As an ambitious college student finishing up two majors and looking forward to the prospect of law school, Jerry Hammerschmidt reached a fork in the road.

He needed to make a decision he’d been putting off: Should he take over the business that his father created almost from scratch? The company that provided his family an enviable living for more than three decades, albeit in a relatively obscure industry? Or does he go into a field that has inspired storytelling through the ages and reflexively trips off the tongue to signify status and upward mobility?

Upon entering college, he stood clearly in the latter camp. Having had many friends with doctors and lawyers for parents, he saw college as a way to evolve past the industry of his father. But that outlook chipped away as he worked toward his degree.

“The way I looked at the pool and spa industry wasn’t as respectful as this business deserved,” recalls the operations manager and co-owner of Cleveland-area-based High-Tech Pools. “But as I got out and met people from different walks of life, I realized how amazing it is — how rare and interesting a business, where we get to work hard, see ourselves accomplish something, and meet a lot of interesting people, whether employees or customers, of all levels and income brackets.”

As a student of business, he also saw the financial potential. For one thing, the work can’t be offshored or done with AI. “I learned to respect all that as I got older,” he says. “It was like a coming-of-age moment where college really brought me a lot of respect for the business and helped me see the opportunity that I was passing up by walking away from it.”

So there he sat with this appreciation that had gradually accumulated with maturity. He hadn’t yet made his decision. But reading the history of a well-known manufacturer firmly tipped the scale.

“The same family had owned [the company] since the 1400s or 1500s, and [their packaging] showed a direct lineage of the names of the owners all the way back to that date,” Hammerschmidt says. “At that point, I thought, ‘I can choose to give up this long lineage and be a suit who just argues for other people who have businesses … I’d be giving up an opportunity that’s very rare on this earth.”

With that shift, he set a new objective: “My goal is to see this thing reach 100 years of my family building pools.”

A deep history

In 1958, the original iteration of the company was established by Hammerschmidt’s grandfather, also called Jerry, and great uncle, Joe. In the mid 1980s, Jeff Hammerschmidt — son of one elder Jerry and father of the younger — bought the firm’s assets and rebranded the company.

After the Great Recession, Jeff Hammerschmidt was ready to slow down. The timing was perfect: In 2010, his son graduated from Ursinus College in Philadelphia, double majoring in politics and business management, minoring in international relations and economics.

Having chosen a career in the family business, Jerry Hammerschmidt began preparing to take over. He spent the first few years in the field, then came to the office and served as warehouse manager for a time before becoming operations manager in 2017. Making twice-yearly payments toward ownership, with the amount based on his earnings during the payment period, he expects to become majority owner in just a few months, and sole owner in the next three to five years. Jeff remains with the company part-time, with most of his time devoted to sales.

Throughout the company’s history, each generation has at least doubled its size and broadened its scope. Jeff Hammerschmidt expanded from seasonal to year-round construction, grew the staff from a handful of crews to approximately 25, at least doubled the number of units built each year, and added a pool service division. Since his son began steering the company, it has more than doubled in revenue to more than $10 million and added new types of pools to its repertoire.

With the company firmly surpassing the realm of mom-and-pop operation, and with Jerry Hammerschmidt’s business background, the firm’s evolutionary goals are largely set on increasing efficiency and setting up the system to accommodate more growth.

Breaking in

Of course, passing the company to the next generation entailed a gradual process. It took time, patience and persistence for Jeff and Jerry to find their rhythm as a partnership, with one letting go of responsibilities to prepare the next to take over. Considering their different backgrounds and temperaments, they didn’t always see eye to eye.

“It took a few years for both of us to get on a level with each other where we both understood that we are each other’s best friend and perfect business partner,” Jerry Hammerschmidt says.

They’ve reached that point where they can listen to each other. “We didn’t appreciate the benefits of each other until we worked arm-in-arm, and our relationship has only gotten better.”

Over time, they learned to hear each other out and give each other the benefit of the doubt, at least assuming that the other had a solid reason for their opinion, rather than dismissing it. Witnessing each other’s successes through the years has helped. (Having Jerry’s mother and Jeff’s wife, Carolyn Hammerschmidt, around to occasionally play gentle referee didn’t hurt.)

Getting through the breaking-in period required a good amount of perspective. “I think the one crux of the matter is that we love each other dearly, and we weren’t going to let pools hurt our relationship,” Jerry Hammerschmidt says. “I think some people end up … so stuck in their egos that they’re willing to let things blow up.”

Earning trust

As the owner’s child, Jerry Hammerschmidt had to get buy-in from employees, some of whom had been around for more than 20 years. A critical part of accomplishing this was showing he had their backs.

For instance, he makes it a point to stand up for crews if they face mistreatment from a general contractor. While the team is perfectly able to handle such situations themselves, Hammerschmidt says, “It was different when they saw me going out of my way to protect them.”

Over time, the staff needs to be convinced that the new owner not only is competent but has the company’s best interest at heart, Hammerschmidt says. At first, he faced some resistance from long-time staffers when introducing new ideas. After all, they’d helped build the company up, too, so they were invested in its success.

“It only took a few of [my initiatives] for them to start realizing, ‘This guy has our best interest at heart. He’s not looking to just piggy back on this business we spent years building,’   ” he says.

But new owners or owners-in-training also must stand their ground when introducing new ideas to those used to how things have been done in the past. “It’s about ... being able to continue to push, even when the whole room’s telling you you’re wrong, and the guy who’s been here 35 years goes, ‘No, never going to work,’ ” he says.

In Hammerschmidt’s case, it took five to eight years.

“You persevere and, before you know it … [you reach] the point where they trust you to solve their problems.”