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One of the enduring knocks against the pool and spa industry has long been what many see as a lack of quality educational opportunities. It's certainly true that there is no four-year college degree in aquatic design and construction, for example, which I've always viewed as one of the industry's primary challenges when it comes to establishing benchmarks for professionalism, as well as attracting young people to the industry.
Yet when you step back and look at the industry's educational offerings outside of traditional academia, one can make an argument that there are many venues available for learning. Fact is, just about all of our industry's associations and major manufacturers offer training, and many people in our industry take advantage of those opportunities. I could easily compile a long list of professionals I know who continue to improve their technical skill sets, business acumen and overall level of knowledge. Perhaps it's no coincidence those same people are consistently among the most successful and do the most outstanding work.
But it's up to each of us to figure out what we need to know and how to find it, and those choices are critical. To see an example of what I mean, check out Mark Holden's most recent story, "The School of UV." I've known Mark for close to 20 years now and consider him among my most trusted sources and confidents within the industry. He's a really smart guy, a builder and designer of the highest caliber who is also a degreed landscape architect.
Yet, for all of his accomplishments and education, Mark is also smart enough to recognize when he needs to upgrade his mental tool belt. In his discussion, he candidly reveals that even though he'd been specifying UV systems for many of his projects, there were a number of aspects of the technology he did not fully understand. Rather than stand pat with his incomplete UV knowledge, he sought to master this technology for the sake of his clients.
Along the way Mark shares a number of technical specifics about UV technology, which in of itself can be helpful for those who likewise would like to know more. Beyond that, he offers a great example of what it means to find the holes in one's own knowledge and then take action to fill them.
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