Odd jobs growing up
My first job was packing groceries at a local grocery store in a shopping mall. It didn’t take long to learn the cushy jobs A working buddy got me on cart detail. Rather than spend the whole shift at the end of the checkout bagging groceries, we would venture out into the mall and retrieve the shopping carts customers left away from the store. We would wander; visit our friends and girlfriends in the mall. My next job was pumping gas at a 24 hour gas station. I worked the night shift a lot. The owner also had a tow truck service. His sons and drivers would hang out at the station late at night. I got to tag along and did a truck trip to the east coast with one of the drivers who delivered manufactured homes. I even got to drive the rig in Montreal at 16! I had other short term jobs- Working in a plant managed by my cousin electroplating circuit boards, delivering beautician supplies, working at Kaufmann’s footwear in the warehouse, helping out at a tennis club tending bar (that’s where I met Lyn)
When I started teaching skiing, my other jobs were in the summer to supplement my winter job. Some of them included working in Banff doing maintenance on the lifts at Mount Norquay. It was a great job. When I arrived in March, I was broke and my car wasn’t dependable to drive back. I was given a staff apartment above the day lodge, a meal card and a ID card that gave free skiing at the 4 mountains.
K-W Pools
In the fall of 1974, after my spring / summer at Mount Norquay and a few weeks working in the warehouse at Kaufmans Footware, I was hired at K-W Pools thanks to my ski instructor friend, Doug Leeming. It was closing pools which took me to the ski season. For a few years, I opened and closed swimming pools and then learned pool servicing.
Being a full time ski instructor, the job fit well, fixing pools in the summer and teaching skiing in the winter. I did this until I was 30.
Jerry, the owner of K-W Pools was one of the first in Canada to manufacture hot tubs. He started by bringing in some tubs from California but then started manufacturing his own. He established a relationship with a local barrel maker, already known as one of the best Cooperage for the local distillers.
As Jerry grew Canadian hot tubs, I focused on the pool service but soon assisted in the hot tub installs and service.
Adapt Leisure Ltd
At age 30, I decided it was time to get a real job. I had missed my level 4 as a ski instructor and thought the pool industry would be my best bet. I took on a sales job with a new pool distributor called Adapt Leisure. I actually got the job by chance. I originally started a small silk screening business in my basement printing tee shirts for concerts and posters for the local shopping malls. As I was collecting unemployment insurance to offset my income, I sent out my résumé to some local pool companies. It was Canadian Pools that forwarded my résumé to Adapt Leisure.
I was hired as a salesman calling on pool dealers across Southern Ontario. I had no training in sales but my father, who was Vice President of sales for a large Canadian carpet manufacturer, told me it was an opportunity of a lifetime. My service background and ski teaching gave me the tools to build relationships with the dealers. Many times, you would find me in a backyard with my customer helping them solve a problem.
After being a salesman for 3 years, I decided to start my own retail swimming pool business. I would watch my customers run their businesses without much knowledge and seemed to be making money at it.
With my background, in my own service business, I specialized in hot tub service. I was also getting calls from my old dealers across Ontario looking for parts and information on how to service their customer’s tubs.
Westmount Pools
Lyn and I Started Westmount Pools in the Spring of 1988. During the summer of 1987, while I was still employed at Adapt Leisure, we drove around the residential streets of Kitchener and Waterloo looking for telltale signs of swimming pools. Lyn spent hours in the library looking up the home owner’s names of the addresses in the cross directories to create a mailing list. I also knew a lot my old customers from when I worked at K-W pools. Some of the past pool customers called me at home not happy with the company after I left.
It was a learning experience starting our own business. We seemed successful with more business than we could handle and sales going up every year. We kept hiring more seasonal help and buying used trucks. At one time I figured it was like summer camp with my staff the campers and I the director.
We had a great reputation but the bigger we got, the less money we made. We sold more hot tubs than any other company in town. Unfortunately, the margins were low and the after service was very demanding.
