Haviland Pool and Spa Products launched a podcast series designed for and by "pool legends" called "Unfiltered Legends."

The goal of the podcast is to highlight the pool and spa industry and all the fun and funny stories that come with building, servicing and selling pools and spas.  

Hosted by John "The Legend" Bokor, director of sales at Haviland, a 30-year pool veteran who teamed up with John Bereza to create some fun and unfiltered podcasts about the people in and around the pool and spa industry.  

Episode 4's guest was Paulette Hester, owner of Pools By The Sea, located in Stuart, Florida.

Hester, the president of her IPSSA chapter started in the pool industry in 1998 before starting her own company in 2004.

Her start in pools stemmed from a return to the workforce.

"Well, I had three young girls and I had to join the workforce again," Hester said. "And so I tried a couple of different jobs and I was I actually was in the beauty industry. And I absolutely hated doing anything indoors—like hated it."

She moved to Florida because she wanted to be outside and near the ocean, she told the hosts.

A friend of hers in the Sunshine State had a job cleaning pools.

"I was asking him about it, and he's like, 'oh, yeah, it's great. I get off work at two o'clock every day,'" Hester recalled. 

The company was hiring and Hester got a job—at the expense of her cohort.

"I go to work and train for a week and they fired my friend," Hester explained.

She started by cleaning pools, then moved on to repairs before setting off on her own six years later. 

"So in 2004 when the hurricanes hit, we had Frances and Jeanne hit in Stuart like a mile or two apart, two weeks apart from each other," Hester recollected. "So at that point, I got a lot more accounts because when you have a hurricane come and it's hard to you know, like you're working like crazy. You're working from 6:30 [a.m.]—as soon as its light—until dark" including weekends "to try to get all your pools clean from the hurricanes. That just tore everything up. So I actually gained a lot of customers from that because I was showing up and other pool companies weren't showing up. So that was pretty good for me. So I did pretty good. I got a lot of really good accounts at that point."

The podcast also focused on pool equipment, Hester working with her daughter, working through the pandemic, the stigmas around pool professionals and more.

If you are interested in being a part of this podcast, email [email protected].  

To listen to the podcasts, click here or find them on iTunes, Google Podcast, Pandora and Spotify.