Pool Scouts, a Virginia Beach, Va.-based pool-service company, is welcoming the New Year with four new franchise locations scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2018.
Locations in Hilton Head/Savannah, Ga., and Pensacola, Fla., are scheduled to open on February 1, followed by a Dallas location opening on March 1 and a Long Island, NY, location opening on April 1. These openings bring the total number of Pool Scouts franchise operations up to eight, plus a corporate location in Virginia Beach. The New York and Georgia businesses mark Pool Scouts’ first forays into these respective states.
The new regions were chosen because of their high concentration of residential pool owners, said Michael Wagner, president of Pool Scouts.
The new franchise owners come from a variety of business backgrounds. John Seery, who will be running the Long Island location, operates a nursery/landscape business and purchased all three territories in Long Island—the maximum number of territory purchases that are allowed by Pool Scouts franchisees. Ray Marinaccio, a former New York City-based prosecutor, will be heading up the Hilton Head/Savannah territory, and also purchased Pool Scouts locations in Charleston, S.C., and Augusta, Ga. The latter locations are scheduled to open in 2019 and 2010 respectively. Mike Blake, who will be running the Dallas location, is converting the pool service business he owned into a Pool Scouts franchise. Amy Kate Kuniyoshi, who will be heading up the Pensacola location, served in the military and is a scuba dive master.
“We really feel like we [hit] home runs with all of the new candidates that have come on board,” said Wagner.
Pool Scouts is still concentrating on its initial plans to focus on opening stores in Southern states as well as the West Coast, specifically Texas, Florida, California and Arizona. The business is also pushing to open locations in densely populated metropolitan pool markets, said Wagner.