Having the experience and contacts from working for Adapt, I wanted to buy filter cartridges direct. I knew they had great margins. I approached the representative for Unicel and was told they only sold to distribution. At the time, Ted Eaton was a distributor for a few lines. The rep suggested I work out a deal with Ted who could be the distributor. Ted and I partnered to distribute spa parts.
All the stars were aligned to start the spa parts distribution business.
It was a new industry that I could grow as a part time venture
I had the service background.
I had the relationships with the dealers.
My partner had the supplier and importing connections.
In order to focus on the Spa Parts, I had to sever my efforts with the retail pool business.
In 1996, we talked to Pioneer Pools, a large retail chain with a location in town. They had been trying to get me to partner with them. Their Kitchener corporate store didn’t have a strong service division and they were hoping I’d join them and look after the service for their operations too. They proposed to buy our retail assets and some goodwill with long term commitments for me to to provide service. Negotiations dragged on and fortunately we had a good lawyer who wouldn’t let me be personally responsible for commitments, just the company. After the first year, we realized it wasn’t profitable with service only and still had the stress with the short season. I then sold the service business shares to two employees who were then responsible for all the commitments. Unfortunately for our customers, it didn’t last long.
Central Spa Story
Ted and I started Central Spa in 1991. We originally called it Central Ontario Spa and Leisure.
I was getting more calls from other dealers in Ontario looking for parts for hot tubs. I would buy some for Westmount Pools and sell some to the dealers that called.
I had the product knowledge and service experience and Ted was known in the industry selling to the dealers. Owning a retail Pool Company prevented me from really disclosing our partnership. We had dealers who were also my competitors in town. The new company was a part time venture for both of us. It was a division of his company, Jankell Enterprizes. At the beginning of our first year, January 1991, Ted and I boarded a plane to Atlantic City for the American Pool show. I remember just as we taxied hearing the news of the start of the bombing in Iraq.
Over the next few years, we added more product lines to complete our spa parts and accessories. We produced our first catalog in 1991.
In the early nineties, spa service and aftermarket parts and products were not established, especially in eastern Canada. The whole hot tub market started in California with wooden hot tubs and popularity travelled up the west coast to western Canada and then across to eastern Canada. When the hot tubs first were sold, the tub manufacturers provided replacement parts for their own brands. Over time, tub manufacturers came and went, leaving a void for their replacement parts. We were able to find the original manufacturers of these parts and become a one stop supplier for everyone’s brand of parts. The manufacturers liked that as we supplied the industry with a service they were not interested in.
Parts were readily available to us from the US manufacturers and distributors. Accessories were far and few between but increased as the industry grew.
In 1997, we sold Westmount Pools, bought out my partner Ted and moved to Midland to focus 100% on the spa parts.
The market had been growing and the pressures of being in a seasonal retail business were hard. Also, I knew the spa parts distribution had huge potential and the pool service was taking my time away.
Lyn and I packed up our inventory and moved to Midland. We had been sailing out of Midland on weekends and holidays for 4 years and loved the area. It was a retreat from the pressures of retail. While we owned the pool store, we would lock the door at precisely 5 pm on a Saturday and hide behind the counter as customers still tried to come in after closing. The car would be packed and off we would go to Midland. It was time to get out of retail and Kitchener Waterloo.
We rented a single unit of 1500 square feet on William Street in April of 1997. Our house in Waterloo would not close until May. I would drive up early Monday morning and ship and receive product during the week. Lyn was home packing up and invoicing the dealers from what I had sent out. Our 1-800 phone numbers hadn’t changed. Most customers didn’t even know we moved. I stayed the first week in a motel in Midland that was so bad I slept in my clothes and wouldn’t take my shows off. After that, I convinced the Marina to launch our boat in the snow and ice so I could stay onboard during the week.
Our son was still in High School in Waterloo and continued until his year was finished.
As we drove down William Street with our trailer, the bearing seized a couple of hundred yards from the shop and we dragged it in. We were the Clampets coming to town! Lyn and I had no other income. We cashed in everything for the move and new startup. We forecasted we needed to sell $5000 of spa parts a week to break even.
