get to your shoes, people don't realize until you get kind of up the steps, and I seen a post the other day where it was the...

Speaker 2 (01:01:36.782)
The smaller steps are a better ladder to take them huge steps on a ladder. But when you've gotten about three quarters of way up that ladder, you start to realize that there's also a target on your back and you can, you can get your haters, you get your haters and you gotta, you just gotta put the haters behind you and keep going. And one of the guys that I see is going through that right now is Vic Garcia with G6. G6 that dude is moving, man. That dude is moving.

I like G6. like Vic. I like what Vic's doing. He's turning out really, really nice, stellar pools. He's all over the map, how he's doing a job outside of that. Cause this, this is just a site. It's like, it's almost, it's not a site also for him. It's a business, but he still works a regular job. And so that's another dude that's that dedication, determination, and he's possessed, you know? And like I said, this industry will possess you. So I think the biggest thing that I can tell everybody huge, huge, thank you.

And I thank you for allowing me to be on the show today and take the time to.

I am happy to have you and again, congratulations.

We need to it again. We need to it again for sure. I'd love to get in, start talking about some of the minerals and stuff going on. I think that was one of the ones that really, really, when we brought borates back, I think that was a huge, huge hit.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55.566)
We can keep going. Obviously, that could be a whole conversation too. And you said it right there. Brought borates back. We brought aluminum sulfate back. These are things we used to have, we used to love, but for some reason, I know the reason, something more profitable with a higher margin came out, but it pushed it off the shelf. These are products that worked friggin fantastic. And we could do a whole show just on those types of

Well, another one that's Another one that's huge right now and I'm not sure what your take is on it. And I've been playing around with it. I got to tell you, it's pretty stellar. Zinc sulfate. A little bit of zinc sulfate in the water.

because I do have my I have my opinions that I can talk all about

That's all I'm gonna tell you you cannot use too much just takes just a little bit. It's not a weekly dose I've been putting in about once a month man, and it is stellar stellar clarity

It definitely has a lot of advantages. And this is these are great for a whole other episode. So let's save it. But for right now, I want to thank you, Greg. Thank you for coming and joining us again. Congratulations on being nominated. One of our top 10 mentors in the industry. That's pretty bad ass. Of course, one person will win the belt. I definitely I got my fingers crossed for everybody because every I

Speaker 1 (01:04:12.846)
There's nobody on that top 10 list who isn't fantastic. You're something.

I would like to take the time to congratulate all the other nine guys too, nine girls and guys. that's huge to be out of 70 to be across the, across the industry like that. It was pretty humbling when I got your email. Very, very humbling. I was on cloud nine for all day of Monday. A lot of supporters sending stuff.

Well, you definitely deserve it. And for everybody listening, Mr. Greg Beard, how can people find you? If people want to follow you, what's the best place?

Instagram pool guy beard. I'm not on just pools anymore too much that that one got hacked by somebody but pool guy underscore beard on Instagram You know gbeardpool at gmail.com whatever they need to do. I mean, I'm here. I'm here as a tech support

There go.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02.23)
If you know Greg, you should be there anyway. If you don't know Greg and want to know more about Greg, hit him up. Everybody, thank you so much for listening. You know this show doesn't exist without you. You are the reason for this show, The Talking Pools Podcast. Until next time, be good, be safe.

Thank you,

Thank you, my friend.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31.598)
You wish me good.

Okay. All right, we're done. Okay.

We are