Standing on the edge of an in-ground swimming pool, Brooks Beaudoin never teetered.

In one hand, the 30-year-old technician used a long pole to maneuver a nozzle at the pool floor. In the other hand, he held a vacuum tube connected to the same nozzle as it swallowed up bits of dirt.

The action was a little like using a straw to capture the last drops of soda from the bottom of an ice-filled cup.

Beaudoin did it with little fuss.

An assistant, Ethan Audie, quietly combed the surface with water with a net while Beaudoin gathered his gear. It included a metal briefcase that carried tools and test strips to measure the chemical levels in the water.

In a few minutes, the pool was pristine.

“It’s pretty simple,” Beaudoin said. However, it belied years of experience.

Beaudoin was still in high school when he first went to work for his dad, Rick Beaudoin of Rick’s Swimming Pools in Lewiston.

“My dad kept me busy in the summer on install crews,” he said. There were long days digging in backyards. It was tough, often manual labor.

But after high school, he learned to clean pools and maintain the machines and plumbing that keeps them clean.

He became a pool technician.

On Friday, his day began at about 8 a.m. with a visit to a private pool with a pump problem.

Beaudoin never looked at the covered pool. Rather, he removed the motor off a waist-high filter that resembled Star War’s R2D2. In 10 minutes, he swapped it out for a new one.

It’s not an action he does at home. Beaudoin’s own home has no pool.

“My backyard isn’t big enough,” he said.

If his wife, Janet, or daughters Natalie, 6, and Brooklyn, 3, want a swim, they can splash in Rick’s pool. Beaudoin is content to watch.

That’s right, the man who has spent the last dozen years cleaning and servicing Lewiston-Auburn pools isn’t much of a swimmer.

“I’d rather hang out by the pool than in it,” he said.

Part of that may be familiarity.

Summer is the busy time. Work for the company begins building in mid-April and gets busier as the weather heats up.

Beaudoin works a six-day week. He spends so much time around pools, he said he can’t smell chlorine anymore.

The season ends in late October when the pools close and customers have transitioned to hot tubs.

The winter months are spent on other projects.

One year, he and his brother, Brandon (who runs the installation crew), helped expand their dad’s Sabattus Street store. Last winter, they fixed up a house to sell.

Brooks Beaudoin prefers the summer and the sun.

“I love being on the road,” he said.

The worst part of his job is that he works in every kind of weather, something that has been especially soggy this season.

“I hate the rain,” he said.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link