Our Story

My husband, Ken Buchmyer, started working at Penguin Pools during his Jr. High school years. His mother was friends with the owners of Penguin Pools. He began as a yard boy, he cleaned covers and unloaded trucks and worked in their retail store where he learned about pool water chemistry. When he turned 16 years old, he painted the white lines for the pool layout in preparation for the dig and was “in charge” of keeping the pool site cleaned up. The following summer, at age 17 he was working full time on the inground crew. He continued learning everything about inground pools and progressed to foreman of his own crew.

Ken left Penguin Pools in the early 1970’s and went to work full-time at Harley Davidson as a plumber, but he always dreamed of having his own pool business.

In 1981 Buchmyers Economy Pools was started as Ken began doing swimming pool work on the side while continuing to work full-time at Harley. He wasn’t home very much. At one point our front yard was filled with pool materials and we were threatened with fines from the township. So, Ken opened our current location at 713 Arsenal Rd. in 1984, at which time I joined the business full-time. The store was very small and grew larger over the years as they took over more and more of the building as it became available though the landlord.

The early days of the retail store were extremely slow, actually, we were bored to tears most of the first couple of years. Construction was steady, but nothing like it is today. Ken did most of the construction as a one man operation with some help from time to time with friends and family. He also did all of the sales and service himself. We have been blessed along the way as we continue to grow our employee base.

As the business continued to grow, Ken quit Harley Davidson in 1988 and we incorporated in July and became Buchmyers Pools, Inc. Eventually, we purchased the entire building and in 1997 we did a complete remodel to its present state.

In spring 2003 we continued our growth as we opened our 2nd retail store location in Hanover. We have also added two off-site storage warehouses.

Our daughter Kriste, who has been with us thru this journey from the very beginning, will begin her succession to ownership over the next several years. She has learned from a very young age all there is to know about swimming pools. We are very fortunate to have her and her husband Chris to continue taking care of our loyal customers when we are ready to retire. They will be caring, fair and competent business owners. Our grandchildren come into work at the store from time to time and who knows maybe they will be the third generation of Buchmyer’s Pools, Inc…

We have been very blessed throughout this journey. We owe much gratitude to many dedicated and hardworking team members as well as you, our wonderful customers.

Thank you,

Ken & Susie Buchmyer