AQUA DOC

More Ponds, More Problems

Aqua Doc Lake and Pond Management, based in Chardon, and now serving 10 states - has been an industry leader for decades, but lately the demand for their services has reached a new level of urgency. With its cheerful mascot of a cartoon frog wearing yellow summer shorts with a stethoscope around its neck, one might assume the business might go into a state of hibernation for winter, but it turns out water maintenance isn’t just for summer anymore. “I’ve always said that we're a seasonal business, but we're busy every season,'' says President John Wilson. “We've got different aspects of the job happening at different times of the year, ultimately to get every lake and pond winterized so they're safe and ready to go for the next spring.”

Wilson began working as a laborer while still a teenager in 1983 at an early incarnation of the company he now owns. It was the perfect job for a kid who grew up digging ponds in his own backyard in the hopes of keeping fish alive (and failing). He liked the excavation work and quickly saw the need for different services beyond creating a pond in the first place. After getting a degree in computer science from CSU, Wilson purchased the business from his old boss and mentor, Bill Cloonan, in 1989. At first, it was a one-man operation - Wilson, one truck, and around 60 customers. Today, Wilson reports that Aqua Doc has 186 employees in 10 states (at least 110 of them in Chardon), 100 trucks on the road, 150 boats in the water, and a consistent reputation as one of the fastest growing companies in Northeast Ohio, most recently named by the Fast Track 50 organization, and Case Western Reserve University School of Management’s Weatherhead 100. The secret to their seeming infinite growth? When it comes to man-made bodies of water, maintenance is key to preventing your placid pond from becoming a stinky swamp. Aqua Doc isn’t just concerned with aesthetics (though they excel at fountains, stationary docks, watergardens, and they can keep your koi alive), but Wilson will also remind you that a body of water is a living ecosystem that needs to be preserved. “I always say man-made ponds have man-made problems - farm runoff, septic runoff,

“We've got different aspects of the job happening at different times of the year, ultimately to get every lake and pond winterized so they're safe and ready to go for the next spring.”

geese - just anything and everything, because a pond is a product of its watershed.”

Contracts with Aqua Doc are usually seasonal and often multi-year, depending on the pond’s issues, but Wilson reports that contract renewal rates have always been high because, every year, Aqua Doc does a better job. That said, you can’t call Aqua Doc a week before your 4th of July party, because Wilson emphasizes that there are no overnight solutions, and consistency is key.

“You can’t really prevent lake algae or weed problems. You've got to be more proactive than reactive, and conscious of the wildlife habitats - the fish, frogs, snakes and turtles,” Wilson says. When asked to name the most exotic wildlife found on the job in Ohio, Wilson reports “a lot of mink,” freshwater clams, and bryozoa, an aquatic invertebrate he describes as a freshwater jellyfish that attaches itself to rigid objects in the water and is actually a sign of good water quality. Aqua Doc loves working with individual homeowners to create the water feature of their dreams, whether that’s for swimming or irrigation, but the company also works with parks, golf courses, cemeteries with ponds, and even lakes managed by the state. One ongoing problem has been the influx of the invasive mollusks known as Zebra muscles, which can wreak havoc on water quality.

“Things have improved so much in Lake Erie - two years ago you couldn't see two feet down, Wilson says. “But in Indian Lake, we saw an increase in Zebra muscles this year that were transported from lake to lake, so we went in there with our team and did a lot of research. We did depth surveys, tested the muck, tested the different weed species in there, and came up with a care plan, and now it’s cleared up beautifully.” Wilson says that with all this demand for their services, Aqua Doc has been hiring nonstop. “We need as many people as we can find. I see new employees come through my office daily. I think we're looking at 40 or 50 new positions in the next two years.”

When asked what he’s looking for in an employee and what their background should include in terms of experience, Wilson takes a less formal approach. “What we look for is people who

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like science and the outdoors; maybe they fish or hunt. I don't care if they’ve not gone to college because they didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives back in high school. We've got a number of employees that have master's degrees or PhDs in ecology; We have two that got masters degrees in Lake Management at a one-of-a-kind program in New York.”

Years ago, Aqua Doc developed an in-house program called Aqua Doc University to train employees in the science at the center of their work. Every January, each new employee completes five levels of coursework. “Our people with masters degrees say that the first four levels are almost tougher than the college classes. At the fifth level, the newly trained have to come teach the beginners. We are very technical and up to speed on everything we do. The program gets better and better every year, and we keep improving it. We're using that model throughout all of our branches.” On January 1st, Aqua Doc will open their eighth and ninth offices. Beyond Ohio, they currently serve regions of West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan and Tennessee. For 10 years, they've been very successful in Atlanta Georgia. Since 2019, they’ve answered demand in North and South Carolina, where Aqua Doc continues to grow despite a lot of competition in those states. An office in Pennsylvania will open very soon.

John Wilson’s reputation precedes him, as is evidenced by his license plate, which spells out one of his nicknames, B1G FR0G. (Others include The Big Kahuna and the Godfather of Ponds.) “I went on a panel a couple years ago and someone asked me how it felt, managing a pond. I told them I really haven't managed a pond in a number of years because my daily duties are managing people. Our goal is to take care of as many lakes and ponds as we can. I never thought we would get this big as we grew, but when you have great people in the mix, great things happen.”

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