In the introduction to “The Water Quality Professional: transforming aquatic management,” author Steve Kenny leads with a provocative question: Have swimming pools become obsolete?
It’s an interesting opening salvo coming from the veteran builder, service tech and impassioned water-quality advocate. In some ways, he argues, pools are indeed obsolete — but in other ways, they never will be.
From there, Kenny spends the rest of the 230-page book telling his story and the many ways his experience has caused him to reimagine how swimming pools are built, chemically treated and managed. The book is basically a compendium of blog posts Kenny has written over the past two years. Woven together in book form, the narrative shifts from autobiography, to business philosophy, to technical description and back again all through a variety of perspectives.
“It’s more about the whys than the how-tos,” he says. “My goal in writing this book is to define my vision for how our industry can move forward into the future.”
An admitted chemistry nerd, Kenny bases much of his approach on his background as a gourmet chef, his career prior to joining the aquatic/pool and spa industry. He creatively compares treating water to the process of preparing fine French cuisine and takes pride in the water his treatments systems generate, which he sometimes refers to as “gourmet” water. Although not a technical manual per se, he does go into depth about his preferred treatment trio of ozone, UV and chlorine treatment, which he combines in his HydroZone 3 system, offered exclusively by his company SRK Modern Pool Systems in Wainscott, N.Y.
“We have the ability right now to create a superior aquatic experience,” he says. “We just have to find the wisdom and the will to turn that potential into reality. That’s why I wrote this book.”
"The Water Quality Professional: transforming aquatic management" is available on Amazon.