The seas beckon for swimming pool industry veterans

Now that Dennis Baxter and Nelleke Gilhuys have sold Niagara Pool Supplies to Pool Systems, they can look back on their time in the industry as well as looking forward to a well-deserved retirement making models, flying historic aeroplanes and cruising the world.

Baxter’s journey to the Australian pool and spa industry started in the latter stages of World War II, when he followed his father to Oak Ridge Tennessee where he was working on the atomic bomb. After the war was won, they returned to Liverpool, England, but his father thought prospects were better in Australia. He came south and headed up the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, eventually becoming vice chancellor of the University of New South Wales.

Baxter went to school at Canterbury High with John Howard, went on an exchange student program to the Soviet Union, and finally studied architecture at UNSW, becoming one of the few people to have his university degree signed by his father.

He married and had three children. Then tragedy struck.

“My wife died very young of cancer, and I was left with a seven-year-old, a five-year-old and an 18-month-old. It was quite a shock to the system. But I was lucky that my parents were living next door, and I struggled on.

“Then in 1986, as Nelleke says, she picked me up in a bar in Sydney.”

Joining the industry

“I got involved in the pool and spa industry during the 1989/90 recession,” says Baxter. “When there’s a recession, architects have very little to do. So I thought I’d look around and found a small company with two employees called Niagara Pool Supplies.”

Business was good. Each year the company grew by between 15 per cent and 20 per cent, and by the time they sold the business, they were making the same amount of money in one month that they did in the whole of the first year.

“It was so successful I never went back to being an architect. I quite enjoyed dealing with people. They’d come in with a pump that had failed or something and I’d happily pull it to bits.”

A major milestone came when Onga closed their Sydney office and handed all their small customers over to Niagara.

“That was very good for us. And we’ve had a good relationship with Onga – and now Pentair of course – ever since.”

“Pentair was our biggest relationship,” says Gilhuys. “So we always made it clear to Davey, AstralPool and all the others that if a customer rings up and says they want a pump, we’ll ask if they want any particular one – and if they say they don’t care, we’d give them the best deal on Pentair. But if they named something specific we’d give them that and not try to talk them out of it.

“We had a special deal with Pentair and everybody knew that.”

Another business highlight was when the new owners of Spa Electrics agreed to his suggestion to do a retro-fit light. “Kevin and Gary thought it was a great idea, and Spa Electrics sales went through the roof after that.”

About 15 years ago, Baxter became involved with SPASA NSW as treasurer, a position he held until he resigned in 2014.

“That time covered both the first and second attempts to form a national SPASA,” he says. “The first attempt came to pieces with differences of opinion between New South Wales and Victoria basically, and that was what killed the second attempt as well. I still think it’s a good idea but from what I hear it may be faltering again. They’d do far better to work together.”

Meanwhile, the business continued to grow. The first small unit in Bankstown was replaced by a larger one in Regents Park and then an even larger one in Silverwater, which unfortunately burnt down in May 2003.

The Silverwater warehouse was famous for housing Baxter’s dramatic restoration project – a Percival Provost aircraft. When the fire brigade came, they thought the fire had been started by the plane crashing into the building. However, one of the firemen had connections in the pool industry and set the rest of them straight about the plane.

By the time they eventually sold the business, they’d moved to a 3000m2 warehouse in Parramatta where they could house their nearly 10,000 line items.

What the future holds

Over the years Baxter has seen the industry slowly mature on the back of improved education and training. He sees the likelihood of greater convergence and vertical integration in the industry, which is likely to shake up the existing channels. He also sees a major challenge in successfully marketing the healthy, active choice of swimming pools against the modern trend for passive electronic games.

On the association side, he hopes the amalgamation of the state SPASAs will be successful.

“I hope they keep the federal thing going. And if they do, New South Wales will obviously be one of the key states. I also hope Spiros stays on because he is very hard working and has a lot more to contribute.”

But now Baxter’s industry contribution is at an end, and he and Gilhuys can enjoy their retirement, starting with a cruise up the Danube in 2016.