ven the biggest companies sometimes have to start small.
Take, for example, one of the top builders on the Pool & Spa News 100 (No. 3 Builder). Phoenix-based Shasta Industries began 36 years ago as a three-man operation.
In its first year, the company built 25 pools. But after that, it grew exponentially. In its second and third years, the number of pools grew to 235, then 535. By 1969, the number had grown to more than 900, says Shasta CEO Skip Ast, who joined the company one year after his brother, Robert, founded it with a local home builder.
Today, pool building comprises only one division in the company. Shasta also manufactures automatic pool cleaners and deck coatings, and runs a retail operation, a commercial pool division and a customer-care division. This all takes a staff just shy of 600 — not to mention a disciplined business plan, including strategy meetings every other week.
To help recruit and maintain its large staff, Shasta hired a full-time trainer in the mid-’90s.
Before then, Shasta had been sending employees to outside seminars for this kind of training. But the costs added up until they were about equal to a full-time salary. Now, with a dedicated full-time trainer, Shasta ensures that all employees receive the same messages and information without losing a whole day to go off-site.
Individual division managers still train for basic job skills. But the trainer conducts seminars on subjects such as Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, as well as communication and how to develop synergy within the organization. And everyone goes in for this kind of ongoing training from time to time, from the field crews to Ast himself.
In Ast’s mind, this kind of work is at least as important as product issues, such as quality of craftsmanship. “I have always felt that we’re in the people business first, then in the pool business second,” he says. “Because the pool business will never be any better than the people you have harnessed to it, and the synergy that you develop from them.”