We did just that our first year.
Every year after that, we doubled our sales.
The first year was amazing, living in this new small town, going out sailing during the week in the evening. We heard the icebreaker was coming in so we put the phones on hold and drove to the dock to watch.
The spa aftermarket service and supply was growing. Many dealers wanted to get in this new service but didn’t know how. For a few years, I travelled across Canada giving full day workshops. Lyn would organize a hotel with a conference room and arrange the lunch. I would set up working simulators and hold the workshops for 30 people at a time. Some cities sold out quickly and we would provide multiple days. We charged everyone for the workshops and did well with them. Each attendee would also become a new customer with a catalog of what and where to buy their parts. I also travelled to each coast giving the workshops with the help of the national association.
The parts we sold had large margins. We were good at hunting down obsolete parts which became worth more; still cheaper to repair a hot tub than replace it.
Most of our staff were local residents of Midland. Many had no experience but we created computer programs to identify the parts and assist our dealers with technical help on their job sites. As our daily orders increased, we developed systems using bar codes to expedite our shipping. Midland / Barrie is on the courier routes for Purolator, Fed Ex, Canpar and UPS. We advertised orders received by noon shipped the same day, no charge freight on orders of $200. In Ontario and Quebec, dealers received their orders the next day. This was a first for our industry.
We did well selling into Quebec. The hot tub market there was slower to get started but grew quickly. We already had our parts manuals for the tubs sold there. Being in Midland / Penetanguishene, we were fortunate to have several bilingual customer service and technical reps.
Back in Midland, as we kept growing our products and inventory, we expanded- renting more and more units in our building until we had to buy the building to use it all. Now we are up to 7500 feet.
Soon we started to outgrow our building on William St. We started to look for a bigger building but not much was available in town. Buildings were small shops, garages, or huge factories. For a few years, we chose to rent extra space We would have some of our large shipments delivered to our rental building in Port and shipped out our booking orders from there as well. Finally, in 2007, we purchased a warehouse at 201 Bay Street. It was 25,000 feet and ideal for our ‘pick and pack’ business. We needed to build the offices but the 8 loading doors made up for it. It also was a well built and clean building; hard to find in Midland
Our first full time year in 1997 saw sales of $250,000 and our last year owning the company, we hit over 8 million, 1 million in 1 month alone.
We constantly worked to build our pool parts and accessories but we have always been the spa parts supplier to the industry.
Our staff grew to 25 full time plus extra seasonal help in the summer.
We sold the business in 2013.
We had an offer from a competitor in 2010. The company was Northeastern Pool Distributors. We had a reasonable working relationship with the owner. It seemed like a good pairing as they were the up and coming pool distributor and we were the spa parts guys. The offer was good at 4.1 million but we could not agree on a letter of intent. There were others at Northeastern manipulating the deal. I finally called it off at the end of the season when I felt we were running out of time to prepare for the next year and I felt they weren’t willing to keep Central and its staff in Midland. At that time, I hired someone I knew from the industry to manage the company with the intention for him to purchase it later. That happened in June 2013 when he got funding from the BDC for the full purchase amount.
It was an easy transition. Rob had worked for us for two and a half years and was up to speed with the company and the staff. On June 30, the full amount from the sale was in our bank account and we walked out with no obligations. I still owned the building for a few more years until Rob bought that as well.
I was 58 at the time and thought it was a little early for me to retire but the value of the company was at its highest since I started it. The company had funded a substantial Independent Pension Plan for Lyn and I and while the company was making significant profits, we were able to move them each year to our Holding Company. Looking back, we feel we were fortunate to start Central Spa at the right time. A few years prior, there was no demand for the parts. A few years later, we might have been chasing the competition. With the high margins and low costs, we were able to fund our growth from our profits and keep up with the demand. Other competitors did not see the scale of replacement parts as we excelled at servicing that market.
The Wolfhards 