Indiana company is charged with getting the Olympic trials pools just right

The stars of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials might be the athletes. But they can’t perform without a pool full of water that—as Goldilocks might say—is just right: clear, calm and a perfect temperature between 77 and 82 degrees.

To make sure that happens, USA Swimming has turned to Indiana-based Spear Corp., a 50-employee company based in Roachdale that was founded in 1984 and has grown into a premier provider and servicer of competition and commercial pools and water parks.

Spear, which was family owned until March, primarily works across Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky, perfecting the chemicals, filtration and water treatment at pools and splash parks owned by universities, high schools and municipal parks.

And in the world of competitive swimming, Spear has managed pools at the Olympic trials, short course championships and even in the middle of a busy street in New York City.

In March, Spear was acquired by Landmark Aquatic, a commercial pool service out of St. Louis. Brian Spear, the local company’s chief executive, said he expects his customers to notice little to no difference in service.

He spoke with IBJ in April about the upcoming swimming trials, what success looks like and the challenges of temporary pools. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

How did Spear Corp. get started?

My father was in water treatment even before the company started. In 1984, him and my mother decided to start their own business. It started out small. And in time, we just saw a need, more on the swimming pool side of things, as far as to offer service for chemical systems.

We started doing more renovation work. We prided ourselves on doing things that a lot of people probably didn’t necessarily want to … a lot of challenges with access to mechanical rooms, things like that.

Still today, we’re known for doing renovation work. And we do get into construction as well as new pools, focusing on a lot of the mechanical systems. Our market is education, so high schools, universities, and we do a lot of municipal work, some water parks. Indiana is a huge swimming state. Just about every school system has an indoor pool.

How did that translate into giant competitions?

Myrtha Pools, which is based out of Italy, they do the structures. We were a partner of theirs, starting back in the early 2000s. The FINA World Championship short course came to Indianapolis—to Bankers Life Fieldhouse—in 2004. They asked us to be a part of that.

Our portion was to provide and install all the mechanical systems like the piping, filtration systems, the chemical treatment systems, pumps and all those things. That was our first time doing that.

This one in June is our seventh temporary specialty project like this. We’ve done the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in ’12, ’16, ’20 or ’21, however you want to say it because of COVID, And now ’24. And we did an Invictus Games in 2016 in Orlando, Florida. They built a pool on a soccer field.

Once we get the pools full, we’re responsible for operating all those systems during the events, maintaining water quality.

We did a project in Herald Square in New York City, right in front of Macy’s. We put up a two-lane temporary pool for Diana Nyad. She did a “Swim for Relief” for Hurricane Sandy.

It’s all taken on a life. We’ve kind of been known as a company that does these things.

So what’s unique to the pools for the Olympic trials in Indianapolis?

Typically, when we do a project, it’s permanently installed. This is unique in that it’s an above-ground pool. Everything’s built on the floor of the stadium.

A typical job for us lasts anywhere from nine months to 24 months. In this case, we’re doing this same sized pool, but we’re doing it in three or four weeks. You can just imagine how different that is for us.

The planning that takes place to do something like this takes an astronomical amount of time. We’ve been working on this trials pool for two years.

So every piece of equipment, every piece of plumbing, every fitting, everything, every bowl, every net, we have down to exactly where it goes already. You just have to get everything almost down to the minute because you can’t be late on a project like this.

What does success look like for Spear Corp.?

Customer satisfaction is a big one. Working with USA Swimming, we want to go in there and make their life easy, not have to worry about the water being clear, chemicals being balanced, temperature being correct, all those types of things. We want to take that off their plate so they can focus on what they need to do.

We want to hit those milestones on the build for sure. And then during operations, just making sure everything runs smoothly.

When you’re watching an event and it’s not a pool you’ve worked on, do you ever take note of something, like, “Oh, the water’s cloudier than I would have liked?”

Absolutely. Water clarity is a big one.

You know in the Rio Olympics, you had that green pool. You definitely don’t want to be that person operating that pool.

That’s what I’m looking at when I’m watching on TV—what are the camera angles, how the water looks. We want it to be as clear as possible.

If there are records broken, do you feel like you have any part of that?

I don’t feel like we do. It’s fun if that happens, but that’s all the swimmer right there.

They say there are fast pools, like the Natatorium in downtown Indy. But what makes it a fast pool? I don’t really know. Obviously, there are waves of water in the pool, and when they turn we definitely have designed it so the water goes away from the pool quickly, so it’s not waving back into the pool and so you don’t have a wave coming back at the swimmer.

When a swimmer hits that wall and there’s a wave, our system has to take that water away from the pool. We don’t want it to go back in the pool. So we have better systems and piping systems and surge tanks and things like that. That’s part of it. But that’s how a pool should be designed. That’s typical.

What’s one of the biggest changes you’ve seen in pools the last 30 years for this caliber of competition?

The filtration that we use now compared to 2004 is just so much better. For example, we used sand filters in 2004 but now we use regenerative media filtration. We can clear up a pool so much quicker. Besides that, we don’t need as much space in these venues for filtration that we did in 2004.

And then UV systems as well for air quality. We didn’t use UV light. These competition pools are extremely high-use pools. Having that UV helps our air quality tremendously. It’s a stainless steel chamber, about the same size as the piping that we run, maybe like 10 or 12 inch piping the water runs through, and we have UV lamps inside of those jumpers and the UV treats the water.

If we were to talk in 12 months, what would a successful year look like for you?

Probably to add some more employees to our staff to pick up the growth that we’re experiencing. That way we can serve our customers better.

What’s the biggest misconception about your business?

That we do residential pools. [Laughs] There’s a lot more technology there than people think. The reality is that just the UV systems, the chlorination systems, the controls we have these days, that remote monitoring, and being able to just jump on your phone and look at how your tools are operating.

What will you be doing the days of the trials?

I usually get there before the swimmers do. First thing, we go in and test all the chemistry and make sure everything’s balanced out correctly, fill chemical tanks, regenerate the filters, if they need to be changed, strainer baskets. Just make sure all the operations are working the way they should do on testing.

Are you tracking levels on your cell phone during the entire event?

[In Omaha, I had] a computer screen set up on the kitchen table at the house we were at. I could sit there and monitor everything: flow rates, chemical balances and tank levels, you name it. We’re always monitoring.

Is there a job there that you’re most proud of?

Every one has its challenges. There’s a really cool project we were involved with this past year down in Madison, Indiana, called Crystal Beach Pool. I actually have a picture of the old pool from the WPA (Works Progress Administration) on my wall here. They went in, and they replaced the pool, but … at the same shape that it was when it was originally built.

That’s very, very rare to see something like that. They wanted to keep the historical value. That’s probably one of the most interesting ones and exciting ones.

Is there anything people at the trials should look for if they’re watching in person or online to notice your handiwork?

Those underwater shots where they see the athletes swimming and say, “Wow, that’s really cool to see.” That’s what it’s about.

Check out more 2024 Swimming Trials content.