Jerry Wallace Has a Question for You: “Show Me”
The Talking Pools TOP TEN Mentor has spent nearly five decades learning the pool business, teaching the next generation, and refusing to let a calcium nodule become a convenient excuse to blame the service pro.
When a plaster contractor tells Jerry Wallace that the pool service company caused a problem, Jerry Wallace has a simple response: “Show me.”
He might arrive with a small rolling suitcase full of technical references. He will listen to the explanation. Then he will ask how the evidence supports it. After almost 50 years in pool service, Wallace has learned that confidence is useful, but a mechanism you can demonstrate is better.
Jerry Wallace emphasizes the importance of evidence in the pool service industry.
Listen to Natalie Hood’s interview with Jerry Wallace here:
That habit helps explain why Wallace is one of the Talking Pools Podcast’s 2026 TOP TEN Mentors. He is president of Swim Chem, a Northern California service company with more than 4,200 accounts. Yet in his conversation with Natalie Hood, he sounded less interested in listing credentials than in making sure the next pool professional knows how to ask a better question.
This is why Jerry Wallace believes in teaching the next generation of pool professionals.
Similar Article: Why Test my Pool for Calcium Hardness ❔
The family business, and the question that changed it
Wallace’s father worked in plastering, concrete decking, and excavation before starting a pool service business in 1970 in search of steadier year-round income. Jerry spent summers helping and began running a route when he turned 16. He has been in the industry since 1977.
The pivotal lesson was not about a test kit. As his father prepared to step back, he asked Jerry whether he truly wanted to take on the business. Jerry had seen the demands up close. He discussed the decision with his family, accepted the responsibility, and helped grow the company.
His father was his first mentor. Former General Pool Supply owner Phil Gillhouse became a trusted business sounding board. Wallace also credits years of conversations about chemistry and plaster with Kim Skinner, Que Hales, and Doug Latta of OnBalance. Even now, he seeks out people whose judgment he respects. Being named a mentor has not made him stop needing mentors of his own.
The calcium nodule argument
Wallace’s favorite example of “show me” comes from a recently replastered pool in the Livermore area. It had roughly 18 to 20 calcium nodules. According to Wallace, the plaster contractor attributed them to the pool’s water chemistry, pointing to a calcium hardness reading around 510 ppm. The proposed response was to remove the visible nodules and drain half the pool to lower calcium hardness.
Jerry Wallace found this situation particularly challenging.
Wallace suspected a different cause. When the water level was lowered, the homeowner tapped around the former nodule locations and heard hollow areas behind many of them. At Wallace’s suggestion, the homeowner recorded the sounds so the contractor could hear the difference between hollow and solid sections. After seeing that evidence, Wallace said, the contractor agreed to replaster the pool at no charge.
Jerry Wallace advocates for thorough inspections before making claims.
The distinction matters. Calcium scale and a calcium nodule may have similar chemistry, but Wallace says their paths to the surface differ. Scale can deposit more broadly when water conditions favor precipitation. A nodule is localized. In the mechanism he described, a crack or pinhole lets pool water enter a void behind the plaster. That trapped water reacts with the plaster, then carries calcium-rich material back through the opening, where a deposit forms. The fact that a deposit contains calcium does not, by itself, prove that high calcium hardness in the pool caused it.
For Jerry Wallace, understanding the mechanics behind the problem is crucial.
His advice is practical: Jerry Wallace suggests testing and documenting the water, inspecting the pattern of the deposits, and investigating the surface before accepting a diagnosis.
Jerry Wallace encourages professionals to learn and grow in their roles.
“Stand up for yourselves,” he told service professionals. For Wallace, that means earning the expertise to do it: learn the chemistry, use reliable technical resources, and ask the person making a claim to explain the mechanism.
More about Jerry and his TEAM: Meet the Swim Chem Team
A mentor who likes being challenged
Wallace’s approach to mentorship grew partly from sports. He coached his children, then continued coaching girls’ softball after they aged out. The lessons he cared about most were responsibility and teamwork. At Swim Chem, he applies the same idea to training: pass along what you know, make room for questions, and leave the work in better hands.
The mentee he names with the most pride is his son. Wallace readily admits that his son has stronger hands-on technical and automation skills. That admission says plenty about the kind of mentor he is. A successful student is allowed to surpass the teacher.
He welcomes a challenge from someone who wants to understand. What frustrates him is the search for a shortcut or just enough information to shift responsibility elsewhere. Signs in Swim Chem’s shop and office remind the staff that there are no shortcuts in the business. Hard work, questions, listening, and continued education are the route forward. Wallace even wishes he had pursued more formal study himself, while making clear that he never stopped learning.
Jerry Wallace believes that mentorship is key to success.
He sees younger professionals bringing impressive technology into the industry. His test for a new tool is straightforward: show that it works reliably at the scale of a 4,200-pool operation. He applies similar scrutiny to manufacturers. New pumps may be excellent, he says, but service technicians also need equipment that fits the cramped pads of older pools. He wants those technicians in the conversation with the engineers making design decisions.
What a good year looks like
Wallace closed the interview with the business measure his father taught him. Before examining the profit and loss statement, the family asked three questions: Did we take care of the family? Did we take care of the employees? Did we take care of the customers? If the answers were yes, it was a good year. A profit made it a really good one; a loss meant figuring out how to improve the bottom line without sacrificing those three groups.
By following his father’s lessons, Jerry Wallace aims for a balanced approach to business.
That is a demanding definition of success, especially at the size Swim Chem has reached. It also explains the TOP TEN Mentor recognition better than a list of accomplishments could. Wallace wants pool professionals to know their work, defend it with evidence, respect the people who depend on them, and keep learning long enough to teach somebody else.
Jerry Wallace wants to instill these values in future generations of pool professionals.
And if the explanation still does not add up? Ask Jerry’s favorite question: “Show me.”
Ultimately, Jerry Wallace’s advice rings true: “Show me.”
Based on Jerry Wallace’s interview with Natalie Hood on the Talking Pools Podcast. The Livermore case and technical interpretation are Wallace’s account from that interview.
