Coming Soon! The New PCTI Video Training Program

A lot of residential pool techs learn water chemistry the hard way: a few rules of thumb, a few opinions from the internet, and a lot of costly guessing when something won’t clear up. We wanted to change that conversation, so we brought Terry Arko back on to share real news about a new training rollout that preserves Bob Lowry’s legacy while making it easier for today’s pool service pros to actually use.

We dig into why Bob Lowry’s Pool Chemistry Training Institute (PCTI) mattered so much for the backyard pool professional, especially in a world where CPO certification is aimed at commercial operations. Terry explains how HASA took on the responsibility of maintaining and expanding that residential pool care education, and how the growth of on-demand learning (including the influence of Orenda’s education approach) helped shape the new direction. The goal is simple: practical pool chemistry training that’s clear, relatable, and built for what you see on route.

Then we get into the big update: HASA is filming 14 short training videos based on Bob’s residential material, followed by a quiz and a certification. We also talk about the specific concepts that make this training worth your time, including cyanuric acid (CYA) and chlorine effectiveness, water balance and LSI for residential pools, the importance of free chlorine over combined chlorine, and how understanding buffering and source water can help you save chemicals while keeping pools more stable.

If you want smarter, simpler pool chemistry that you can apply immediately, listen through and keep an eye out for the video series dropping on the HASA site. Subscribe, share this with a tech who needs it, and leave a review so more pool pros can find the training they’ve been missing.

We share breaking news on a new HASA-hosted training series that brings Bob Lowry’s residential pool chemistry teachings back in a modern format. We also talk through why practical, poolside chemistry education matters and how techs can access certification-style learning again.  

• the training gap between residential pool service and commercial certification paths  
• Bob Lowry’s teaching style and why it resonates with backyard pool pros  
• how HASA and Orenda help expand access to pool chemistry education  
• why the condensed two-hour format works better for many techs  
• what to expect from the 14 short videos, quiz, and certification  
• the downside of overly theoretical instruction and the value of usable concepts  
• key chemistry topics like CYA, free chlorine, combined chlorine, LSI, source water, and buffering  

Join the pool guy coaching program. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. Email Terry Arko at terryarko@hasa.com. You can also learn more about the coaching program they offer at PoolGuyCoaching.com.

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Transcript

0:15

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. Today I'll be joined again by Terry Arco, and we're gonna talk about a really exciting video series that Hasa is working on with the Bob Lauer material for residential pool care. And I think you're gonna really get a lot out of this and the new series that they're working on. And I'm excited to be giving you some, I guess, breaking news here regarding this new series of videos that Hasa is working on. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support from me. I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. You wanted to talk a little bit about Bob

Welcome And Breaking Training News

1:03

Lowry's material and what Hossit's doing with the PCTI training. And for people that don't know this, Bob Lowry created a whole training, a whole bunch of training material for residential pools, which I think most pool pros do residential pools out there. And then the commercial pool service professionals get the CPO certification. But most residential pool service professionals don't really have any official

Coaching Program And Pro Support

1:29

training out there. So you want to touch on that a little bit? Yeah. So I'm kind of excited to talk about this more because obviously anybody that's familiar with the Bob Lowry and the Pool Chemistry Training Institute and what they, you know, he, along with Greg Garrett, he started out a whole thing about that was directed toward the residential

Bob Lowry’s Residential Chemistry Legacy

1:49

pool professional, the backyard pool professional. And it was to get information, to get, you know, teaching and training, and then actually a certification specifically for that residential pool training and developed that educational material, which anyone who's gone through it, and as many of us know, and who have you know ever listened to Bob or gone to a Bob's class, Bob brought out a lot of very unique, practical, just just great concepts and ideas on water chemistry. You know, I so I'm excited because we've gone through a lot of changes, obviously with Bob passing in 2020 uh and Greg Garrett both. And then with HASA, you know, getting the materials and the and the educational materials to the PCTI. And then with you know, Hasa acquiring Arinda, and Arinda brought just a whole plethora and wealth of chemistry education. And primarily, you know, on the Arinda side, they had the Arinda Academy, which was basically available to everyone. You can go into the Arinda Academy, you can watch videos and you know, little segments of videos. You can learn the four pillars, all these things you can learn about LSI. And so, you know, at the time we were doing the six, eight-hour course. It was a course that was a cost involved uh with PCTI, and that's what Bob had done

HASA And Arenda Shift Training Access

3:21

in the past. But we looked at that and we just determined that we wanted to be able to make Bob's, you know, knowledge, the things that he had, the practical concepts he had of water chemistry for back there. We want to make that much more available, much more widely available. So we uh what we did in the beginning was we did away with that pay course, that six-hour course. And then we developed what we called Bob Lowry's Pool Chemistry for Service Pros, which is about a two-hour presentation. And we began doing those, we began doing those virtually, we began doing those at trade shows. And basically, that class was just taking all of Bob's points, but condensing them down into very bite-sized, you know, understandable, engageable, acceptable concepts

