Why pool pros are showing up in person: Skimmer's Pro Summit

Pool service is one of the most solitary professions in the trades. Most days, it's one person, one truck, and a route. You solve problems alone. You make decisions alone. And at the end of the day, there's no office to debrief in. Even larger companies with an office tend to be single-sourced for most jobs– one owner, one office admin– which still means working largely independently.  

That isolation is something Justine Rae thinks about a lot. As Director of Customer Marketing and Community at Skimmer, she spends most of her year building programs to counter exactly that. On a recent episode of Skimmer's podcast, Between Two Stops, she and host Niki Acosta laid out the case for why the company's annual Pro Summit matters more in 2026 than it ever has.

"We hear from so many customers who came last year, or just when we're talking to them throughout the year, how it can feel so isolating, working on your own and in your own business," Rae said. "Finding that time to connect with their peers, and even knowing who to connect with — that's really why this event exists."

The third annual Skimmer Pro Summit is scheduled for October 16–17 in San Antonio, Texas. It's free for Skimmer customers, and according to Rae, it's a fundamentally different animal from the trade shows and regional conferences that pool pros are used to.

A chance to connect, NOT a trade show

The distinction matters. Trade shows serve a purpose, but they're built around vendor relationships and a packed schedule of competing sessions. The Pro Summit is designed around something different: unstructured conversation time, peer-to-peer learning, and the kind of candid exchange that tends to happen when you get 250 people from the same industry in the same room with no sales agenda.

"We're not trying to pitch and sell anything," Rae said. "It really is about bringing in experts and helping build professional development skills in terms of things like marketing, leadership, employee engagement. No matter where you are in your business, you're going to be able to take something away."

The highlight of the event, based on attendee feedback from the previous two years, are the owner/executive roundtables. Attendees are organized by company size and spend 90 minutes in small groups working through shared challenges. Last year, those sessions ran long. Facilitators even had to break them up because attendees were so deeply engaged in the sessions, and the conversations continued well into the evening social. 

Acosta, who led one of the larger-company roundtables in Phoenix, described what came out of them: conversations about employee retention and team culture, route acquisition strategies, and hard-won lessons from business owners willing to talk openly about what went wrong. 

"People were very forthcoming about how they've learned things the hard way," she said, "which is always valuable to make sure that you're not repeating something that's going to go sideways."

Why in person matters even more in the age of AI

There's a broader context to what Skimmer is building here, and it surfaced early in the conversation. Acosta mentioned that a colleague had shared an article that morning about marketing and branding's over-reliance on AI-generated content and the loss of texture and voice that comes with it. The observation was almost offhand, but it points to something that a lot of people in customer-facing industries are quietly wrestling with.

Pool service is a relationship business at its core. The reason referrals dominate as a customer acquisition channel — cited by 65% of companies in Skimmer's 2026 State of Pool Service Report — is that trust, once earned, compounds. It passes from neighbor to neighbor. It's built on a technician showing up on time, knowing the pool, and being someone a homeowner actually wants to let into their backyard.

The software tools that pool pros are adopting more rapidly each year are making the operational side of that relationship easier to manage. But the human side — learning from peers, building networks, getting candid answers to hard questions — hasn't found a reliable digital substitute.

“That magic of seeing one another is something. It’s lightning in a bottle,” says Rae.

What two days at Skimmer’s Pro Summit look like

This year's event expands to two full days, a direct response to attendee feedback asking for more time. Friday is structured as what Rae calls a "Skimmer Champion Training Day": one-on-one sessions with Skimmer's customer success team in the morning, followed by hands-on software training in the afternoon, where attendees bring their laptops and work through specific features in real time. 

Saturday shifts to business development: a product discovery showcase with vendor partners over breakfast, then a full day of sessions covering industry trends, AI, and professional skills development, followed by the owner roundtables and a closing party on the Riverwalk. In parallel, a product ideation lab specifically for admins gives power users direct access to Skimmer's product team to share feedback on what's working, what isn't, and what they'd like to see built.

The Pro Summit specifically operates on a two-pass model. Rae recommends that companies send both an owner/founder or manager and an office administrator. Attending together means you can split up across breakout sessions, and come back to the office ready to collaborate and share insights with your other team members. 

"It energized me for the whole year"

One customer told Rae she wouldn't be able to attend this year because of a scheduling conflict. Her summary of the previous year: it powered her for the entire year.

That kind of response is consistent with what Rae hears in post-event surveys. "Everyone we asked said 100 percent they would do it all over again and they felt more connected to their community," she said. "Sometimes we need that recharge, having that ability to talk to someone and just get it out and feel like you're feeling heard and understood and also getting inspired with new ideas."

The Pro Summit is an invitation-only event for Skimmer customers. Passes are free, though a no-show fee will apply this year for registrants who don’t cancel by September 30, 2026. With 250 spots available and previous years generating waitlists, Rae said the passes are expected to move quickly.

Registration is open now at www.getskimmer.com/events/pro-summit.

‍