Seeking Solutions

Eric Herman

Back in October 1989, I was on the second day of a new job working with Jim McCloskey for another pool/spa industry magazine when he called me into his office and suggested that I might want to spend my evening at a meeting of the

Plaster Mottling Committee.

He sat me down and explained that this ad-hoc group had been formed to explore problems that suddenly seemed to be happening with plaster finishes in swimming pools. I’d just assumed my post as one of his associate editors, so I gamely agreed to go and through the next several minutes of detailed instruction tried my best to act as though I understood what he was saying about this group and its intentions.

As I drove the 30 miles from our offices in downtown Los Angeles to the Howard Johnson’s in Monrovia, I just couldn’t help wondering what could be so earthshaking about swimming pool plaster that it would require a special committee. Little did I know back then that I was headed deep into the heart of a surprisingly dynamic and wickedly contentious issue, the fallout of which continues to be debated and explored to this day.

That night, I sat in a room with upwards of 50 plaster subcontractors, service technicians, cement suppliers and chemical manufacturers who had locked themselves into what was at times a lively, intense exchange of information and ideas. While I was impressed that everyone seemed to aim themselves at coming together and bonding to solve a set of shared problems, I was startled at times by the flaring of tempers, the incredible passion of advocates for various points of view and, most of all, by the surprising complexity of the issues they were addressing.

Plaster, I discovered that night, was far more interesting than I would ever have imagined.

That group was the forerunner of a much larger set of professionals who would soon band together as the National Plasterers Council. Today, the council has grown to include hundreds of members in the United States and Canada; has an annual conference that is a fixture on the industry’s calendar of events; and established and maintains a sophisticated testing and research program at the California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo.

All of this is by way of introducing an article in this issue by current NPC president Alan Smith (“A Light on White” — click here) – a retrospective look at pool plaster in general (and white plaster in particular) and the role these finishes have played in the history of watershaping. In discussing the past 20 years of debate and research, he points out that, despite the seeming multitude of surface finishes that have emerged since the National Plasterers Council was started, white plaster is still an industry standard.

Indeed, white plaster offers a timeless look that will forever be closely associated with classic swimming pools – and to this day, there are many clients who opt for this look, which is so clear and clean that it’s still synonymous with backyard recreation and luxury. And now that a clearer understanding has grown of the factors that led to problems in the 1980s, it seems white plaster may even be on the verge of something of a renaissance.

Whatever comes, I feel privileged to have been associated with these discussions and issues for the entirety of my lengthening career in the watershaping industry. But as I think back to that first meeting and about all the research, investigation, exploration, reason and rancor that have unfolded since, I can’t help recalling my long drive home from Monrovia that night and my growing sense that there was much more to pools than meets the eye – I recognition I’ve happily explored ever since.