The industry recently lost one of its manufacturing pioneers.

Oscar Davis, the long-time owner and CEO of Hayward Pool Products who elevated it into a Big 3 manufacturer, passed away Feb. 25, shortly after celebrating his 95th birthday.

Davis not only transformed Hayward from a small metal plumbing fabrication company into one of the largest pool/spa products producers in the U.S. He left an impact throughout the industry, as an early adopter of plastics.

Post-war ambitions

Davis entered the industry after serving in World War II. As an immigrant who had moved to New York from Hungary at 3 years old, Davis spoke German, English and Hungarian. Because of this, he was asked to remain overseas for about two years after the end of the war to help relocate displaced individuals.

Upon his return to the U.S., he completed his training as a machinist at Brooklyn Tech, a vocational high school.

One of his first jobs placed him on the road to plastics. He served as a machinist at a tiny shop in Manhattan, which made specialty fittings out of hard rubber, the predecessor of plastics. When the owner retired, Davis’ entrepreneurial spirit kicked in: He took a loan, purchased a few machines and began a similar business.

Though hard rubber held up well against harsh chemicals, it wasn’t a pleasant material. For one thing, it was relatively smelly. So Davis began to explore thermoplastics such as PVC and polypropylene.

“From that little starting point, he gained a lot of experience in the various newly developed and commercialized industrial thermoplastics,” says Robert Davis, Oscar’s son, who served as Hayward’s CEO from 2002 to 2017.

The Oscar Davis Company thrived, making the plastic valves and fittings that became increasingly popular as a replacement for their more expensive metallic counterparts. Larger companies became interested in plastics, causing one in particular to begin consolidating the industry through a series of acquisitions. In 1960, at age 35, Davis sold his firm.

Though he remained with the company, it didn’t last long. “He was a very independent guy, had his own mindset about how things should work,” Robert Davis says. “They promised him everything would be the same, but after about six months, he realized that was not the case, and he left. He did very well financially selling the company, but he was a young man, full of energy.”

Second chapter

A non-compete agreement limited Davis’ short-term options, so he decided to find a job at a machine shop in a different industry. A friend pointed him to another smallish shop, this one in Brooklyn and working in metal.

The owner, Irving Hayward, was looking to retire. As the younger Davis recalls, the shop still looked like it probably had when it was founded in the 1920s. “I remember when I was a young boy, going in the offices, and it looked like a scene out of a 1930s or 1940s movie,” Robert Davis says. “The accountants had little visors on their heads, with the bands on their arms to hold their shirts up.”

In 1964, Oscar Davis purchased the company, whose offerings included pool products — scaled-down versions of similar equipment used in the water treatment business, and likely made from molds custom-made for specific installations.

Davis immediately had ambitions to grow the company significantly from the 35-to-40-person operation it was back then. With pool products still largely custom-made at the time, he saw their mass production as a path to that expansion.

“I think he had a natural talent for sensing business opportunities,” Robert Davis says. “He was very ambitions. It was just in his DNA.”

Davis also was adept at drawing highly skilled and motivated employees and assembling a good team, his son says.

“Aside from his ambition, intelligence and creativity, he had a really wonderful personality that attracted people,” Robert Davis says. “I go back to what I call the secret sauce: It was him. People liked him — customers, colleagues, employees, competitors. He had a charisma that was genuine that you couldn’t not like.”

In the 38 years that he served as CEO, Oscar Davis put the company on track to have its current profile. He drastically expanded its offerings, largely through acquisitions, until it offered virtually everything needed for a pool and spa.

Hayward made big news earlier this year when it launched its initial public offering and joined the stock market. But this wasn’t the first time the company went public. One to avoid loans if possible, Oscar Davis placed the company on the stock market for a short period of time in 1969 so he could raise capital for additional plants and injection molding equipment.

“That’s when the growth really started rapidly increasing,” Robert Davis says.

After a few years, he delisted the company and bought back the shares.

“He was very motivated for growth and very astute at running a very efficient manufacturing organization,” Robert Davis says.

Looking back

Davis stepped down as CEO in 2002, when his son took the helm. The elder Davis served as co-chairman until 2017, when the Davis family sold to private equity.

Robert Davis largely credits the success of Hayward to his father’s manufacturing capabilities, which helped him create an efficient operation: “At the heart of my father’s real skill, he was very, very astute at manufacturing. I think he inherited that skill and DNA from his father,” who was a successful toolmaker.

He also held a conservative but growth-oriented approach to running his companies. He never took money out of the company, Robert Davis says, but always used profits to fund further growth.

While Davis could be frugal in certain areas, he was always open to an expansion opportunity or idea, Robert Davis says. “As far as it being growth-oriented, there was nothing that was an obstacle,” he says. “There was a joke that if you wanted to spend $100 for a new desk, forget it. But if you want to spend $1 million for a new machine, you got it. The adage was, ‘Furniture doesn’t make money.’”

That helped retain employees like Robert Davis, who worked with his father for 42 years. “The company was always growing so fast that, whatever you were doing today, there was always something new tomorrow,” he says.

Outside interests

For his accomplishments, Davis gained recognition outside the industry. He gained an honorary degree from the Israel Institute of Technology for “his commitment to engineering and support for technology that advances innovative research.” He also received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which recognizes the contributions made in the U.S. by immigrants and their descendants.

Davis was recognized for his collection of rare vintage European sports cars. While in Europe for World War II, he acquired a taste for European cars and began collecting them as a fairly young man. “Back in the early-to-mid 1950s, that was very unusual,” Robert Davis says. His collection grew to 50 and is known as one of the best in the world.