professionalism
'Through the years,' wrote Brian Van Bower at the head of his Aqua Culture column in the October 2005 issue of WaterShapes, 'more than a few watershaping professionals have asked me how to break through and start working with high-end clients. 'I respond by giving them the disappointing news that there is no magic key here: Serving the high end takes
Our work in this backyard was only part of a larger project - a big part, to be sure, but once we were done a landscape crew came on site and kept on working. That's not unusual with a project on this scale, but we were so happy with our work that it was a bit disappointing not to paint the entire picture. In some sense, however, I think this made us focus all the more on
For many years, Bruce Zaretsky faced the annual need to generate enough income to keep his business and his staff going through New York's long, cold winters. Here's a look at few of the most successful sidelines he found in his quest to keep the seasonal wolves at bay. As you read this, some of us in upstate New York are already thinking about
'If you ask my employees,' wrote Bruce Zaretsky in starting his July 2010 On the Level column, 'they'll tell you that I'm an unrelenting pain in the neck - a real tyrant. That's because I'm always asking nagging sorts of questions such as, "Why isn't this project finished yet?" or "How much longer is this going to take?" or "Can you speed things up?" 'My questions, of course, are somewhat unfair. . . . But I have no reluctance to come across as a tyrant
As all professional designers know, prospective clients can be unpredictable. Sometimes they get in sync with what we're doing right away, and it seems every step is a positive one. Other times, however, they can be slower to figure things out, and the process can become more complicated. I started working for a pool-construction company soon after graduating from college with a degree in industrial design. This was before
'I've had the pleasure of teaching hydraulics to watershapers in a variety of classroom settings,' noted Dave Peterson in opening his Currents column in the May 2010 edition of WaterShapes. 'These courses . . . ask a lot of the students who sign up for them . . . [and] I find it enormously encouraging that so many people are focused on spending the time and energy required to improve their skills and
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS February 4, 2015 www.watershapes.com CASE STUDIES…
