Setting The Standard PAOLO BENEDETTI

Pool Magazine goes one on one with pool industry expert and thought leader Paolo Benedetti.

BY JOE TRUSTY

PHOTOS: JIMI SMITH PHOTOGRAPHY

Paolo Benedetti has built a reputation as a thought leader in the field of pool construction. As the President of Aquatic Technology in Morgan Hill, CA, Benedetti has worked on his fair share of luxury pools and spas. In addition to running a successful pool construction firm, he splits his time as an educator and expert witness. Consequently, he’s become one of the most well-regarded technical experts working in the industry today.

Recently we had the chance to catch up with Benedetti while he was teaching a class for Watershape University at the Everything Under The Sun Expo. Always giving of his time and expertise, we met before he was scheduled to teach a packed classroom of pool builders who had come to Orlando to learn from one of the masters.

Pool Magazine (PM): Can you give our readers a bit of background and information about how you first got started in the swimming pool industry?

Paolo Benedetti (PB): I had a contractors license already and bought a pool service company from a guy that was retiring. So I instantly kind of fell into 300 accounts in the Silicon Valley area. Some of the service company clients wanted to have their pool remodeled, so I went and got my C53.

PM: What was the very first pool you built?

PB: The first pool I built was in 1995. That was a $350,000 perimeter overflow pool. I sold the job and then it was a challenge to figure out how to do it. That’s how I hooked up with Genesis to begin with. They just taught the very first class down in Morro Bay. My engineer heard about it and he recommended it to me and said “You’ve got to go to this pool school that this guy just set up on infrastructure. There’s nothing else like it in the industry. I went there and actually hired Skip Phillips to kind of mentor me through my first project.

That first pool was for one of the founders of a big semiconductor firm in Silicon Valley. We ended up finishing that pool in about eight months. Afterwards, my wife and I were invited to a black-tie cocktail party at their house. The principals of Intel were there and it was really just a who’s who of Silicon Valley on the guest list.

I was watching all the guys out around the pool where we had installed the very first two laminars from Crystal Fountains. We had actually the betas, and we used them on that job. Well none of these guys had ever seen laminar fountains before that night and here’s this pool with these glowing green streams. They were standing out there in tuxedos, straddling the stream, pretending they were peeing. It was the funniest thing you ever saw. Man, I wish I had a camera back then but this was way before smartphones. We were a hit. I handed out probably a couple of dozen business cards of that cocktail party, and there was no looking back.

PM: Sounds like your career kind of snowballed from there.

PB: It did! We decided from there we were going to start divesting ourselves as a pool service company and started focusing more on construction. Now, we pretty much average anywhere from four to six projects at one time because they take sometimes more than a year to build.

PM: You travel all over the world now building pools and are really racking up the frequent flyer miles

PB: Exactly. Right away people were asking me, would you mind taking over this project in Montana? Would you mind doing this project in Hawaii? We were kind of starting to travel all over to deal with projects.

My friends in college think it’s really glamorous because I get to travel all over the place. Truth be told, it’s actually kind of boring because you’re traveling by yourself. You’re eating meals by yourself. It can get a little lonely at times.