Where It Started
When COVID hit I was in school to be a firefighter. Fire explorers, had a direction. Then everything shut down, my parents kicked me out, and a friend's family took me in. I got a job at a pool company down the street just to have something coming in.
I was never supposed to stay in pools. But I go all in on whatever I'm doing, so I learned everything I could. Chemistry, equipment, diagnostics, how to run a route right. I excelled. Years went by.
Then one day I got into it with the owner and he looked at me and said "No excuses, Ceegan." I was young and full of ego. I told him straight up he was going to regret that.
"No excuses, Ceegan." My old boss. Best thing he ever did for me.
The name of this company came from that conversation.I walked away and ran the numbers on fire school. Tuition, gear, time. I didn't have the financial backing to make it work. So I looked at what I was already good at and decided to bet on myself.
I started the company with my friend. We built it in Riverside from nothing. A few years in we saw things differently, split amicably, and I kept going.
The Business Only Works If We Do
A lot of pool companies roll filter cleans and salt cell cleanings into a higher monthly rate. The bill looks the same no matter what gets done. We don't operate that way. We charge for filter cleanings when we do them. We charge for salt cell cleanings when we do them. If the work doesn't happen, we don't collect for it.
That's the whole model. Our incentives are tied directly to outcomes. If we cut corners we feel it financially. If we miss something we own it. This business is structured to only work correctly if we do correct work.
The result: we run under 1% annual customer churn. In an industry where people switch companies constantly, almost nobody leaves. That's not a marketing stat — that's what happens when the model actually works.
The only person who's probably read this far is a competitor trying to see what I'm up to. Yeah, I see you. I'm not underpriced — that's not why customers don't leave. We are just genuinely better. I have no excuses and no balance. I'm all in.
First in Riverside. Then Copied.
We were the first pool company in Riverside doing live reporting. Real service reports sent to customers after every visit with readings, what was added, and the tech's name. Not a generic "we stopped by" text. I was early on the software that made it possible and ran with it before anyone else out here did. Competitors followed shortly after.
That's a pattern. I spend most of my time building systems for everything that runs this business. The software, the workflows, customer communication, this website. I engineered all of it. I've been on podcasts. The bigger companies see me as a problem because I raise the bar publicly and I don't back down. I'm on the side of the smaller operators doing things right.
Pool Nation Conference 2024 — called out in a room full of people who run this industry.
Every dollar this company earns goes back into it. Better equipment, better chemicals, better training. I'm not here to coast.
The Training
I'm certified across every major brand in this industry. Pentair, Hayward, Raypak, NPC, Hasa. If a manufacturer runs a class for it I've probably sat in it. I'm likely one of the most trained technicians in Riverside. That's not a flex, it's just what happens when you keep going all in while most people do the minimum.
Outside the Truck
I've always been an engineer. Built my first minibike at 6. Restored a junky Corvette at 16. These days it's dirt bikes, Tesla-swapped side-by-sides, anything that involves taking something apart and figuring out how to make it better.
Same thing, different application.