Meet Dan, the Owner of Bonnie & Clyde’s

Meet Dan Aleksandrowicz, the current owner of Bonnie & Clyde’s Pools & Spas. Here is his fascinating origin story, how he got his start in the pool business, and how his parent’s philosophy that every family deserves the opportunity to make a lifetime of memories together, sparked an entire community to embrace above-ground pools. I was 6 or 7 years old when I got my first above-ground pool, the one I learned to swim in. Up north, due to the shorter swim season, there were far more above-ground pools than in-ground. I don’t usually admit this, but my little brother and sister could swim and go down the slide before I was brave enough to try.

Meet Dan: the Early Years

Those times were the best. In my neighborhood, there were very few fences, and I can remember running with the other children through yards, always jumping into my friend’s pools as well. The houses with the pools were always the gravity of the neighborhood. I can remember that my friends and I were always swimming, in one pool or another during the summer. We didn’t have video games back then, we had dirt hills and swimming pools. Both provided endless fun.

By the time I was 9 years old, I was helping my dad with the regular maintenance, learning to clean both the pool and the filter. I got pretty good at hooking up the vacuum, and with both my parents working, I was glad to help out. After all, it was us kids using the pool most of the time. Little did I know that this was all really just training for the future job of a lifetime.

A Big Move

When I was 13, my parents moved us from up north to Texas. Mom and Dad got jobs, but since they were used to running their own business they began to look for a new idea. After our first summer in Texas, we knew we desperately needed another pool. Summers in Texas are just too hot to live without one. After all, above-ground pools are affordable and provide endless fun, exercise, and entertainment.

When my parents began looking for another pool they quickly realized that pickings were slim in the late ‘70s in Texas. There really weren’t any options for families in between a toy kiddy pool and an expensive in-ground pool. That’s how Bonnie and Clyde’s Pools and Spas came to be.

They opened their business in 1979 in a small storefront. I remember helping out after school, cleaning the place out, getting ready for opening day. We faced some interesting challenges as we tried to prepare for the grand opening. Before we moved in, the building had been a sporting goods store that made their own rubber worms. And we were finding worms everywhere! I remember shoveling them out the door by the gallon!

We put up our first above-ground pool inside for display and overnight it leaked out everywhere. We spent the whole next day there with my parents, mops, and towels in hand, trying to fix the damage. That was my first time learning about the installation process of an above-ground pool. Again, I had no idea it was just training for my future job. Who would have known that after 41 years we are still in business in the same building? Except now I run the company instead of my parents.

Business was slow at first, but they had a remarkable philosophy. My parents didn’t want to just sell above-ground pools. They wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to treat and maintain their pools. They believed our customers would have as much fun with their pool as we all did in ours if owning a pool was easy. We began testing people’s pool water for free. And in the very early ‘80s, we were the first to introduce computerized water testing for our lab. My parents understood even back then, that if people found pool ownership simple, they would be much more likely to recommend their friends and family to get a pool too. This formula proved extremely successful and by the mid-’80s we had 3 stores open.

I always worked at their stores to some capacity during the summers and I spent the first one after our business opened helping my grandfather and my dad build the first above-ground pool we ever sold. I completed my first professional water chemistry course in 1982 while I was a junior at Richland High School. And after I graduated, I continued installing above-ground pools. By 19, I was running my own crew. I would work the summers and save money for an apartment near the University of North Texas and maybe even for a beer or two.

After I graduated college I decided that I still liked working with my dad and went back to work for the company again. We moved a store from south Ft. Worth to Burleson and I opened that location in 1990. That is where I learned how to manage a retail store. It’s also where I learned to fix pumps and automatic pool cleaners at lightning speed.

During the ‘80s and ‘90s, Bonnie and Clyde’s became a premier above-ground pool company. Many, many other above-ground dealers opened within a mile or two of our stores over that time. Splash Pools, Island Recreation, Pool Town, Penguin Pools, Father and Son Pools, and later Rec Warehouse, just to name a few, and they all competed with our company. Even though most of them were much bigger companies than us, we outlasted them all.

Passing the Torch

I took over the company in the early 2000s after my parents retired. And like most business owners, they of course never really quit. Mom still comes in to help out and point out all I’m doing wrong. Once we added portable spas to our lineup, I was able to open 3 more stores for a total of six. I also made the decision to join a buying group. This was a big deal as now I buy with many other retailers across the country. This allows us to still offer the mom-and-pop service that made our company great to begin with. But now we can also offer the low pricing of a large corporate company.

The great customer service, coupled with the lowest prices possible, are what keep this company in business. We will never lose sight of that.

Now our competition is big box stores and large internet companies like Wal-mart and Amazon. How could a small mom-and-pop business today — in its second generation of ownership — still compete? By doing all the things we have been doing for the past 41 years! We are constantly training our staff in the latest equipment and products, and continue to use our buying group power to purchase for less so we can sell for less. Our focus will always be on customer service and keeping pool and spa ownership as easy and fun as possible.

We continue to provide one-on-one instruction for how to maintain a pool, free water testing so we can recommend what chemicals to use and when, free seminars to teach how to properly winterize a pool, the latest technology in pool and spa systems, and we keep a large stock of parts for all the popular pumps, filters and automatic cleaners in use. That way we should be able to solve any problem or help with any repair a customer may have. This is on top of the great selection of pools and spas we stock all the time.

We look to open more locations in the future to make it even easier for people to come and receive the excellent customer service they deserve. We will continue to find and experiment with all the latest technology and systems as they become available to make taking care of pools and spas even easier in the future, and we will always provide them at the lowest prices possible.