Behind every successful business is a smart, capable office manager.

At Payan Pool Service, that person is Valerie Venegas.

After nearly 20 years in nonprofit administration, Venegas sought a new challenge in the for-profit world where she could affect change for the better.

October marks her second anniversary at the Santee, Calif.-based service company, but she’s made a sizable impact on the 2022 Top 50 Service company in that short time. Her achievements include implementing a new health benefits plan, giving the employee handbook a long overdue update, rolling out a new software program, streamlining operations, and improving morale.

Reaching for new vistas

Venegas’ transition to the pool industry wasn’t as jarring as you might think.

“The background and training I had from the nonprofit world are pretty much the same thing: Supervising staff, managing budgets, purchasing, HR activities,” she says. “It was very transferable to any company you might go to.”

Her ability to translate government contracts, which she learned in her previous role, enabled Payan Pool Service to take on a different kind of project, thus expanding its market.

Before joining Payan, Venegas was a program administrator for Episcopal Community Services. Among other things, this organization provides marriage and family therapists to conduct behavioral evaluations on behalf of county agencies such as schools and child protective services. For Venegas, that involved sifting through reams of requests for proposals (RFPs) from public agencies.

Government contracts can be intimidating, requiring substantially more paperwork than your typical civilian job. That’s one reason the firm’s president and CEO, Javier Payan, hesitated to pursue a maintenance contract at Coronado Naval Air Station, despite its repeated requests for a bid. Thankfully, interpreting government RFPs is second nature to Venegas.

The naval contract was immense, calling for the maintenance of multiple bodies of water, including a million-gallon training pool for SEALs, at the historic airbase. The project came during a nationwide chlorine crisis — another reason Payan wasn’t sure he wanted the job.

But it became apparent that the company’s expertise was sorely needed at the base. The condition of the training pool was so poor that complaints reached all the way to the Pentagon. With Venegas overseeing the correspondence, Payan Pool Service won the contract.

More naval work came Payan’s way. In October of last year, his team remodeled a pool at Naval Base Point Loma.

Payan says he couldn’t have done it without Venegas.

“It’s nice to have someone like her who’s so detail-oriented, who understands these things,” Payan says. “There is no way in creation I would’ve entertained these jobs otherwise.”

Improving company culture

Venegas proved instrumental in many other initiatives.

Among her first priorities was providing a more robust benefits package, including health and retirement plans. Now, about half of the team is covered under the company’s health insurance, she says.

This not only helped retain talent, but also served as an effective recruiting tool in a challenging job market.

There was also the matter of the long-neglected company handbook, which hadn’t been revised since 2016. Many statewide mandates had passed since then to address health, safety and access issues. Venegas updated the employee manual to reflect those changes and included accommodations for lactation and other crucial policies.

Also on her punch list: Upgrading the company’s antiquated software system, long a desire of Payan’s.

“He tried to do this on his own but didn’t have the support personnel to help him roll it out,” Venegas says.

For years, office staff used a combination of programs, including QuickBooks, to handle all functions of the business, from scheduling jobs to billing and receiving. Last year, Venegas shopped for a solution to consolidate and streamline office operations. Next came the sizable undertaking of transferring the company’s data into the new system, which required the support of temp staff to meet a tight January 2022 deadline.

She wasn’t done yet. There was also the matter of vague job descriptions, which resulted in overlapping duties between office staff. Venegas defined roles in detail, created an accounts receivable position, and hired two more office personnel, dedicating one to assist the repair manager and another to Payan. Today, everyone knows what’s expected, and support staff are much more efficient, she says.

“By doing so, we were able to hire more staff and get more jobs that would challenge [Payan] and get into new fields,” Venegas says.

Morale is up, too. Venegas gets a kick out of surprising staff with spontaneous barbecue lunches, group outings to San Diego Padres games, Christmas parties and gift cards, among other efforts to make the company’s 25 employees feel valued and appreciated.

Finally, Payan says, he has a company culture that reflects his values: “She came in and set the stage.”