Grant Smith doesn’t seem attracted to the path of least resistance.
Take his choice of military branch. The president of Aqua-Link Pools and Spas in Carlsbad, Calif. went with the Marine Corps, serving from 1989 to 1994. Then there’s his most recent accomplishment: being named the newest builder to become a Genesis Society of Watershape Designers Master.
It was the Marines that brought Smith to the Golden State. Born in Battle Creek, Mich., he spent his childhood in Greenville, S.C. Then most of his military service took place at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Calif.
When he left the Corps, Smith planned to remain in Southern California and become an Orange County Sheriff. But a bankruptcy forced the department to institute a hiring freeze, closing that door to Smith. But another door opened: A family member built pools and wanted a service technician whom he could trust enough to refer for start-ups and repairs. Smith promptly started his own company.
But after only three years, he wanted to learn more, so he sold his service route and focused on renovations and more extensive commercial repairs. It didn’t take long for restlessness to set in again. “After about 2004, I got the building bug,” he said.
Smith gained his California pool builders license and, as most do, began with simpler projects. But soon after, he hit an especially hard time and needed to push through.“Within a month of the recession hitting, I had a personal tragedy — my first wife had terminal cancer,” he said. “For me, it was like looking back and just surviving in that moment. The next couple years were really tough.”
The confluence of crises forced a moment of clarity. It came gradually, but completely crystallized one afternoon while Smith was on a job site.
“I was just working on an average pool, with a spa on the end and some concrete around it,” he said. “I was just looking at it, going, ‘This is not what I want to do. I want to do perimeter-overflow pools and all the really nice, intricately detailed, kind of crazy jobs that you see in magazines. I have to find a way to get up to that level.”
In practical terms, he figured working on high-end projects would make him more recession-proof. But losing his wife also showed how short life can be and motivated him to follow his calling.
Smith went on to gain his California landscape license before going on track to become a Genesis Master.
Now, Smith mostly builds for architects and landscape architects, so he can focus on the technical side of things, which is his true forte. He joins a long line of high-end builders who started in service and repair. He believes those roots made him a better contractor.
“As a service guy, you see everything that goes wrong,” he said. “I’m used to seeing things that happened … maybe it was built 10 years ago and now I get to see it 10 years later. I can see what works and what didn’t work. I think that’s why a lot of service guys, when they get into building, want to be a little better than most.”
Smith caps his yearly volume at about 10 pools. This helps him adhere to a strict code he’s imposed on himself: Spend time at each job site every day to make sure the work is perfect, and communicate with each customer at least once a day so they always know the status of the job and can ask any questions. “That was the biggest complaint I would hear from homeowners: ‘My builder only shows up to collect the check,’”he explains.
His military past also helped him get where he is. He largely credits it for managerial, organizational and problem-solving abilities, in addition to sheer grit.
“It’s all in the details, and the details can kill you,” he said. “That’s something I learned from the Marines.”
