Hydropool: Our History to 2025

Hydropool celebrates its 45th anniversary in 2025. Our story is one of our clear commitment to building a better product and ensuring that families have a place to put the cel phones down and just spend time together and bond. We want our hot tubs and swim spas to be a place where people can connect. We wanted that 45 years ago and want it today. Here’s our history:

1972 - A young man named Dale Papke starts a residential and commercial pool business called Pool People. At the time, he thought he’d make a nice little family business for himself. What actually happened is that he had founded what would turn into Canada’s largest hot tub and swim spa company. With hard work and some serious business savvy, his collection of family and friends eventually became colleagues and partners as he grew the business through a combination of hard work, vision and good luck.

1975 – The ’70s weren’t just about bad fashion and long hair. Personal wellness began as a movement. New views on health began to replace the 1950s red meat and whisky diets of the past. Dale was exposed to a new wave of thinking on a visit to California. Jacuzzi had invented the indoor jetted tub there in 1968, and outdoor in-ground spas were developed throughout the decade. Dale was an early adopter, eagerly seeing the potential of new technology and lifestyle.

1978 – Dale opens California Spa Sauna and Bath, the first retail store in Canada to sell Jacuzzi. He also stocked a brand called Swan hot tubs – which you probably never heard of, and for reasons that will become clear very soon. He also decided to sell saunas, therapy baths and anything else that could help make happier, healthier people.

1980 – Swan Spas goes bankrupt. Instead of panicking that he lost a key supplier, Dale sees and then seizes an opportunity yet again. He snaps up the assets. Suddenly, he’s a manufacturer of hot tubs, swiftly shifting his place in the marker from seller to maker. Hydropool, in the form it is today, is born. The company begins manufacturing hot tubs, using the old Swan molds (they have an influence to this day, but they have long been replaced and improved upon). Also in this time, a young man named Lou Rodriques who is hired to work in the plumbing department. As a former restaurant maitre d with a European heritage his hiring would initially seem to be insignificant. But his eventual impact would change the company’s fortunes forever.  

1982 – Dale brings in his father Fred as partner. It’s fair to say that Dale had a knack for seeing the potential people had. Fred was a trained mechanical engineer. He immediately sets to work on improving the hot tubs. Notably, he does it the opposite way compared to how most companies approach hot tubs at the time. While other manufacturers begin with a bathtub and add jets, Fred starts with a commercial pool and shrinks it to size. He focuses on making sure it will be clean, safe and feature minimal maintenance, with jet placement that doesn’t just move water, but helps bodies heal. Realizing the process is unique in the market, the Papkes patent the method. The basic concept remains Hydropool’s self-cleaning system today.

Pictured: Dale and Fred Papke

1992 – Doug Gillespie, Hydropool’s current VP of Marketing, is hired to grow the retail store business, which eventually leads to a large portion of the modern Greater Toronto Hydropool dealer network. Dale realizes that Lou Rodriques is more than just a plumber and a great manager and is promoted to international sales manager. By 1995 with his knowledge of Europe and his ability to speak 5 languages,  Lou had opened up major markets in UK and France. Today Hydropool sells in more than 60 countries around the globe, focusing on Europe and North America.

Pictured: Doug Gillespie

 

1994 - Dave Jackson comes on as a partner in the Hydropool business with Dale and Fred.   Dave knows the brand because his parents owned a Hydropool hot tub, so the family focus of Hydropool remains intact with the shift. This was a booming period: Business grew at 50% a year for the first eight years after Dave’s arrival, and its employee base increased from 13 in 1995 to more than 200 by 2008. Only in his late 20s when he signed on, Dave was skilled at finding markets. He knew he had a good product to move: “Hot tubs were a consumer product that I understood well and felt I could market and sell easily, not like some obscure software that I wouldn’t have understood,” he would later tell a magazine writer in a profile.

Pictured: Dave Jackson

 

1995 – With the U.S. business growing to become a major market, today’s VP of Sales Tracy Hall is hired to expand Hydropool’s presence in the United States. Underneath the hot tub molds, the company advanced with new insulation models, eventually adopting its innovative triple-shield heating blanket method that allows waste heat from the hot tub’s pumps to be recycled inside the cabinet.

 

Pictured: Tracy Hall

1997 – The swim spa, a product that Hydropool quickly becomes known for, goes on sale around this time. Hydropool is among the very first in the world to offer it to customers, first in Canada and then around the world. A swim spa offers the relaxation of a hot tub with the ability to do everything you can do in a pool, with the bonus that it costs half as much and can be used year-round. Dave and Dale saw the early potential and just as they did with hot tubs, adapted early, becoming market leaders as a result.

1999 - Dave Jackson meets and convinces a major new Swedish retailer to come on board, with both realizing that a hot tub or swim spa built in Canada can stand up to the Swedish temperatures and is perfectly suited to the Scandinavian spa experience. To this day, Sweden is fourth among Hydropool’s major markets.

2005 - Hydropool purchases Clairazur, an eight-store retail chain in France from Stephane Barralis. A year later, Dan Love is hired to run the manufacturing facility as Hydropool. continues steady growth. Hydropool’s engineers tackle energy efficiency in subsequent years, building new low-voltage and evergreen pumps and more efficient thermal blankets

Pictured: Stephane Barralis

Pictured: Dan Love

2007 – Hydropool once again re-affirms its commitment to being a manufacturer first and foremost. It exits the retail sector by selling off its stores and commits completely to a dealer network of independent retailers, which today totals nearly 400 around the world. Hydropool also opens Service Plus, to service its hot tubs and swim spas and better support its dealers in the greater Toronto area.

 

2007 - Dave, Stephane, Dan, Tracy and Doug team up and buy Hydropool from Dale and Fred. The five weather significant headwinds together, including the major economic crash of 2008. The tough times continue through 2010. “We did what we had to do, and ended up with a healthy business, with a very strong and loyal team, after surviving that difficult time,” Dave told Smith Magazine, years later. The engineering developments do not stop. The company’s V-Twin jet, which creates Hydropool’s wide, stable and powerful swim spa current for people to swim into, receives its patent during this time.

2017 – The company is at a crossroads. Large enough to be a heavy hitter in the hot tub and swim spa industry but requiring significant capital to expand, Hydropool agrees to be purchased by Invest Industrial, a hot tub conglomerate which also owns Jacuzzi, the world’s largest hot tub maker. It remains independently operated to this day, with Stephane, Tracy, Dan and Doug leading the company in key roles. As for Dave? Give it just a few years: He shows up again. 

2020 – Hydropool builds a swim spa factory to handle the order through Covid-19. Demand for home products such as hot tubs and swim spas soars during this period. As for Dave? Hydropool’s Dave Jackson becomes CEO of all hot tub brands owned by Invest Industrial, including Hydropool and Jacuzzi, the world’s largest hot tub brand.

Pictured: Dave Jackson

2025 – Hydropool celebrates its 45th anniversary. Dave Jackson is named Invest Industrials  Chairman of the Board.

Hydropool’s approach today is as true today as it was 45 years ago. Hydropool was built by a family, for families. It does that by making the easiest to maintain hot tubs and the world’s best swim spas.

Our pace of life has changed from when we began. We know it’s harder to make connections than it once was. That’s why Hydropool today is intent on ensuring that its customers can make time for truly what matters, connecting with their family, friends and even having time for themselves.