….this time to the Coachella Valley, the Desert, and San Diego!
As part of our working non-service week, we planned a two day CPO “Road Trip” to seek out new teaching locations in Riverside County (specifically, in the desert area somewhere).
So we took off early yesterday and headed through Riverside County to the Coachella Valley, stopping first at the SCP office in Riverside and the Superior office in Grand Terrace to leave CPO class schedules and registration forms. By the way, our next class is in Riverside, June 5-6, 2009…..and there’s still room for more students, if you are thinking about signing up!
We headed to the desert next, BUT our first stop was to visit with Steve Little, President and CEO of Hire Standards Pool Maintenance. What an impressive, enthusiastic and dynamic young man he is–WOW!! He was truly an inspiration to listen to as his story unfolded about how he got into the pool service business and how he has become so successful! Steve Little has over 1,000 residential pool customers and his business is growing so fast that he has recently moved into a brand new facility and is wanting his staff of 40 to obtain their credentials as Certified Pool Operator!! So after having lunch with Steve (by the way, Steve–thanks again for lunch!) ….
We headed up the road to Indio where, we visited with Dave Barfuss, the Superior Branch Manager, and he showed us around and was very happy to help us advertise and hold CPO classes at his facility. Dave is standing by to hold classes there whenever we’re ready, but he did suggest that we head west to Superior’s Palm Desert store and talk to Renee Nelson (National Pool Tile Branch Manager).
By this time of day, the temperatures had risen to 95 degrees (summer arrived early in the desert, according to Dave–and we could feel it!)….. AND it was getting late and we weren’t sure we were going to make it to Palm Desert before closing. But when we arrived at Superior, we found Renee hard at work in her NPT office. She showed us their huge tile showroom that she says has had as many as 50 in attendance for other teaching seminars! Wow!–we were blown away! She was so accommodating, saying that the upcoming summer months would be a perfect time to schedule classes, and that she and her staff would even set up the room for us! Thanks, Renee!!–You are awesome!! Since Palm Desert is in between Indio and Palm Springs and since the showroom is so wonderful, Steve and I decided that we HAD to hold class there. So the next step is to confirm dates with Renee, re-do our CPO class schedule, and get the new ones out to all the SCP and Superior locations pronto!
BUT first we had to go to the San Diego Superior store this morning to meet Brett DeVanna (Branch Manager) and see their beautiful store and office. Brett was very excited about us holding CPO classes at his facility. He took us upstairs and showed us their very nice meeting room space and break room accommodations, also offering to help us in any way possible!
A HUGE thanks goes to SCP and Superior! Because of their gracious support of our CPO classes, we will soon have five (5) teaching locations in:
- Canoga Park (L.A. County)
- Orange (Orange County)
- San Diego (San Diego county)
- Riverside (Riverside County) and
- Palm Desert (Riverside County)
Stay tuned for future updates on classes in these locations!!
After stopping by Torrey Pines Lodge for a superb lunch at A. R. Valentien restaurant (did you know it was recently rated top 10 restaurant in San Diego?), we headed back home in the rain to get back to work! More details to follow…..