The Two-Hour Class That Clicks

4:10

that anybody could grasp. And that was the idea of the two-hour course. And so we did those. We we've done those regionally, we've done them in a lot of trade shows, and we found great success in those. Those were the biggest classes we had. And everyone attending those classes, the comments we were getting at the end of the classes, people were coming up to us and they were saying, that is the that was the most understandable, you know, that was the greatest water chemistry course I've ever attended at a trade show. And you know, that means a lot. And I think, excuse me, I think that was Bob's intent always in the beginning, is that Bob wanted to reach the residential pool tech, pool pro, the pool side person doing pools, and to be able to help them, to be able to give them information, you know, that that was practical, that they could use and that would be an advantage for them. That was the whole idea. And that's a whole idea what we're doing. Now, the really cool thing and exciting thing is we're getting ready. I am next week, I'm flying down to Southern California uh to actually be poolside. And we're we're I'm gonna work with a one of my partners, uh Jim Blanton, and we're going to film 14 segments of Bob Lowry's training from the Pool Chemistry for Residential Pools presentation and booklet. And so we're gonna we're gonna film those. We're gonna have those ready probably in a few months. So those will go up as a pool chemistry training institute, chemistry training. And anyone and everyone who goes on to the site will have access to these to go through these 14 uh videos. They'll be, you know, five minutes or so

Filming 14 Videos With Quiz

5:59

long, each five, six minutes or so each, and go through the different concepts. Uh, so it'll be about a two-hour kind of thing, I guess, uh maybe a little more than that. And then there'll be a quiz after they you go through the 14, you'll you'll take a quiz to kind of test your knowledge on what you had. And when you pass that quiz, and then you get a certification, just like how Bob used to do at the end of the day-long class, you'll get that certification. So I'm really excited that we finally got to this place. It took a long time for us to get there and a lot of organization, but we've gotten there, and so we're doing the filming next week. Then it will go into the editing stage, and I'd say probably look for that in about three months or so, three, four months from now. And I'm I'm really excited about that. And and I I I just want to say the reason I'm really excited about it is for the pool professional because you we have like there's a lot of you know, I I look at the Western Pool and Spa show, and you know, way back a long time ago when the Western Pool and Spa Show started, there were maybe I don't know, 10 classes. Okay, like 10 education classes. You had some chemistry classes, you had some heater classes and pump classes and automat cleaner classes, not a whole lot. I mean, now you look at West the Western show, and there's what, there's like a hundred plus presentations over that weekend. And you go onto social media and how many different podcasts are there, how many different, you know, this, that, how many different education things. Even for me, I've done I don't know how many very different for different organizations for IPSA and you know, all sorts of different so there's a lot of information out there that anybody has access to. And I feel like sometimes, you know, there's certain personalities out there, and you're not one of them, David, but there's certain personalities out there who I feel like are maybe more pedantic, if you know what that means. There may be these are people that are more academic, it's more academic and intellectual, and and they want to talk up in the ether about water chemistry.

Practical Poolside Chemistry Over Theory

8:33

And maybe, you know, they just want to show how smart they are, how much they know that somebody doesn't know. And so I feel like a lot of times you go to a presentation, you listen to certain, you know, like podcasts or education presentations, and they're just it's just theoretical. It's theoretical academic stuff, and it's it's not engaging to the backyard professional pool pro. It's not something that they can put into practice. It's there, they're more trying to just figure out what is this guy saying or what is this person saying and figure it out. So I'm not saying everyone is like that, but there's a lot like that, and a lot of trade show presentations tend to be, I think, over the head a lot of times. And again, I don't know if that's intentional or not intentional. Sometimes I think it's intentional because people have egos and they just want to talk about how smart they are. But that's the beauty of Bob Lowry and his presentations, is that he wasn't one of those people. And Bob had a sincere desire to be very relatable, very understandable, and very helpful, helpful to the Backyard Pool Pro. So I'm excited about doing this. I'm excited about these concepts, you know, like the concepts of you know, CYA and how CYA affects disinfection, concepts of water balance, concepts of LSI, the concepts of free chlorine and the importance of free chlorine over and above combined chlorine, these things, these are all, and just understanding water and source water. These are important things and they're and these are practical things. They're practical lessons that any pool pro, anybody who has the desire to learn and get better at their craft can watch these videos, they can go through these videos at their own pace, they can gain a lot of practical information. They can just on the buffering system. That's another whole concept that Bob brought out. The buffering system, creating a buffering system in your water and how that can make you save money, that can make you save chemicals, and that can make all of your pools more sustainable, more predictable, more manageable. So I'm excited about getting that information out there, having it available, and helping you know all the pool professionals. So it's gonna be like the four pillars, basically. But where's what site is it gonna go on? Is it gonna be on the Hasa site or Bob Lowry's old site? Well, Bob Lowry's old site is is no longer in existence. Okay. It will be on the Haspa site. Okay. Um it will be on the education realm or the resources part of the HOSPA site. Just want to clarify that because there's a lot of old timers like me that still remember Bob Lowry's site, going there to get his apps and reading his articles. He wrote he wrote some pretty technical articles uh back in the day. And yes, um and and I will point out that once we get this, I'm not sure exactly what we're calling it still, it's gonna be PCTI, PCTI chemistry training, something like that. So once we get these the 14 videos and all that up on the Hasa

