Builder Rivalry Tempered By 3 Wishes

Kathryn Howard Headshot
Leah's family pose with pool builders Cory Eagles and Brad Cross
Leah's family pose with pool builders Cory Eagles and Brad Cross

Like many pool and spa businesses, Eagles Pool Services (Moncton, New Brunswick) has a local rival: Waterworks Pools & Spas. Regularly bidding for the same jobs is enough to create a sense of competition between firms, but according to Eagles Pool Services owner Cory Eagles, there’s a shared history, to boot. Years before, Eagles worked for Brad Cross, Waterworks’ project manager, before starting his own company.

“We were both young at the time,” Eagles says. “Probably didn’t leave on the best circumstances.”

When Children’s Wish Foundation International, an organization that grants wishes to ill children and their families, announced plans to fulfill three wishes for swimming pools, both Cross and Eagles stepped up to help. 

“We found out that we where both working on doing the same project,” Eagles says. “We knew we could provide a better deal if we worked together, and so we did!”

Both teams set out to contact suppliers and manufacturers for donations to keep costs down. Latham provided 24-foot-round onground pool kits at substantially reduced cost; Hayward provided pumps and filters and Jandy donated salt systems. 

The plan was to divide and conquer. Eagles built one pool, Waterworks built the second and both worked on the third, intended for a little girl named Leah. When the project was completed, both teams gathered for the big reveal; Leah had been away at camp during construction.

“When she got home, we were waiting for her,” Cross says. “She pretty well ran in the house, put on a bathing suit, sprinted outside and wasn’t interested in talking to any of us or the newspaper or the radio station. She was in the pool, and that was exactly as I would have thought it would be. It was pretty great.”

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As anyone who has joined in a team effort to help someone else can attest, there is a certain undeniable power at work. Eagles said simply, “It was kind of a big step to put everything aside so the kids could get what they needed.”

Would they be willing to team up again?

“Absolutely,” Cross says. “It was a fantastic experience for our crews.” 

 

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