6/10/2023 0 Comments Aqua quip seattle![]() Consisting of the two couples and an agreed-on fifth member, the group would make the majority of the decisions. "We developed what we called the G-5," Kathleen says. But for the process to succeed, there had to be daily teamwork. Major decisions were made: The Quints would be the majority owners because they were bigger and had more assets. They received professional help for the valuation and merger process. The talks revealed enough similarities to plunge ahead. You need to be compatible when it gets tough - and it will - or it will blow up." When it gets tough, will we be able to relate and do things in a similar manner. "This was one of the most important processes we went through," Kathleen says. We felt there was a great core of people under us that could support a merger."īut there'd be no corporate nuptials without a thorough, open and honest courtship. "Erik could take what we would call operations Brian would handle administration I would take sales and marketing. "We looked at the people involved and whether we could fill different positions," Kathleen says. In other words, no more occasions of an Aqua Quip truck driving south while a Carlson truck drove north. In our case we saw economies of scale, too." They envisioned advertising dollars going further, product line volumes increasing, service dispatching being zoned. "My NSPI experience (he ultimately became president) and contacts throughout the industry showed me the way to work together. There were even more than they had realized. By 1998, there were two Carlson Pool & Spa stores and another store, Sundance Spas by Carlson's. ![]() ![]() Two years later, they bought a new location and combined retail and service under one roof. In 1986, the Carlsons purchased an existing retail store while continuing to run their service department from their shop. "In those years we expanded into cleaning pools on top of the service work we did for residential, semipublic and commercial," says Kathleen who studied aquatic administration in college. Within a year, in 1978, Kathleen quit her job to help run the business, which first operated out of their home before moving to a separate shop. "We always felt we were just in the same boat."Īfter college came Smart Merger No. "Erik was a customer buying products from the company," says Brian, who was cleaning pools at that time and working in his parents' stores. While in college he started doing repairs on pools where he was selling chemicals, learning only by experience.ĭuring that time he met Brian Quint, whose parents, Dick and Esther Quint, ran a successful pool supply business called Aqua Quip. When his high school opened a pool, he won the bid for the chemicals and continued with it for 10 years. He sold pool chemicals, collected the money, paid the bills. He started Carlson Specialties in 1965, at age 10. That takes dedication - a word that may be inadequate when describing Erik Carlson. It's hard enough to accomplish that in the evolution of a family business, let alone the joining of two of them.
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