Where To Find It And Help

11:59

site, that will also be the site where we will have the technical the technical sheets and things, all the things from Bob will be available on that site. Eventually we will get to that. We're gonna have a lot of other information and so forth on there. Yeah, I think Bob is pleased that Hasa has taken his material and this is what he wanted to do when he partnered with Hasa in the beginning. Yes, absolutely. That was the sole purpose. And again, at the time that Bob partnered with Hasa, he was already aware that you know his days were limited, and that was a big part of it. Was he wanted to ensure that this information didn't fall by the wayside, it didn't go away, but that it was promoted and it was continued to be presented to help out the pool pros. Yeah. It's one of those things where residential pools are a little bit different. You know, it's not all about, you know, main drains and things that are commercial related, you know, because residential pools are different. Yes. And even the way we look at the LSI and we assimilate the LSI in residential pools is different from how it's done in commercial pools. So that's that's another that's another aspect to to look at, and that's something we bring to the table in these presentations. Yeah, and it's not counter to the CPO, it's kind of more like it's a little bit different than the CPO training, right? Right. It's it's it's it's not counter in any way at all. It's it's only more specific, and the subjects we deal with and and how we present things are much more specific to what a residential pool tech is going to deal with as opposed to a commercial operator. Yeah, and so those that have the CPO certification can definitely glean a lot from the PCTI training. Yes, I believe so. Absolutely. And I am a CPO instructor, so I absolutely understand that. Yeah, well, that's great. And thank you for sharing that. And I'll definitely get this out there for the listeners so that they can prepare to get this material because just the other day in my group chat with my members, one of them was complaining about that the this course is not available anymore. And he took it and he wanted his employees to go through it. Unfortunately, you know, it's not available, and now with the way you're doing it, it's gonna be just as available as the rental four pillars, and you know, so it's it's a great leap forward in training. And I'm excited about it too, because Bob Bob Lowry's material is kind of what drives a lot of the things I talk about in my podcast. So his legacy, you know, lives on in different arenas. But if people don't understand Bob Lowry's impact on the industry, this is going to carry it forward to the next generation that never actually got to meet him or hear him speak in person. Yes, absolutely agreed. And like I said, I'm just I'm looking forward to this getting done. I'm looking forward to it going up, and I'm looking forward to it being a big resource, as you said. And I do want to point out, since you brought that up, about those folks who have gone through, you know, the old Bob Lowry, and they have companies and you know, they they like, man, I'd like our employees to go through something like this or whatever, that they can contact, they can contact me, they can contact Hasa. And we are more than happy to, you know, that's part of my job, Jim Blanton's job, several others, is we are willing to go to your place of work or we're willing to do virtual courses or whatever based on the Bob Lowry information as well. We can do some customized things for your company in education and and with the Bob Lowry's, and we're we're happy to do that. So just reach out to us and let us know. Should I give him should I give your email out here so they can contact you? Yeah, yeah. If you've got it there, I believe. It's uh so it's Terry Rcode Terry and then arko at hassa.com. Pretty easy email. Yes, yeah. So definitely you can reach out to me for any kind of we can do live training at your site or we could do virtual, we can do whatever works for you. But we're happy to do that. The main thing is we don't want anybody to go without in the interim of kind of waiting for this, this, this to go up. Yeah, I'm looking looking forward to it, Terry. And uh thank you again for uh coming on and spending some time here. Thanks, David. Always a pleasure. Of course, you can go to my website, swimmingprolearning.com, and bookmark the Hasa website. Hasa, there's a their banners are on my homepage of my website. Just click on that and then star or bookmark their site and keep an eye out there for the video series to drop in about two months on their site. And if you're interested in more podcasts, of course, you can listen to more from my website as well. And you can also learn more about the coaching program they offer at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a rest of your week and God bless.